Come learn direct from Adobe and nationally recognized experts!

This year C2 is hosting the new 2008 Creative Transitions Conference here in Milwaukee. This is a unique opportunity for all creatives, whether you are in print, web, video, animation, or multimedia. The three day conference runs August 13-15, 2008 at the Milwaukee Hilton City Center.

We are bringing the talent to you - no need to fly to the east coast or down to Chicago to learn from the best. Speakers for the 2008 conference include: Anne-Marie "Her Geekness" Concepción, co-host of the popular InDesignsecrets.com podcast and InDesign guru; Lesa Snider-King, author, istockphoto guru, and a nationally recognized Photoshop Expert; Adam Pratt, Adobe Senior Solutions Engineer and co-host of Adobe TV's "The Lazy Designer"; Michael Kanfer, Adobe Business Development Manager and Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects (Titanic, 1998); Tom Petrillo, Adobe Senior Solutions Engineer; and many more!

Sessions can be attended at will - no confusing schedules or limiting track-only presentations. You choose who you want to see!

Day three will feature hands-on workshops hosted by many of our speakers and C2 certified instructors. Three hours of training direct from the experts!

Exhibitors from Adobe, C2, istockphoto, Shutterstock, Widen Enterprises, O'Reilly Media, Proven Direct, and more will be presenting their products and services throughout both days in our Exhibit Hall.

Another great incentive for our conference, being a veteran of the conference circuit, is food is provided (which also lends to the creative credo - if you feed them, they will come). Breakfast, lunch, cocktail/snack hour, and a great keynote address banquet is all included in the conference packages.

Your registration also includes a free Thursday night pass to Milwaukee Irish Fest, the largest Celtic celebration in the United States.

Click here to view the conference website, or contact us for special discount codes and rates!

Hope to see you all at the conference. Together we can make this a rousing success!

Kevin

Create Crop marks instantly in Quark and InDesign

Creating crop marks can be a time consuming operation. Luckily both Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress for the mac have scripts built in that can automate this process.

In QuarkXPress, select your object and go to the applescript menu and choose box tools > Add Crop Marks. After a few seconds the crop marks will be complete.

(click on image to see animation)

Inside InDesign, select your object and go to window > automation > scripts. Now in this panel choose application> samples > applescript or javascript > crop marks. Follow the onscreen directions and you are done!

(click on image to see animation)

Object-Based Alignment

How many times have you tried to center two objects in Illustrator only to have them both move to the midpoint and not center on one object? Well the solution was eluding me until I discovered what Adobe calls "key objects". Here's how it works:

Step 1: Take your two objects and select them both.













Step 2: While selected, click on the object you want to lock in place, and have the other objects align to. Note: Click on it, do not shift click or double click.













Step 3: Select your alignment from the align palette or the options bar at the top of your window. Viola! The objects align to the key object!
















Have fun! Kevin

Double-Clicks inside InDesign

Adobe InDesign has a bunch of hidden tricks, just by using the double click. Here are a few.

• Double-Click the hand tool in the toolbar and you will fit a spread in the window
• Double-Click the hand tool in the toolbar and you will zoom to 100%
• Double-Click a graphic frame with the black arrow and you will select the frame with the white arrow (CS3 only)
• Double-Click a graphic with the white arrow and you will select the frame with the black arrow (CS3 only)
• Option/Control Double-Click a graphic frame to edit original
• Option/Control Double-Click a text frame to open text frame options
• Double-Click a text frame with the black arrow and you will switch to the type tool

What Inspires Us?

Last night, C2 participated in the AMA/Ad2 Agency Crawl in the Third Ward. As part of our presentation, we showcased some websites that inspired our instructors. Here is a listing of sites mentioned in the presentation:

Smashing Magazine

Noupe

Net Diver

The FWA

280 Slides

AIGA

Ads of the World

Threadless

Typorganism

Creative Pro

Steampunk Studios

Typography.com

Logo Lounge

The Graphic Reporter

The Design Police

Shag

Kinetic Type

Firefox 3 is out!

Firefox 3, the alternative web browser was just released last week. I just tried it out and to my surprise it is very fast and stable. I now use it more often than Safari on the Mac.

You can download the installer here

280 Slides

280 Slides is a new website that lets you create slideshows and presentations that are quite similar to Apples Keynote and to a lesser degree, Microsoft's Powerpoint. The service is free to use and is quite impressive. The entire site is built using a Cocoa-inspired JavaScript framework called Objective-J/Cappuccino. Flash is not used at all, which means it will work on the iphone/ipod touch.

Online Marketing Summit Summer Tour returns to Milwaukee July 15

This summer, over 2,000 marketers in 12 cities across the U.S., will gather to share ideas and learn from expert online practitioners. Unlike most tradeshows and conferences, OMS is built around content that drives action and delivers insight that we as marketing professionals can actually use and build into our marketing plans.

In additional to exposure barters with many of the industry’s leading publications, OMS has partnered with National and Local Chapters in the selected cities of the following organizations: Direct Marketing Association (DMA); Business Marketing Association (BMA); Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO); Email Experience Council (EEC); Interactive Marketing Association (IMA); Web Analytic Association (WAA); Electronic Retailers Association (ERA); iMarketers; and many local “groups” . These partnerships help to provide the best environment for learning amongst qualified attendees.

Education: The objective of OMS is to educate, collaborate, network, and learn how to execute on the best known practices in Online Marketing. Events include hands-on workshops, on-site usability and SEO labs, thought-leadership presentations, and peer-to-peer collaboration on the subjects of:
• Social Media Strategies
• Search Engine Optimization
• Paid Search
• Website Usability
• Web Analytics and Tracking
• Email Marketing
• Content Management
• Site Search
• Website/Online Budgeting and Planning
• eCommerce
• Integrated Marketing
• Behavioral Targeting & Testing

SIGN UP TODAY! BMA-Milwaukee members get a 20% discount - Use code: BMAMILWAUKEE

C2's Standards-based Web Design Training

Standards-based web design is a process that uses open standards (like HTML and CSS) to create web sites that are fast-loading, clean, accessible to everyone, backwards and forwards compatible, search engine friendly, beautiful and purposeful.

C2's Standards-based Web Design class is for designers (or anyone) serious about creating professional web sites that adhere to these principles. The techniques taught in this class are used to create the most popular and well-designed sites on the web. Standards-based web design focuses on the process of implementing a design in the most efficient, accessible method possible, using a set of standardized techniques without needing complex programming language knowledge (all you really need is a text editor to create pages). Using C2's best-practice driven curriculum, this class provides all the skills necessary to create an entire web site including:

• planning & information architecture


• hand-coding HTML & CSS


• design and layout techniques


• typographic control


• image preparation


• navigation systems


• interactive behaviors


• search engine optimization


• accessibility, usability and compatibility


• email HTML


• site testing, optimization,validation and management

Apple/Photoshop Saving Error

From John Knack at Adobe:

I've been getting quite a few inquiries about problems saving files from Photoshop directly to network drives when using the recently released Mac OS 10.5.3. (I'm told the issue can affect InDesign and maybe other apps as well.)

The short story is that we've been working closely with Apple to troubleshoot the issue and have identified the cause. Apple is working on a fix, and we expect they'll release it in the next System Update.

The slightly longer story is that saving directly to a network is a generally bad idea. Here's what I've heard from a contact in engineering:

Directly writing to a network filing system adds a level of complexity, which includes timing issues, network noise, performance, and other potential issues. We've occasionally run into bugs with different configurations/combinations, but as there are too many variants for us to reliably test and certify all the clients, servers, hardware and software, we recommend the safer course of working with files locally and then copying them up to a file server when you're done. While directly reading/writing to network file systems should work in theory, and while we do some limited testing in the most popular configurations to verify that it does, we can not certify that it will work reliably in your configuration.

I know that's not what you may want to hear, but it's a long-standing advisory. Saving files locally, then transferring them, offers better performance as well as greater reliability.

Video Event at the Eisner

Some of you may have seen that there is an event this Friday at the Eisner Museum called: "3 Steps to Better Business Videos".  I strongly encourage anyone who is at all interested in using video in their business, whether it be training videos, marketing, or viral video, to attend this event.

We have a great lineup of speakers and panelists that will be glad to share their experiences and knowledge of what it takes to make successful videos.  The panelists span all parts of the business from production houses, ad agencies, independent artists, and end clients. 

I encourage people to send in questions they may have, or even send in experiences that they have had in making videos - even if they cannot make the event.  I would like to work in some email questions in the panel if at all possible, so submit by Thursday evening.  You can send these to my email address at alex@c2gps.com.

Also, as a video instructor for C2, I would love to answer any questions anyone might have about video training, expectations about training, and the courses that we offer.  Please do not hesitate to come up to me during the event so that I can answer any questions that you may have.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Alex Lucas

C2 Shout Outs!

C2 Shout Outs: Spreading the C2 love for achievements in the lives of our talent and clients.

Congrats go out to:
Dustin Drees, C2 Talent & Instructor, and wife Sherie for the healthy birth of their twins, Avery and Elliot!

The C2 Talent Placement team congratulates the following C2 Talent and clients for finding one another. Best wishes for a prosperous future!

Elisa Diamant for her new gig as an Art Director for Marx McLellan Thrun.
Jake Ströh for his new gig as an Interactive Designer for Johnson Direct.
Kathy Sena & Scott Davis for their long term placements at Discovery World.
Matt Kunz for his long term placement at Core Creative.
Toni Tooke for her long term placement at Northwestern Mutual.
Melissa Barbeaux-Lindsley on her long term placement at Waldbillig & Besteman.
Matt Pickard for finding his own gig in the marketing department of Rogers Memorial Hospital.
John Dagitz for finding his own gig as an Interactive Technical Designer at PlainBlack.com.
Dave Kriebel for finding his own gig as a Graphic Designer at Duluth Trading Company.

Tracking in Adobe and Quark

Tracking is the process of changing the space between a selection of letters. In QuarkXPress people are used to tightening up the space by changing the amount to -1, -2, or -3 and most people are comfortable with these amounts. If you have been using Quark for awhile and then jump into InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop and try to use tracking, you may run into some issues. Quark and Adobe measure tracking differently.

In QuarkXPress tracking is measured in units 1/200th of an em. In Adobe applications this is measured in units 1/000th of an em. This means that you are using to measuring -1, -2, or -3, you will need to multiply that number by 3 to get the same results in any Adobe application. Therefore you new numbers to type in for tracking are -5, -10, and -15.

Quark 8 is out!

QuarkXPress 8 has just been announced and should be shipping within 60 days. The new features include a streamlined interface, grid styles, hanging indents, flash export and more. Check out http://8.quark.com/learn_more.html for more information

Been away with good reason...

Hi all,

As you may have noticed, I haven't been blogging much as of late, but I have a good excuse.

I recently returned from Adobe's headquarters in San Jose, CA and have been busy compiling all the information I received on the latest version of the Adobe Creative Suite and other Adobe applications.

Lucky for you, I will be presenting this information (at least what I can say publicly without prosecution) on June 12 for our latest 100% Fresh presentation. More information to follow with the News You Can Use. The next few months will really be informative so be sure to follow along with C2 for the latest in Adobe news!