Mag+ Designd: Mobile Apps Made Easy for Creatives

Sponsored Breakfast Session

Mag+ Designd:
Mobile Apps Made Easy for Creatives

Wednesday, 8:15 am – 8:45 a.m.

Do you have InDesign or print files? Want to take them digital and mobile? mag+ Designd is the industry-leading digital publishing software for design professionals. With InDesign-based creative tools and a simple, but powerful distribution workflow, Designd is intuitive, efficient, and easy to use… and a great alternative to Adobe DPS and AEM! With mag+, you can download our tools, build your app, and publish your content — all in one autonomous workflow. And through our rich Knowledge Base, Community Forums, and dedicated Support and Services, we’ll help you answer any questions along the way.

Attend this session to learn how to build your brand and publish your own content with mag+. Case studies will showcase exactly how our clients are using mag+ to share content with their users.


Ignite CreativePro

Come join us for dessert and some late night, after-dinner tips, tricks, and fun! Or sign up to present 20 slides in 5 minutes. It’s your opportunity to have 5 minutes in the spotlight, in the relaxed and friendly confines of an after-hours get-together with your colleagues, and laugh your butts off.

When: Tuesday, June 5, 8:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

Where: The ballroom at the Sheraton (the conference hotel)

Who’s Invited: All conference attendees, speakers, sponsors, paparazzi, etc.

Cost: Free!

We’re putting on our annual fun “IGNITE”-style show and need your help! Do you have …

  • An unusual design or production-related technique that you use?
  • A “from the design trenches” anecdote to share — funny or serious?
  • Some hard-won lessons you’ve learned? Or wish your clients would learn…
  • Tips for getting the most out of a conference?
  • An incredibly complex table you created, or special effect, or the world’s best workspace?
  • Advice for designers or computer users or ?
  • Something else InDesign- or Photoshop-related that you’re passionate about?

Yes? Then take this opportunity to share it with your colleagues in 5 minutes or less! Only 12 spots are available, and it’s first-come first-serve, so don’t wait till the last minute. We’ll confirm via email with our final roster of 12 Ignite presenters and 2 alternates by Friday, May 25. If you’re not sure of a topic yet, but definitely want to do this thing, then fill out the form with a placeholder idea NOW to save your spot! You can fill it out again later (before May 25) once you’ve decided on a topic.

Rules

Sign-up for your slot below, but first read the rules:

  1. This event is mainly for ATTENDEES: No prior speaking experience required. The newbier the better. The audience is very supportive, not to worry.
  2. Create a series of exactly 20 pages or slides in landscape format, which you will export to PDF and we’ll project it on screen during your talk. The first one’s your opener, the last one is your closer. Email the 20-page PDF to us or bring it with you on a USB Flash drive. Keep the slides simple!
  3. Content: Your topic must be about something related to the field of design or production, hopefully incorporating Photoshop somewhere in there — tools, projects, tips, rants. It’s okay to be funny, but keep it clean and appropriate. Please don’t use this as a sales presentation or portfolio review. Violators will get “the hook”! If in doubt, ask Anne-Marie (amarie@cpn.co), your friendly MC, beforehand.
  4. Be prepared to talk about your topic for 5 minutes while we project your slides on the screen.
  5. The slides will auto-advance every 15 seconds! That’s the Ignite rule. And what makes it fun for the audience, too! 20 slides x 15 seconds = 5 minutes.
  6. When your 5 minutes are up, take a bow, enjoy the applause, and hand the mic back to the MC.

That’s all… nice and simple! Fill out the form below to sign up for fame, fortune, and hilarity. (And did we mention all IGNITE speakers earn a special conference keepsake for their efforts?)

Notes

2018 CreativePro Ignite Sign-up Sheet

Three Minutes Max + Conclusion

3 Minutes Max + Conclusion

Wednesday, 4:45 pm – 5:30 pm

Still hungry for more?! Watch eight presenters each take three minutes max to show off their best tip, trick, or technique! Which one will blow your mind? You get to vote and shower one lucky attendee in the room with prizes… it might be you!


Better Ways to Work with Editors and Writers

Better Ways to Work with Editors and Writers

Wednesday, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

At work, designers and editors are all so busy getting their projects out the door, there’s little time to look up and see what’s new out there. If you’re still flowing in badly-formatted Word documents into InDesign, fighting them into submission, then circulating umpteen PDF layout proofs to umpteen people, this is the session for you!

  • Best practices for managing Acrobat comments
  • Bringing proof comments directly into InDesign
  • Using linked Word files for fast, round-trip copyediting with WordsFlow
  • Collaborative cloud-based editing with DocsFlow: Link shared Google Docs to InDesign
  • How InCopy, Word, and InDesign work together in a local or remote workflow

Anne-Marie’s specialty is helping publishing teams streamline their workflows with low-cost, easy-to-adopt solutions. You’ll be so encouraged and energized by what she shows in her session that you’ll be fixing your own workflows as soon as you get back to the office.


DIY Solutions for Designers

DIY Solutions for Designers

Wednesday, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Sometimes it feels like we all have less time and money to make more creative designs! Well, what if you could make original and unique design solutions more efficiently and under budget? And what if that workflow actually brought you more joy in the process!

Join designer Mark Heaps as he helps you cut costs, keep your boss and client happy, and rediscover why you love design.

Topics include:

  • Bringing the analog touch to our digital design
  • Skip the trip to the old stock photo and DIY
  • Capturing the high-quality textures, patterns, and colors in your environment

Learn How to Learn: Mastering InDesign (and all your other apps)

Learn How to Learn:
Mastering InDesign (and all your other apps)

Wednesday, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Everyone learns Adobe applications differently. Where some designers like one-on-one training, others love watching video tutorials. Some prefer learning at seminars or conferences! All of these are valid ways to learn InDesign (or any Adobe app).
But there are additional techniques you can use to learn the deepest secrets of InDesign entirely on your own. And in many ways, these are the best methods of all. In this short session, you’ll learn about:
  • Building a spectrum of projects
  • Play: The hidden trick for uncovering gems
  • How to figure out how an application “thinks”
  • Making the most of cross-application techniques
  • Thinking outside the box

Trends and Techniques for Print in 2018

Trends and Techniques for Print in 2018

Wednesday, 2:15 pm – 3:00 pm

Print has the power to deliver phenomenal results and visual impact. Trish Witkowski, an expert in all things print and folding, shows you how to use today’s newest print techniques to deliver unparalleled results. Bring your designs to life with coatings and varnishes that replicate the look and feel of any texture, create instant brand memorability, increase perceived value.
  • Beautiful folds
  • Effects matter
  • Designing with print in mind

Excel Tricks for InDesign Users

Excel Tricks for InDesign Users

Wednesday, 2:15 pm – 3:00 pm

Every so often, you have a task in InDesign that could handled easily using the powerful Data tools in Microsoft Excel. Join “MrExcel” (Bill Jelen) as he covers some of his favorite Excel tricks.

  • Embrace VLOOKUP for matching two lists. Quickly find out which items are missing from one list or the other.
  • Do a Mail Merge from Excel data to InDesign. Create a PDF file with one page per row in Excel.
  • Use Flash Fill in Excel to quickly convert a column of text. Make everything Proper case, extract part numbers, or add text to each line.
  • Check out the new Power Query tools (Windows only) for pulling in a list of all images unembedded from InDesign. Sort and Filter by File Size. Massage data from hundreds of text files into a single list.

One Click to Web with Publish Online

Publish Online

Wednesday, 2:15 pm – 3:00 pm

Publishing your InDesign documents on the web is truly just a click away using Publish Online. Go beyond the limits of PDF and publish your documents so they are readable by any browser on any device. Publish Online gives you the ability to easily publish your work online, complete with slideshows, buttons, video and other interactive elements. See how designers, photographers, non-profits, and corporations have used Publish Online to create engaging online documents.

Topics include:

  • Examples of the best of Publish Online projects
  • Best practices for publishing and managing your documents
  • How to embed Publish Online projects on your own website
  • How to create custom navigation thumbnails for your documents

Infographics with InDesign

infographics

Infographics with InDesign

Wednesday, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

We will discuss the importance of data visualization in social change work and you will learn how to:

  • optimize assets and icons
  • create narrative flow
  • compose objects in space
  • develop visual variety, and
  • simplify text