Tag Archive for: design

Adobe Bridge: Practical, Hands-On Workflows

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When your files are scattered, productivity takes a hit. This session shows why understanding Adobe Bridge matters—and how it can simplify the way you work with creative assets.

In this hands-on workshop, Melissa Piccone introduces Bridge as a visual command center for your files. You’ll see how it helps you stay organized, move faster, and maintain clarity across complex projects. The emphasis is on practical efficiency: reducing friction, minimizing context switching, and building confidence managing real-world file collections.

Leave with a clear understanding of what Bridge does, how it fits into Creative Cloud workflows, and why it’s a tool every creative professional should understand.

Topics include:

  • See, filter, and sort files across multiple folders at once
  • Organize faster with a two-window Bridge workflow
  • Batch rename, convert, and process files with confidence
  • Collect and manage InDesign-linked assets using Bridge

Microsoft Word for Designers: Layout Fundamentals

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Sooner or later, your client or boss is going to insist that you design something in Microsoft Word. Don’t freak out! Instead, learn about Word’s built-in graphic elements such as shapes, icons, SmartArt, and charts. While Word is not InDesign, it has tools to create practical building blocks for professional layouts that non-designer clients can easily edit.

In this session, Jennifer Parkinson shows how common InDesign-style layouts can be re-created in Word, with an emphasis on designing templates that hold up in real-world use. Learn how to leverage Word’s graphic features to create clean, professional templates for marketing documents such as proposals, white papers, and slicks.

Topics include:

  • Best practices for importing and managing images
  • Formatting shapes, icons, and charts in Word
  • Creating and applying a document theme
  • Styling tables and text boxes for polished layouts

Discover Your Creative Advantage in Hidden Dimensions

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In this session, Tony Harmer invites you to rethink everyday design challenges by embracing 3D thinking inside familiar Adobe environments. This isn’t about becoming a 3D expert or learning a new pile of tools. It’s about shifting how you think, explore, and experiment—then realizing how much easier and more flexible your design process can be.

You’ll see how thinking in more dimensions can speed up ideation, simplify revisions, and open creative directions that feel surprisingly natural once you stop designing flat. Along the way, Tony makes a fun, eye-opening case for why some of the most powerful design workflows start when designers add depth to their thinking.

You’ll walk away inspired, a little amused, and probably asking yourself, “Wait… why haven’t I been doing this?”

You will learn how to:

  • Overcome graphic design challenges by thinking in dimensions
  • Discover why designing with depth makes changes and revisions easier
  • Adopt a creative mindset that refuses to stay flat

Portfolio Critique

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Join Nigel French and Theresa Jackson for a live portfolio critique of attendee work. In this interactive session, selected pieces will be reviewed and discussed with practical, constructive feedback you can apply immediately.

Expect thoughtful insights on design decisions, visual communication, and presentation choices, along with broader takeaways that will benefit everyone watching. Whether your work is reviewed directly or you’re learning from others’ examples, you’ll gain a sharper perspective on how portfolios are seen and evaluated by experienced creative professionals.

Maintaining Brand Consistency

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In this session, Nicte Cuevas shares how professional designers can build a practical brand system that works for both internal teams and clients. See how to use Creative Cloud Libraries alongside Illustrator, Photoshop, and Adobe Express to create a connected brand ecosystem that supports designers and non-designers alike. Nicte shows how brand assets and brand kits can live across Creative Cloud apps, making updates easier to manage and helping teams stay on brand without constant oversight.

This session focuses on real systems designers can adapt to support teams, streamline workflows, and maintain brand consistency at scale.

Topics include:

  • Build a practical brand system that supports both designers and non-designers
  • Create brand kits that stay in sync across Creative Cloud apps
  • Reduce production cleanup by empowering teams with the right tools and structure

You’ve Got This: Designer’s Easy Guide to Motion

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Knowing how to work with motion is quickly becoming a must for every designer. Thankfully, it’s not as difficult as you think! Emmy-winning motion designer Kyle Hamrick is passionate about guiding beginners through their first steps into this exciting and rapidly-growing corner of the design world. By the end of this session, you’ll be armed with a variety of accessible techniques for bringing designs to life through the magic of motion, across multiple Adobe apps.

You will learn:

  • How to leverage your existing design skills while adding time and movement
  • Techniques for structuring your design files for animation
  • Approachable techniques to animate designs in Express, Photoshop and After Effects
  • How to easily customize existing animations using Motion Graphics Templates (aka “MOGRTs”) in Premiere

Practical Use Cases for Firefly Boards

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In this session, Kevin Stohlmeyer introduces Firefly Boards from a practical, real-world perspective, focusing on where they fit in creative corporate workflows. Learn how teams use Firefly Boards to support early creative thinking, align ideas, and collaborate more effectively.

You’ll see how Firefly Boards can help teams explore ideas, respond to feedback, and move concepts forward in a shared visual space. Attendees will have an opportunity to explore together, offering a feel for collaborative workflows without requiring prior experience.

You will learn how to:

  • Understand where Firefly Boards fit within modern creative workflows
  • Explore how teams use Boards for early ideation and concept alignment
  • Recognize different Firefly models and when to use them
  • Compare generation options and outputs across common creative scenarios
  • Evaluate collaborative approaches for exploring, refining, and evolving ideas together

I Didn’t Know Acrobat Could Do That!

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If you think you know everything Acrobat can do, think again. In this session, Bart Van de Wiele reveals how Acrobat can go far beyond viewing and commenting to become a powerful, time-saving part of your everyday workflow.

You’ll see how Acrobat can help you work more efficiently with complex documents, streamline common tasks, and handle PDFs with more control and confidence. From clever shortcuts to underused capabilities, this session is designed to expand how you think about Acrobat and what it can do for you. Expect plenty of “Wow!” moments—and a fresh perspective on a tool you use every day.

You will learn how to:

  • Compare PDF versions and quickly spot meaningful changes
  • Clean up scanned documents and photos using built-in enhancement tools
  • Convert live text to outlines for safer sharing and printing
  • Change colors globally inside a PDF without returning to the source file
  • Apply targeted Fixups to correct common production and output issues

Step by Step: Building an Animated Brand System

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Designing motion for a brand is rarely a straight line. It’s a collaborative process shaped by creative interpretation, iteration, and feedback. In this session, Chris Converse shares an inside look at how CreativePro’s video bumpers were developed and refined into a cohesive motion brand system using Illustrator and After Effects. This session blends a real-world case study with practical techniques, offering a clear view into the full creative process.

Key takeaways:

  • Translate static brand assets into a flexible motion system
  • Structure Illustrator files for efficient animation in After Effects
  • Make creative decisions that balance brand rules with motion design goals
  • Build a repeatable workflow you can adapt to your own brand projects

Beyond Compositing: Creative Workflows Powered by AI

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In this session, you’ll explore practical, cross-application techniques that blend Photoshop with AI-driven workflows. You’ll also see how exploratory and experimental approaches can spark new ideas and push composites beyond conventional solutions. Learn how familiar design skills translate into more flexible and expressive workflows when combined with technologies such as Firefly and Firefly Boards. Expect practical examples and inspiring ideas that go beyond a single tool, helping you rethink how you design and create.

You’ll learn:

  • How to build AI-powered workflows across tools like Photoshop and Illustrator
  • Ways to move beyond compositing using cross-tool techniques
  • How tools like Firefly, Firefly Boards, and other new tools fit into everyday design work
  • Creative approaches to explore ideas, iterate, and spark new directions with (and without) AI