Tag Archive for: design

The Power of Print: Amplifying Your Marketing Impact

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In an increasingly digital-first world, print has become more powerful, not less! In this session, Vicki Strull reframes how marketers and designers think about print, showing why physical experiences now carry more weight, credibility, and memorability than ever before.

Drawing from decades of Sappi’s publishing and print strategy work, Vicki explores how print captures attention, builds trust, and drives action in ways screens alone can’t. The focus is on modern, intentional print design—aligned with real business goals and crafted to stand out in a crowded marketing landscape.

Key takeaways:

  • Strengthen consumer trust and authenticity
  • Cut through digital overload
  • Pair print with digital channels for stronger ROI
  • Create luxury experiences that engage all the senses
  • Build brand loyalty through tangible connections

Embracing a Punk Rock Attitude for Modern Design

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You can design stronger, clearer work by questioning assumptions and designing with intent. In this session, Michael Mondragon shares a mindset-driven approach to modern design rooted in clarity, purpose, and judgment.

Using a “punk rock” attitude as a metaphor—not a visual style!—Michael challenges autopilot thinking, over-templated solutions, and trend-chasing. The focus is on making deliberate design decisions that serve the message, not the tool, template, or shortcut.

This session helps designers push back on defaults, trust their creative instincts, and create work that communicates more clearly, confidently, and memorably in today’s fast, AI-assisted design landscape.

You will learn to:

  • Make intentional typography choices and find the right fonts
  • Make non-destructive image enhancements in Photoshop
  • Create textures from your own images
  • Style and modify letter forms in Illustrator
  • Bring it all together in InDesign

Adobe or Affinity? Why Not Both?

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For most professional designers, Adobe Creative Cloud is the undisputed king. No one wants to dump the tools, workflows, and skills they’ve used over their entire careers. But what if you didn’t have to ditch Adobe to take advantage of some uniquely powerful features in Affinity? Wouldn’t that be the best of both worlds? Can these two bitter rivals coexist on your desktop (or iPad)?

Sure they can! In this session, you’ll discover how to leverage the unique strengths of Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher to supplement your existing Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign projects. Instead of a replacement for Creative Cloud, start thinking of Affinity as an amazingly powerful add-on to boost your existing workflow.

Whether you are looking to overcome technical hurdles or just want a fresh creative spark, you’ll walk away with a practical ideas for integrating these two ecosystems into a single, high-performance workflow.

You will learn how to:

  • Generate unique textures and 3D-style lighting effects using with non-destructive Live Filter layers (no Smart Objects needed!)
  • Retouch photos faster with Built-in Frequency Separation and Cross-Mode Live Curves
  • Use Designer’s Pixel Persona to add hand-drawn depth to Illustrator assets
  • Access PANTONE color libraries
  • Send your designs directly to colleagues using Canva
  • And more!

Microsoft Word for Designers: Text Fundamentals

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Although Word is built for documents such as reports, letters, and resumés, many clients expect designers to create professional, reusable templates inside it. Jennifer Parkinson helps InDesign-savvy designers understand Word’s text tools, styles, and layout controls so they can create clean, functional Word documents clients can actually use. You’ll learn how Word handles typography, what maps cleanly from Adobe InDesign, and where Word’s limitations require a different approach.

Topics include:

  • Text formatting and typography tools in Word
  • Creating and managing paragraph and character styles
  • Best practices for layout control using section breaks, lists, bullets, and more

Creative Cloud Enterprise Accounts: What You Need to Know

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If you’ve ever wondered why your Creative Cloud features look different from a colleague’s, this session is for you. In this session, Kevin Stohlmeyer provides a clear, plain-language overview of Creative Cloud Enterprise accounts from the end-user perspective. You’ll learn how these accounts are structured, why certain tools or services may be limited, and how access decisions are typically made.

You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of your Creative Cloud environment and the confidence to advocate for the tools and features you need to do your best work.

Topics include:

  • Understand how enterprise accounts differ from individual Creative Cloud subscriptions
  • Identify common reasons features, services, or tools may be unavailable
  • Helping your IT department help you
  • Gain practical talking points to advocate for the tools you want and need

Business Skills for Confident Designers

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Every designer needs a set of business superpowers: the ability to attract the right opportunities, communicate value, negotiate fair compensation, spot red flags early, and build strong, lasting professional relationships. In this session, Michael Flarup shares lessons drawn from two decades of independent creative work, distilling the skills that separate reactive designers from confident, in-demand professionals.

Through honest stories and practical strategies, Michael breaks down how to price creative work, manage expectations, handle difficult situations, and protect your time and energy. These are skills that apply whether you work in-house, collaborate with external clients, or take on occasional side projects. This session focuses on creative independence, professional confidence, and understanding your value—no matter where you sit on the org chart.

Key takeaways:

  • Communicate value clearly to stakeholders and collaborators
  • Handle budget and scope conversations with confidence
  • Spot project red flags early and course-correct
  • Set expectations that stick and reduce rework
  • Build trust-driven relationships that support long-term growth

Creative Leadership in the Age of AI

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Creative direction is about vision, judgment, and the ability to guide ideas toward meaningful outcomes. As AI accelerates production and multiplies options, the role of creative leadership becomes even more critical.

In this session, Vincent Wanga explores what it means to lead creatively when speed, automation, and generative tools are part of everyday work. Vincent examines the mindset behind strong direction: setting intent, making clear decisions, building trust, mentoring talent, and protecting the quality of ideas in fast-moving environments.

You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of where creative leadership adds the most value today—and how strong leadership keeps creativity grounded, focused, and human.

Key takeaways:

  • What does creative leadership actually mean in the age of AI?
  • Where does human judgment still make the biggest difference?
  • How do directors create clarity when options are endless?
  • Understand why strong direction—not faster output—is what defines creative impact

Workflows for InDesign and Adobe Express

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Adobe Express isn’t a replacement for InDesign, but it can be a powerful extension of your workflow. In this session, Bart Van de Wiele shows when Adobe Express makes sense for social, internal communications, and marketing handoffs—and when it doesn’t. You’ll see real examples of how Express fits into professional design workflows, especially when stakeholders need access to branded layouts without opening InDesign.

Bart walks through how to move designs between InDesign and Express in both directions, covering steps, limitations, and best practices. Learn how to translate brand styles, fonts, and layouts between apps, and how to set up, manage, and use on-brand templates that others can safely edit. See what translates cleanly, what requires adjustment, and how to prepare files so templates stay consistent and usable. This session focuses on practical workflows, realistic expectations, and smart setup choices that help InDesign users collaborate confidently with teams who don’t design for a living.

You will learn:

  • Translate brand styles, fonts, and layouts between InDesign and Express
  • Set up, manage, and use on-brand templates
  • Move designs from Express back into InDesign when needed
  • Set realistic expectations around current limitations and workarounds
  • Build repeatable workflows that support collaboration without sacrificing quality

Creative Cloud Mix Tape

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Kick off CreativePro Week with a high-energy, music-themed morning keynote. Chris riffs on the idea of creative cross-training by mixing InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects (and more!) in ways you wouldn’t expect. Think fast-paced demos, playful surprises, and a healthy dose of rock-and-roll attitude.

Each segment spins a new challenge and a new app, intentionally breaking “rules” about what each tool is supposed to be used for. The result is part performance, and part creative jam session, reminding you that experimentation is often where the most interesting ideas start.

Come for the entertainment. Stay for the shift in mindset. Leave with fresh inspiration to remix your own Creative Cloud workflows—no matter which apps you use every day.

Mix tape mystery tracks:

  • Turn it up: live spins, creative curveballs, and a rock-and-roll remix mindset from the first beat
  • Apps in the mix: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects, and Express (and more)
  • Creative moves on deck: photo editing, web graphics, video effects, 3D modeling, and motion experiments
  • Rule-bending workflows: familiar apps pushed into unfamiliar territory

Adobe Sponsored Breakfast Session: Breakfast with the Builders

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This session is sponsored by Adobe.

Kickstart your week with the Adobe team in a lively town hall environment and meet the minds behind your favorite creative tools, see the latest breakthroughs in action, meet the Adobe team members, preview new Illustrator and InDesign features, and learn about opportunities for connecting with the team throughout CreativePro Week.