CreativeTechs Tips

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I thought a class on objects and guides would be one of our duller topics, but this turned into one of my favorite classes so far. The live webinar classes are open to everyone worldwide (up to our 1,000 limit). We sell online downloads of past classes for a small fee. Here are purchase links for the individual classes, or for a pre-purchase of the full 10-week course, including a bonus “Moving Faster in InDesign” recording.

Purchase: Full 10-Week InDesign Course ($50 Special. Going away soon.)

-or individually-

Purchase: InDesign Wk 1 - Introduction ($15)
Purchase: InDesign Wk 2 - Type ($15)
Purchase: InDesign Wk 3 - Objects & Guides ($15)
Purchase: Bonus - Moving Faster in InDesign CS3/CS4 ($15)

Note: The discount price for the 10-Week download bundle will start creeping up midway through the course.

The cost of each week’s download includes a 1-hour QuickTime movie of that week’s class, along with a PDF handout, and up to 1-hour of extra audience Q&A. We’re offering a special prepurchase discount of the full 10-weeks. You’ll be able to download the PDF handout on the day of class, and a recording of each completed class about 4 days later.

The live webinar classes are open to everyone worldwide (up to our 1,000 limit). We sell the downloads afterwards for a small fee. Here are purchase links for the individual classes, or for a pre-purchase of the full 10-week course, including a bonus “Moving Faster in InDesign” recording.

Purchase: Full 10-Week InDesign Course ($50 Limited-Time Special.)

-or individually-

Purchase: InDesign Wk 1 - Introduction ($15)
Purchase: InDesign Wk 1 - Type ($15)
Purchase: Bonus - Moving Faster in InDesign CS3/CS4 ($15)

Note: The discount price for the 10-Week download bundle will start creeping up midway through the course.

The cost of each week’s download includes a 1-hour QuickTime movie of that week’s class, along with a PDF handout, and up to 1-hour of extra audience Q&A. We’re offering a special prepurchase discount of the full 10-weeks. You’ll be able to download the PDF handout on the day of class, and a recording of each completed class about 4 days later.

Finally, we’ve got a free, 10-week Flash Course starting in July. This class will be taught by Erik Fadiman. Erik is faculty at Seattle Central Community College Graphic Design and now teaches at our Seattle-area training partner, Luminous Works.

Want to enroll? Sign-up here: Flash CS4 Course Enrollment.

Note: Providing these free training courses requires that we attract a large audience. To offer this class, we need at least 1,000 people signed up to participate, so help us spread the word!

Week 1, July 14 - Animation Basics
Week 2, July 21 - Drawing Tools
Week 3, July 28 - Timeline Basics
Week 4, Aug 4 - Advanced Animation
Week 5, Aug 11 - Symbols & Library
Week 6, Aug 18 - Movieclip Symbols
Week 7, Aug 25 - Type Effects
Week 8, Sep 1 - TBD
Week 9, Sep 8 - ActionScript Basics
Week 10, Sep 15 - Working with Video

And yes, you can pass this offer along to friends, or even post it on your blog. Help spread the word. As I mentioned, we need a minimum of 1,000 people enrolled to make this free class viable.

Read on for an extended Q&A, and to ask your own questions in the comments. Erik is planning the class weeks. If you have a topic you’d like to see him cover, mention it in the comments below.

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This June, after many requests, we are delighted to offer a free, 10-week, worldwide, Illustrator course. This class will be taught by Steve Laskevitch, founder and lead instructor at Seattle’s Luminous Works Training Center. Steve is consistently rated one of the top 5 Adobe Certified Instructors in the world. We are very lucky to have convinced Steve to join us for this fun 10-week experience.

Want to enroll? Sign-up here: Illustrator CS4 Course Enrollment.

Note: Providing these free training courses requires that we attract a large audience. To offer this class, we need at least 1,000 people signed up to participate, so help us spread the word!

Week 1, June 8 - Artboards, Basic Shapes, Swatches
Week 2, June 15 - Transformation tools (Precise and Sculptural)
Week 3, June 22 - Drawing with the Pen Tool (Bezier Curves).
Week 4, June 29 - Layers, Alignment, and Blends
Week 5, July 6 - Transparency, Gradients, and Recoloring
Week 6, July 13 - Clipping masks, Opacity masks, & Pathfinder
Week 7, July 20 - Graphic Styles & Symbols, Live Paint
Week 8, July 27 - Type, Gradient Mesh, Envelope Distortion
Week 9, August 3 - Patterns & Brushes
Week 10, August 10 - Live trace & output to web or print

And yes, you can pass this offer along to friends, or even post it on your blog. Help spread the word. As I mentioned, we need a minimum of 1,000 people enrolled to make this free class viable.

Read on for an extended Q&A, and to ask your own questions in the comments. Steve is currently mapping out the class details. If you have a topic you’d like to see him cover, mention it in the comments below.

Read the Full Tip »

Last month we added Retouch Tuesday to our weekly online training calendar. This was an experiment. Instead of Jason Hoppe’s structured classes, each week we’re letting people sit in on personalized retouching sessions that let people see Jason at work.

Recently, a friend pointed me to Dave Cross’s Thursday Fix It Challenge. Each week, Dave posts a challenge image for anyone who feels so inclined can download and fix it. Here is the post for Challenge #6:

Dave Cross: Thursday Fix It Challenge #6

This seems like a perfect match. So we decided to throw Dave’s challenge images into the mix for our weekly retouching webinars. Today’s example was a lot of fun. You can watch some of the ways Jason attacked the challenge, and some of the blind alleys he went down in the process.

In the end, the 30 minutes of exploration captured in this video is probably more valuable as a journey than the end result. But we certainly had a lot of fun.

Ever been working on a project in your favorite design application and found yourself hunting for a calculator? You might be surprised how many of today’s creative tools will happily do the math for you.

In this short 3-minute video clip, Jason Hoppe shows you how to place guides precisely in the fast way, letting InDesign do all that annoying arithmetic for you.

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Google recently released a new service that lets you perform searches for images that are visually similar to each other:

Google Labs: Similar Images Search

Start by searching for an image using a traditional search term (for example, search for apple). Once you find a result that is close to what you’re looking for, click on the "Similar Images" link and Google finds images it believes to be similar in appearance.

Source: This tip drawn from a mention on the terrific CreativeBits site.

Yesterday’s first InDesign class was a lot of fun. And apparently we’re getting more efficient around here because the videos have all been processed and uploaded for download (normally that takes us until Monday).

The live webinar classes are open to everyone worldwide (up to our 1,000 limit). We sell the downloads afterwards for a small fee. Here are purchase links for the individual classes, or for a pre-purchase of the full 10-week course, including a bonus “Moving Faster in InDesign” recording.

Purchase: Full 10-Week InDesign Course ($50 Limited-Time Special.)

-or individually-

Purchase: InDesign Wk 1 - Introduction ($15)
Purchase: InDesign Wk 1 - Type ($15)
Purchase: Bonus - Moving Faster in InDesign CS3/CS4 ($15)

Note: The discount price for the 10-Week download bundle will start creeping up midway through the course.

The cost of each week’s download includes a 1-hour QuickTime movie of that week’s class, along with a PDF handout, and up to 1-hour of extra audience Q&A. We’re offering a special prepurchase discount of the full 10-weeks. You’ll be able to download the PDF handout on the day of class, and a recording of each completed class about 4 days later.

I just received my invitation to the Seattle AIGA 2009 Membership Party. The card is printed on thick cardstock and invites you to trim-out the AIGA letters and assemble your own mini Space Needle. Here is a PDF:

AIGA 2009 Membership Invite - PDF

I try to schedule my papercraft tips for the long 3-day weekends. I’m a couple weeks early on this one, but given the timing I didn’t want to wait for the Memorial Day holiday.

Plus this piece was deisgned by one of our clients, Turnstyle. How could we resist?

This 5-minute clip comes from last week’s Flash Basics webinar. Erik Fadiman has been doing this long enough to know that almost all Flash classes start with the bouncing ball. If you’ve read anything about Flash, you’ve seen this before. How do we make the ball bounce?

Source: Big news! It looks like we are on track to offer a FREE 10-Week Flash course starting in June. Still working out some of the details. The best way you can help this happen is spreading the word.

Share the fun: Tweet about this Flash Basics video!

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