2022 Event details
December 15, 2022
WHAT'S NEW IN INDESIGN 2023 (AND ILLUSTRATOR AND PHOTOSHOP)
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
It's December. Time for a look at what's new and what's changed in the latest version of InDesign. But as a mature program, don't expect a plethora of ground-breaking additions. But there are a few updates and this presentation will describe them. Plus this year, we're also going to take a look at what's changed in those two InDesign plug-ins called Illustrator and Photoshop.
But there's more.
Our presenter, James Wamser, has kept track of every addition and every change to InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop since each of those programs were twinkles in the creators' eyes. Can you imagine? He will take us back in time to how he got started and how he keeps track of all this information. He will also let you know how you can get FREE copies of the New Features Guides that catalog all the updates to the three programs.
James will also let you know how you can submit ideas for new features to Adobe engineers and how you can become part of the team that Beta tests new features. Don't know a Beta test from an Alpha test? James will explain it to you. Finally, he will gaze into the crystal ball and offer his take on what we might expect for InDesign 2024 and beyond.
About the Presenter
James Wamser is a member of the Customer Education team at Walsworth providing training and support for its customers. He is an Adobe Certified Instructor and Adobe Certified Expert. He teaches InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop at Milwaukee Area Technical College and chairs the Milwaukee InDesign User Group.
James is the Event Director of the Annual Fall Color Festival, a non-profit mountain bike fundraiser. For more info, visit: www.FallColorFestival.org.
November 17, 2022
An Introduction to Affinity Publisher
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
Adobe InDesign might be the 800-pound gorilla, but Affinity Publisher is the elephant in the room. This month, Benjamin Viney takes us on a tour and provides an overall introduction of what Affinity calls the “next generation of professional publishing software” and what Apple chose as its “Mac App of the Year.”
Affinity says its Publisher app allows you to combine images, graphics, and text to make beautiful layouts ready for publication. Create books, magazines, marketing materials, social media templates, website mock-ups, and more.
Okay. So does InDesign.
But, according to Affinity, Publisher is directly linked to other Affinity apps through StudioLink, the first technology of its kind that allows you to switch apps instantly. Access the advanced photo editing features of Affinity Photo or the precise vector tools of Affinity Designer without ever leaving Affinity Publisher. According to Affinity, it’s the most fluid workflow ever conceived in a creative suite of applications, and the reason they named the apps Affinity.
In addition, Ben will explore some of the new features launched earlier this month in Affinity Publisher Version 2.
Find out about:
Persona switching
Smart master pages
Automatic tables of contents
Non-destructive adjustment layers
Layer clipping
Vector tools
Autoflow
And the best for last? No subscription needed. Affinity Publisher costs just $54.99. Period.
About the Presenter
Benjamin Viney is an award-winning designer and artist with close to 12 years of design experience. Having worked with The Tate Modern, Berkshire Hathaway, Red Bull Racing, The Guardian, The British Library, and The RHS, he excels at high-end brand design and document creation.
He studied Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University and then quickly progressed in the world of graphic design, combining creativity with modern design practices. Now working for Serif Europe ltd as the Product Expert for Publisher, he spends his time helping to develop the application and creating online tutorials to enable users to get the most out of the Affinity creative suite.
Known for his love of cooking, art, and books, he spends his downtime developing new recipes, painting, and reading.
October 20, 2022
InDesign, Illustrator, Lightroom and Photoshop: Tips, Tricks and Techniques
Pacific Time
7 p.m.
Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising
919 S. Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
LAIDUG celebrates its first in-person meeting since 2020 with two presenters who didn’t just drive across the city for the occasion. They flew in from out of the country.
Bart Van de Wiele and Nigel French traveled all the way from Belgium and England, respectively, just to speak at this special LAIDUG meeting. And since they were going to be in L.A. anyway, they decided to be the featured speakers at some little Adobe MAX thing going on at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
In a redux of an LAIDUG presentation they did in 2018, Nigel and Bart will engage in rapid-fire one-upmanship offering tips, tricks and techniques to make your InDesign, Illustrator, Lightroom and Photoshop lives easier.
In all seriousness, LAIDUG sincerely appreciates Nigel and Bart taking time out from their very busy Adobe MAX schedules to be with us. This is a special evening you won't want to miss.
About the Presenters
About Nigel French (left)
Nigel French is a graphic designer, trainer and photographer based in the Lewes, UK. He is author of InDesign Type: Professional Typography with Adobe InDesign, published in its 4th edition by Adobe Press, The Type Project Book (with Hugh D’Andrade), and more than 50 titles in the LinkedIn Learning online training library. He has spoken at conferences such as CreativePro and Adobe MAX and writes regularly for CreativePro Magazine. www.nigelfrench.com
About Bart Van de Wiele (right)
Bart Van de Wiele started his career as a graphic designer in 2001, specializing in print production and image retouching. As Solutions Consultant Manager at Adobe, Bart is responsible for a team of solution specialists that help support Adobe's business in Europe. He is also a trainer, worldwide public speaker, LinkedIn Learning author and about to publish his first book on Adobe design workflows. Bart is based in Gent, Belgium.
September 15, 2022
20 MOST COMMON INDESIGN MISTAKES
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
More often than not, we learn to use InDesign from many different sources: tutorials, articles, etc. This may lead to having incomplete information, and making mistakes without even realizing it! Learning a new skill, like how to use InDesign, takes time and energy, and that should be rewarded. The last thing you want is to get discouraged by a few mistakes. In this presentation, you will learn to avoid mistakes with working individually but also when working in global teams.
Types of mistakes:
Text layout mistakes
Text placement mistakes
Language management mistakes
Image and color mistakes
Function mistakes
This presentation will help you:
Understand what mistakes you might be doing
Learn how to fix your documents
Learn new tools that will save you lots of time (and stimulate your curiosity)
Improve the look of your documents
Collaborate better with other InDesign users
After applying these suggestions, you won’t want to go back to the way you were working before! After the presentation:
You’ll know how to use InDesign better
You’ll work faster in InDesign
Producing your documents will take less time
Additionally, for global teams:
You will have a better understanding of the challenges global teams face
You will structure a better workflow
Translating documents created by you will cost less and take less time
About the Presenter
Stefano Bernardi was born and raised in Italy. As a kid, he wanted to be a football player. But as he grew up, he became fascinated by life-changing entrepreneurial stories and that became his new goal. He told a friend, “One day I'll have a business, and you will work with me."
In 2015, Bernardi co-founded Redokun, a company that makes an online tool to manage and collaborate on marketing translations. Based in Singapore, the company has helped thousands of marketers improve their workflow, reduce time-to-market, and cut translation costs often by more than 50%.
At Redokun, Bernardi spends most of his time helping customers optimize their InDesign workflow and curates the company blog that helps 100,000 people each month with InDesign issues. He also contributes InDesignSecrets and CreativePro Magazine. He speaks English, Italian and Chinese.
Bernardi describes himself as a people person. “I feel energized when I am in a crowd,” he says. “I love cats and I love solving problems.”
August 18, 2022
BOOK DESIGN PART 2: CREATING AN EBOOK FROM A PRINT FILE
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
eBook formatting is so problematic that many people refuse to do it! In this presentation, Kayla Swedberg and Becky Bayne of Becky's Graphic Design in Nashville describe the process of taking an InDesign print file and converting it into an eBook format—without the headache!
Specific Topics:
Using Split Document to create breaks in the book
How to properly format images with captions (so they don't fly away!)
Export Settings to make everything works (and look good!)
Additional programs to use—Kindle Previewer 3 and ePub Checker by Pagina
July 21, 2022
BOOK DESIGN PART 1: STYLE AUTOMATION IN PRINT BOOKS
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
Working with long documents can be cumbersome and a major headache, especially if it eats up a lot of your time. Kayla Swedberg and Becky Bayne of Becky's Graphic Design in Nashville share tricks for automating much of the book design process.
They will be working in a multi-document book file, showing you the progression from Word manuscript to a designed and refined InDesign book in just under an hour.
Specific Topics:
How to set up Master/Parent pages that work in every document of your book
How to create styles that do most of the work for you.
Justification settings and Keep Options that prevent weird formatting
How to use Text Variables to Automate running headers
How to synchronize styles and other settings across documents
About Presenter Kayla Swedberg
Kayla Swedberg has been working with Becky’s Graphic Design since 2018. She graduated from Nossi College of Art in Nashville with a BGA in Graphic Design in 2020.
Growing under the wing of Becky’s mentorship, Kayla is now an integral part of Becky’s Graphic Design. She spurs along the team’s book design process by exploring the farthest reaches of InDesign's automation features. While Becky creates the visual identity for a single book chapter template, Kayla finds the quickest, most efficient ways to style the whole book from cover-to-cover.
Additionally, Kayla is the team's up-and-coming eBook expert. She transforms the finalized print files from InDesign into a workable format for eBook exporting. She is now a pro at working with even the most complicated reflowable eBook files—ones that are very long, contain images or pull-quotes, or that have a myriad of clickable links.
When she’s not creating art, she goes trail riding with her trusty mule or sits outdoors with a novel and her bearded dragon.
About Presenter Becky Bayne
Becky Bayne began her career as a calligrapher in the 80’s, hand lettering grocery ads at a small advertising agency in upstate New York. When desktop computers were introduced, Becky jumped in and learned digital design and marketing alongside everyone else.
The business, Becky’s Graphic Design, was established in 1992 and has designed creative branding and marketing for small and medium businesses. In 2021 the business shifted focus and is now providing book design and self-publishing expertise for authors. They offer the additional service of managing the book upload and the technical aspects of publishing the book to distributors’ online or commercial printers.
The first computer Becky purchased for her business was in 1995. She invested in a Gateway 486 PC and installed Aldus Pagemaker, CorelDraw, and Photoshop 2.0 with 3.5 floppy discs, one at a time.
Becky and her husband Roger, are both entrepreneurs and have been married over 40 years. They have two children who have given them six wonderful grandchildren.
June 16, 2022
RIGHT-TO-LEFT TYPESETTING AND DESIGN IN INDESIGN
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
In English and European languages words are read left-to-right. In Semitic languages text is read right-to-left. This special presentation will begin with technical aspects of using InDesign in the right-to-left mode, continue with formatting issues and conclude with aesthetic and design considerations.
You will learn:
Text composition right-to-left
Number composition left-to-right
Fonts
Nikkud (Hebrew vowels)
Special Hebrew symbols
Kerning and editing special characters
Location of special characters
Other languages
About the Presenter
Rachel Mendelson is senior graphic designer and typesetter with over 17 years of experience in digital and print design. She has worked with publishers and marketing agencies in the USA, Europe, Australia and Israel. Her clients include Apple, Denny's, AP Practice Workbooks, the Vatican and many others.
Rachel studied graphic design at Bar Ilan University in Israel and subsequently worked for Koren Publishers, one of the largest Jewish publishers in the country. In 2013, Rachel moved to Los Angeles where she continued working in graphic design with a focus on foreign language composition. In 2022, she relocated to Denver, Colorado.
May 19, 2022
PRE-PRESS PROCEDURES AND PROCESSES IN INDESIGN
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
How much does your printer love you? Print has taken a back seat to digital design over the last decade, but with the pandemic winding down and the prospect of more in-person events coming back, print is poised to make its re-introduction in a big way. That is why it is so important to make sure that your design-to-print workflow is impenetrable. In this course, you will learn about pre-press techniques that every designer should know, processes to maintain an efficient workflow between your press providers, how to template your print projects to ensure quick sales and turnarounds for your customers at the highest quality.
We will begin by covering the most prominent press types in the industry and the substrates and products produced on them. Flexographic, digital, and offset press products and workflows will be covered. Preflight workflows, custom dieline set-up for CAD cutters, varnishes, Pantone colors, and considerations when designing for bindery types such as saddle-stitch, perfect, and spiral bindings.
About the Presenter
Andrew Palios is an international award winning marketing communications professional with 13 years of experience in the development and management of brand marketing communications and creative teams within a variety of organizations including three years in the higher education, two years in the medical association management, and eight years in the marketing communications industries.
Andrew is proficient in managing the marketing communications development process and increasing results by virtue of a service-centered/collaborative approach to implementing the needs of teams from diverse background and areas of expertise. His core competencies include marketing, communications, design, management, and sales strategy.
Andrew currently works as Digital and Social Media Marketing Specialist and Adjunct Instructor at Mid-State Technical College in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin.
April 21, 2022
INTERACTIVE PDF FORMS AND UX DESIGN WITH INDESIGN
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
Need to create a PDF that includes interactive elements? How about a mock up of a UX design? In this presentation, Ashlea Spitz will show you how to create a custom interactive PDF form using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Acrobat, with custom form fields for text, buttons, checkboxes, dropdown lists, signature field, and more. Even if you've seen this before, she will cover the common pitfalls and errors that occur and demonstrate how to navigate with ease. If you've ever wanted to design an interactive and fillable PDF form or design a UX page in InDesign this is for you.
About the Presenter
With close to 22 years in professional practice as a communications designer, and the principal at Pixsoul Media, a digital graphic design agency in Vancouver, Canada, Ashlea Spitz has been a voice and advocate for the design industry. Her professional expertise led her to share her knowledge through teaching graphic design in a vocational educational setting, and sitting on the Registered Graphic Designers of Canada Board of Education.
As a College professor specializing in the area of Digital Graphic Design and Branding, her passion as a designer and a teacher has been to motivate and inspire students through the art of instruction and cultivating one’s learning potential. She has been most proud to facilitate and hand down knowledge that inspires her students to grow and ultimately be able to carve out new and successful careers for themselves. Ashlea's YouTube channel and website dedicates new innovative strategies for designer's growth.
March 17, 2022
TAMING WILD ASSETS WITH ADOBE BRIDGE
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
Adobe Bridge is a desktop media browser and digital asset manager that allows you to locate, organize, browse, preview, and batch process content files—including most image, vector, audio and video files. You can view and manage INDD files as well as also rans such as PSD, AI, XD, PDF (and others), all without their originating programs.
Bridge can also manage and set file metadata, create collections, add image watermarks, rate and label photographs, do slideshows, perform batch file operations including renaming, browse directories without importing, support multi-user workflows, and more. And guess what? It’s free.
In this presentation, Alan Gilbertson takes a deep (and we mean deep) dive into Bridge. He has been a longtime champion of Bridge, and his passion for this under-appreciated app will rub off on you.
About the Presenter
Alan Gilbertson is a designer and creative director living in Los Angeles, where he doesn’t miss the weather of his Scottish hometown one bit. He has been a writer for InDesign Secrets and CreativePro since 2014.
February 17, 2022
THE 28 TIPS AND TRICKS OF FEBRUARY
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
With countless ways to do a task within InDesign, the most efficient or easiest way to carry out a task might not be readily apparent. From using the Pathfinder tool to building grids, Satnam Bansal will describe 28 different techniques and hidden settings to maximize InDesign productivity and streamline your workflow.
He will go over essential tips and tricks to help you work smarter and not harder. Whether you are a complete beginner seeing many of the tips and tricks for the first time, or an experienced InDesign user, chances are you’ll find something useful among the 28 actions that will make your life easier not only in February, but for months to come.
About the Presenter
Satnam Bansal is an upcoming Graphic Designer and Motion Designer from London, United Kingdom. He graduated Ravensbourne University a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design. Geared to a more digital focus, he has been working within an animation company creating 2D animations, print products and a plethora of marketing assets for the top medical companies around the world.
While still new to the industry, he is eager to help educate the next generation of designers by sharing the skills he has developed along his career.
January 20, 2022
FONTS: GOODBYE TYPE 1, HELLO VARIABLE, HELLO COLOR
Pacific Time
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. — Presentation
In case you hadn’t heard, PostScript Type 1 fonts will quit working in InDesign and other Adobe apps in 2023. Adobe and Monotype never offered upgrade prices for the equivalent OpenType fonts, and those new fonts use different family names. What should you do? Can your Type 1 font library be salvaged?
In this talk, Adam Twardoch will explain InDesign support for font formats old and new, from Type 1 options to Adobe’s support for two new OpenType sub-formats: variable and color fonts. He will demonstrate how you can convert your old but valuable Type 1 fonts to OpenType with FontLab’s TransType 4 app. But super important and often overlooked, he will explain the font name conundrum and how you can use the app’s features to keep or customize names and font family linking. Further, he will show how you can add even more value to your old fonts by turning them into variable OpenType fonts with FontLab 7.
About the Presenter
Adam Twardoch is Director of Products of FontLab. He has also been a font consultant for MyFonts, Monotype, Google, Adobe and many independent font vendors, specializing in font technology, multilingual typography, CSS webfonts, Unicode and OpenType. Adam is a core member of the initiatives that created the OpenType Font Variations and OpenType SVG color font specifications.
He has co-designed several type families, including Lato (by Łukasz Dziedzic) and Milka (by Botio Nikoltchev). Adam teaches workshops in font creation and served on the board Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) for many years. He lives and works in Warsaw and Berlin.