Students can obtain QuarkXPress® 7 (plus Quark Interactive Designer™ and Quark XPert Tools Pro) totally FREE of charge. They can use it at home for the full academic year, provided their school purchases the Quark School Unlimited User License priced at £1,750 excluding VAT.This offer is only available until 30th April 2008

Here’s how it works:1 Order the site license QUK-122922-S
2 Add QUK-123991 to the order, plus a contact within the school responsible for managing the student licenses
3 The contact within the school directs the students to download the software at:
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 PaperSpecs today announced a free webinar, sponsored by Neenah Paper, to re-introduce letterpress printing to a new generation of commercial and corporate designers, as well as print buyers. Due to its unique look and feel, Letterpress Printing is making a resurgence in demand. The one-hour webinar, titled “Impressed with Letterpress,” will explain and demonstrate how this methodical process can offer clients a renascence image. The webinar will begin on Tuesday, February 26th at 2:00 EST/11:00 PST. To attend the FREE webinar, prospective attendees can register at www.paperspecs.com/webinar/letterpress.htm.

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Four conferences hosted concurrently at GOA Miami

    NEW YORK, Jan. 29 /PRNewswire/ — MOGO Media, the premier conference and training provider for creative professionals working with Adobe(R) software, today announced its initial conference schedule for 2008, which
kicks off in February. For the first time, the InDesign Conference, the Pixel Conference, the Vector Conference, and the Conference for Adobe Acrobat will be co-located with the Graphics of the Americas (GOA) 2008 conference and exhibition in Miami Beach from February 26- March 1.

    “Hosting four conferences in one location provides a unique opportunity to the creative community to learn how to maximize their workflow with Adobe products. Whether they are new users, or veterans looking for tips and tricks, attendees will leave with a set of skills that they will be able to immediately implement to improve their creative work,” said Barry Anderson, co-founder of MOGO Media.

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The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) is proud to announce that its annual east coast Photoshop® World Conference & Expo <http://www.photoshopworld.com> – held at the Orange County Convention Center from April 2-4 – will feature more than 100 class sessions that will enhance the knowledge and capabilities of Photoshop users and creative professionals of all skill levels. Classes focus on graphic design, digital photography, Adobe® web applications, motion and video graphics, scripting, and much more.

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Pantone and the color experts at X-Rite Color Services today announced the 2008 release of the company’s highly popular seminar “Color Control Freak”. With a completely revised curriculum, Color Control Freak 08 offers an in-depth understanding of color, its value in the design process, and techniques for proper reproduction.

Sponsored by Pantone, HP, Eizo and X-Rite, this one-day interactive seminar equips design professionals with the latest color knowledge and tools, exposing a new level of design freedom. Industry experts will teach attendees basics in color trends and psychology as well as how to collect, build and specify color that remains consistent from screen to print.

“Color is a key inspirational element in any design project. Choosing the right color is critical in portraying the intended message and creating the desired response. The right color can be motivational, emotional and very persuasive,” says Doris Brown, Vice President of Marketing at Pantone, Inc. “Accurately capturing the desired color, and reproducing it faithfully and consistently, is imperative in maintaining the intended message and integrity of the design project.”

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X-Rite, Incorporated (NASDAQ:XRIT) – Pantone and the color experts at X-Rite Color Services today announced the 2008 release of the company’s highly popular seminar “Color Control Freak”. With a completely revised curriculum, Color Control Freak 08 offers an in-depth understanding of color, its value in the design process, and techniques for proper reproduction.

Sponsored by Pantone, HP, Eizo and X-Rite, this one-day interactive seminar equips design professionals with the latest color knowledge and tools, exposing a new level of design freedom. Industry experts will teach attendees basics in color trends and psychology as well as how to collect, build and specify color that remains consistent from screen to print.

“Color is a key inspirational element in any design project. Choosing the right color is critical in portraying the intended message and creating the desired response. The right color can be motivational, emotional and very persuasive,” says Doris Brown, Vice President of Marketing at Pantone, Inc. “Accurately capturing the desired color, and reproducing it faithfully and consistently, is imperative in maintaining the intended message and integrity of the design project.”

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X-Rite, Incorporated (NASDAQ:XRIT) – The color experts at X-Rite Color Services today announced the 2008 release of it’s well-known and newly updated Fundamentals of Color and Appearance seminar.

This one-day seminar is tailored for quality control & assurance professionals, lab technicians, parts suppliers, manufacturing specifiers, or anyone who evaluates or approves color. Attendees establish a solid foundation in color and appearance science. From the physics of color to lighting, spectrophotometers and color data, attendees learn how to measure, view and understand color data. Taught by X-Rite color experts, the seminar is easy to understand and applicable to nearly every industry and business.

The one-day course requires no prior color training and will address color control for a variety of industries, including retail and apparel brands, business and consumer electronics, automotive, packaging and their related industries in plastics, coatings and textile manufacturing.

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IT Enquirer Releases Basic Quark Job Jackets Training Pack, a Multimedia Tutorial Showing How To Create and Use Job Jackets
 The IT Enquirer, a leading cross-media publishing industry website, has just released a Basic Multimedia Training Pack that teaches users of QuarkXPress 7 how to use Quark Job Jackets. The Basic Training Pack teaches QuarkXPress 7 users how they can simplify their workflow and save time with Job Jackets and Tickets. The Basic Quark Job Jackets Training Pack also outlines how to create Job Jackets from scratch for more advanced usage.

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First Annual Homecoming for Academy of Art University Draws Crowd of Leading Graphic Designers

The first annual Homecoming for the Academy of Art University last week brought together 135 respected designers representing more than 90 nationally and internationally recognized design firms, all alumni of the School of Graphic Design, Academy of Art University. A juried alumni exhibition, mounted at the Academy’s 79 Gallery at 79 New Montgomery, featured work of alumni for such clients as Adobe Systems Inc., award winning See Magazine, The North Face, CLIF Bar, and Gmund, the world-renowned paper manufacturer. The exhibit is available for public viewing through January 2, 2008.

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Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Wednesday, November 28, 2007  — (Business Wire India)
The Writers Block (TWB) has broadened its portfolio by offering Adobe FrameMaker training through the TWB Online portal. The program titled TWB Online: Adobe FrameMaker Certification is targeted at individuals who are Technical Writers, Programmers or Professionals wanting to create or enhance help systems for desktop or Web-based applications. It is helpful to technical writing professionals who want to upgrade their skills with minimum investment of time and money. Adobe FrameMaker� is the industry standard help authoring tool used by most technical writers. The three week program has been designed keeping in mind the sharp learning curve faced by technical writers at the beginning of a new project. The program is priced at US$ 275.

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xTrain.com, a leader in online video training for media, arts, and design, is pleased to announce today the latest installment of their free Dr. Brown’s Photoshop Laboratory Classes featuring Photoshop Guru Russell Brown. This new xTrain™ class titled “The Good, the Bad, the Ugly” features professional portrait retouching tips and techniques made easy by the comical and entertaining “Dr. Brown.”

“This fun and exciting class features all of the professional techniques that anyone using Adobe Photoshop needs to know to make their portraits better than real life,” said Siotha Vest, xTrain’s Director of Training. “This latest addition to Russell Brown’s classes on xTrain provides our students with solid instruction enabling them to master Photoshop CS3 without the boredom of typical online video training.”

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Online Training Leader Lynda.com Announces Release of Web Accessibility Principles
Over Six hours of Tutorials on Building Accessible Sites

 Lynda.com, the leader in self-paced digital media and design training, today introduced Web Accessibility Principles.

Accessibility on the web has been an issue for over a decade, and it remains a crucial–but often overlooked–element of web design. Instructor Zoe Gillenwater explains the concept of accessibility as it applies to the web, and describes how it affects the audience. She also covers how to set up accessibility testing, and how to apply accessibility principles to new and existing sites using standards-compliant markup and CSS. Exercise files accompany the tutorials.

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“301 Inkjet Tips and Techniques: An Essential Printing Resource for Photographers”
Boston, MA, October 10, 2007 – Course Technology PTR, a division of Cengage Learning, announces today the release of “301 Inkjet Tips and Techniques: An Essential Printing Resource for Photographers,” a comprehensive, how-to guide to high-quality digital output that shows photographers of all levels how to make high-quality prints through detailed instructions and hundreds of full-color examples from more than 20 professional photographers and other artists.

Author Andrew Darlow, a veteran photographer, educator, and digital imaging consultant, collected his years of experience with digital and fine art photography and inkjet printing to write the book. “After using a variety of inkjet printers for more than ten years, I’m very happy to be able to share many of the tips and techniques I’ve been using to make exhibition, portfolio, and personal prints with others who share my passion for photography.”

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Peachpit announced ActionScript 3.0 for Adobe Flash CS3 Professional by Todd Perkins (ISBN 0-321-29390-8), a hands-on guide to ActionScript 3.0, complete with insider tips and color illustrations.

ActionScript 3.0 for Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Hands-On Training provides a comprehensive review of ActionScript’s features, from manipulating movie clips and responding to user actions with variables, to writing functions and conditional operators.

Readers will learn how to add ActionScript to the Timeline of Flash movies, develop scripts in external ActionScript files, add content dynamically, control the playback of movies, and more. A CD-ROM with classroom-proven exercises and QuickTime training videos accompanies the book.

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Offers Adobe Flex Builder 2 to Students and Faculty at No Cost

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that it is offering Adobe® Flex™ Builder™ 2 software at no cost to students and faculty at educational institutions worldwide. The Flex Builder 2 integrated development environment (IDE) is part of a powerful toolset for designing and developing rich Internet applications (RIAs), an essential part of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 technologies have spurred the development of RIAs that enable data sharing, collaboration, user participation, social networking, and more. Flex is the industry’s most advanced framework for building cross-operating system RIAs for the Web. By offering Flex Builder 2 at no cost, educational institutions will be able to improve students’ and researchers’ knowledge of RIA development. With Flex 3, currently in public beta, students will be able to extend their RIAs to the desktop using Adobe® AIR™.

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Designer Solution Workshop Tour Takes off in SoHo:

The Apple SoHo store hosted the first stop on the CreativeBlvd Designer Solutions Workshop Tour. This event was geared towards designers that are building files for multi-channel publishing. The workshop featured several topics and presenters.

Shellie Hall, Editor-in-Chief at CreativeBlvd and owner of Ducktype Digital presented a session that focused on Tips for Smart Design Techniques.

Eric Berkow, Prepress Manager at BargainPrinting.com presented a session the coved Tips for working with your Printer.

Joseph Cartright, Photographer - www.cartright.com and Christopher M. Lynch, Photographer - www.instilledimages.com - presented a Color Workflow session that focused on Photography and getting good and consistent color.

A special thanks goes out to our sponsors of the event for the great prizes that we are able to give to our attendees: BargainPrinting.com, Pantone, Xrite, Jeff Gamet, Design-Tools Monthly, Markzware and Quark. Be sure to become a registered user at CreativeBlvd.com to be entered in our weekly drawings for some great prizes.
Here are some more photos from the event:

From Left: Alexandra Gebhardt from Inside Networks and Shellie Hall pick some lucky raffle tickets.
Two of our lucky winners of Quark Interactive Designer.
Chris Lynch and Joseph Cartright giving some helpful advice to one of the workshop attendees.
Eric Berkow show how Pantone products can help you get your color under control.

A special thanks goes out to all our attendees and to the Apple Store in SoHo for graciously hosting the event.

Integrated Toolkit for Technical Writers Includes Major Upgrade to RoboHelp

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) September 25, 2007 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Technical Communication Suite software, a first-of-a-kind, integrated solution for authoring, managing, and publishing technical information and training content across multiple formats and languages. Using the Adobe Technical Communication Suite, technical communicators and instructional designers can create powerful documentation, eLearning courses and user assistance programs containing both traditional text and graphics along with rich media, including Adobe Flash® Player compatible video and 3D.

The suite includes Adobe RoboHelp® 7, a major upgrade to Adobe’s help system and knowledge base authoring tool, as well as Adobe FrameMaker® 8, Adobe Captivate® 3 and Adobe Acrobat® 3D Version 8 software. Product and workflow integration and support for rich media formats — including Adobe Flash Player compatible video, SWF, MP3 and AVI files as well as industry standards, such as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), XML and Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) — empower authors to deliver compelling information, save time and reduce discrepancies in content.

“Adobe’s leadership in the industry puts us in a unique position to deliver a completely new product, targeted squarely at technical communicators and instructional designers,” said Naresh Gupta, senior vice president, Print and Classic Publishing at Adobe. “The Technical Communication Suite provides all the tools publishers need to take technical communication to the next level with dramatically improved workflows and rich features like video, animations, 3D and Unicode support.”

Inside the Technical Communication Suite
Introduced today, RoboHelp 7 delivers major new features enabling technical communicators to author, manage, and publish engaging content for embedded help systems and standalone knowledge bases. For the first time, technical communicators can easily update their online help systems with information authored in FrameMaker 8, without the need to re-import files for each update. The new release also adds Unicode support for publishing in multiple languages.

Automated wizards and topic templates allow users to incorporate standard and advanced help features, including table of contents, indexes, glossaries, graphics, sound, video, simulations and navigation. Authors can generate multiple tables of content and apply conditional tags, index items, folders, and tailor output for specific purposes and formats, such as HTML, Adobe PDF and FlashHelp®. RoboHelp 7 also supports a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) allowing easy copy and paste editing across topics. Additional new features include an updated and customizable user interface, enhancements to the HTML editor, and improved navigation and search features. For more details please visit

www.adobe.com/products/robohelp.

Launched in July 2007, FrameMaker 8 is a complete authoring and publishing tool that combines the simplicity of word processing with the power of XML. The new version adds support for 3D, DITA, XML and Unicode. With the integration of Adobe Captivate 3 technical authors can deliver high-impact information with quizzes, visual product demonstrations and simulations - all without the need for multimedia development skills. Acrobat 3D version 8 delivers a complete and more secure way to collaborate with extended teams on 3D designs via Adobe PDF documents. Technical communicators can easily manipulate and incorporate interactive 3D models without having to purchase CAD software.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Technical Communication Suite will be available for Microsoft® Windows Vista™ and Windows® XP and is expected to ship by the end of October 2007 at an estimated price of US$1,599. Users can upgrade for an estimated price of US$999 if they have prior versions of Adobe Captivate, FrameMaker or RoboHelp. To learn more about the suite please visit www.adobe.com/technicalcommunicationsuite.

RoboHelp 7 and RoboHelp Server 7 will be available for Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows XP or Windows 2000 and are expected to ship by the end of October 2007 at an estimated price of US$999 for RoboHelp 7 and US$1,999 for RoboHelp Server 7. Customers of RoboHelp 6 and RoboHelp Server 6 can upgrade for an estimated price of US$79 and US$160 respectively. Customers of any previous version of RoboHelp can upgrade to RoboHelp 7 for an estimated price of US$499. For more information and additional upgrade pricing visit

www.adobe.com/robohelp.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

Online Training Leader lynda.com Announces Release of FileMaker Pro 9 Beyond the Basics

Over eight hours of tutorials on database building.

(PRWEB) August 30, 2007 — lynda.com, the leader in self-paced digital media and design training, today introduced FileMaker Pro 9 Beyond the Basics.

In FileMaker Pro 9 Beyond the Basics, Certified Developer and Authorized Trainer Cris Ippolite offers comprehensive training in how to use FileMaker Pro 9 to its full potential. He also teaches numerous hands-on techniques for publishing FileMaker Pro 9 databases to networks and the web. The tutorials cover relationship types, external data sources, the new FileMaker Server 9, functions, objects, simple and complex reports, and even the new PHP Site Assistant. Exercise files accompany the tutorials.

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Mobile Solutions for Business & Life is providing a mobile technology shopping guide for students and parents as they prepare for the back-to-school season. The shopping guide, featured online at laptopmag.com, covers all the essential and cool gear a student needs to tackle another school year: from notebooks to cell phones, from digital cameras to speaker dock/alarm clocks. Plus, the guide offers buying tips and the top Web sites that will help a student get ahead.

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The Painter X Wow! Book continues to delight Painter fans with its many exciting, inspiring examples and techniques for creating fine art, photography, graphic design, multimedia, and film. In this new edition, bestselling author and renowned artist Cher Threinen-Pendarvis takes her readers step-by-step through this revolutionary program, revealing the best practices of many talented digital artists. With her clear, instructive approach, Cher quickly brings beginners up to speed and provides more advanced users with additional insights into the latest creative and productive techniques. New to this edition is coverage of Painter’s latest tools, including the new RealBristle Painting System, Universal Mixer palette, Match Palette effect, Workspace Manager, an enhanced Photo-Painting System, and new composition tools.

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