This post was inspired by my attendance at 3 events in 2 days: the Wisconsin Publishers’ Production Club meeting, the Creative Coalition reception and attendance at a speech by Chris Brogan.

Hearing someone identify a concept or trend as a “game changer” always results in a feeling of awe and excitement (sometimes mingled with fear, but with these, it’s more a feeling that adventure is on the horizon!). I’m hoping you’ll share my sentiment.

1. A new paradigm for publishers. At the WPPC meeting, Dick Ryan from Publisher’s Press talked about the evolution of publishing, indicating the future isn’t print OR digital, it’s print AND digital. This “AND” concept, one in which print and digital work side-by-side, complementing and supporting the other isn’t groundbreaking, but the technology and tools companies are using to build, manage, monetize and measure are. Keep your eye on mobile technologies and the Apple iPad for industry trends in action.

2. Milwaukee’s creative industry will have a significantly more powerful voice by 2011. GOOSEBUMPS! I was thrilled to meet the consultants who have accepted the challenge to inventory Milwaukee’s cultural assets and assess the economic impact of our 7 county region’s for and non-profit creative institutions. How much more powerful individual artists and companies will be when we can quantify the actual revenue, employment and educational influence our work has on the region. Learn more about the Creative Coalition at http://www.creativecoalitionmke.com/

3. Social media and social networks are here to stay. I saw Chris Brogan speak today (Thanks to RiverRun & B+L). He succinctly confirmed what many of us already suspected, social media, social networks and social media marketing are not fads, they’re radically changing the face of advertising, marketing and communications. He tossed out nugget after nugget of brilliance, I’ll share one:  Every employee is in sales and customer service. If you’re not adding sales and CS to your job description, you’re probably unemployed. Hear! Hear!

Are you READY for all the opportunities coming our way? I’m talking to YOU, creative industry members. This is just a peek at things to come, let’s all think about how we can take advantage of the potential wows coming our way.

Please my geeky brethren, calm down.

Apple has finally, after 34 years, actually delivered on its promise of a computer “for the rest of us”.

It’s just not for “us”.

And sure, that stings a little. I know you’re hyperventilating about lack of Flash support, no ports, no file system access, no camera, no multitasking. IT DOESN’T RUN PHOTOSHOP!!!!

To which my mother replies “what the hell is multitasking? and stop using all caps – it’s rude.”

Let’s not begrudge an easy to use, fast, reliable computer for people who don’t earn their living sitting in front of one. There is a huge segment of the population that just wants to listen to their music, surf the web, read a book and check their email. Maybe watch a movie or play a game.

No, really.

They want a computer that “just works”.

Yes, yes, yes, I’ve heard your mutterings about netbooks (cheaper, full featured, “real” OS, does everything the iPad does and more)

But if I may be so bold, you have completely missed the point. I forgive you for glossing over “easy to use”, the term has been reduced to almost meaningless by decades of misuse. I don’t mean “easy to use” in the current marketing sense of the phrase, I’m going totally old school on this and using the phrase as originally intended. As in power it up, start using it and never, ever, read a manual.

Not just easy to use, intuitive and obvious to use.

We saw it first with the iPhone, you simply hand it to someone and in moments, without a word of instruction they press the one available button on the face of the phone and it reacts by immediately lighting up and showing a button with an arrow and the simple instruction “slide to unlock”. Then you are dropped into an interface that is clear, playful, responsive, forgiving and intuitive.

And you say “it’s just a big iPod Touch” like that’s a bad thing.

Recently I had a question regarding a Cannon 5D Mark 2 camera and Photoshop CS3. The Raw files from this camera would not open in CS3. Adobe stopped supporting CS3 after the launch of CS4 and there were no more updates available for the Camera Raw feature. However, Adobe does offer a DNG converter which is a great work around for this. It will take your new files and convert them to DNG which can be opened by earlier versions of Photoshop, namely CS3.

For a listing of all (at date) 275 cameras supported click here.

To download the converter click here: MAC or Windows

Today I received wonderful news – I have been chosen to join the Adobe Community Professionals program. I am one of only 15 professionals in the world representing Adobe Photoshop.

The Adobe Community Professional’s mission is to provide high caliber peer-to-peer communication educating and improving the product skills of Adobe customers worldwide.

This means that you can expect a lot more Photoshop-savvy information from me this year. I plan to bring you new updates on advancing technologies via the blog, present more at area groups and lend my insight to publications both locally and nationally.

The main thing I can promise you besides all the hoopla and geekery coming from me is my accessibility.  Your questions and comments both in the classroom and via email (kevin@c2gps.com) keeps myself and all of our instructors at C2 sharp as well as inspires us to become better teachers.

I leave you with this – use Photoshop everyday. Practice responsible and ethical uses of the app, learn a new keyboard shortcut, explore a panel that you have avoided and always remember– no matter how wrong things go, there is always the History Brush.

The evolution of web technologies moves so fast we should probably call it a REVOLUTION! We know most account professionals, creative directors, project managers and business owners want to read every article, watch every webinar or attend every user group to keep up on the latest trends that shape web design and development, but who has that kind of time? C2 Does!

You need to know industry standards and best practices, quick and easy! That’s why we created:

Herding Cats! Best Practices in Wrangling Web & Interactive Projects

Is it challenging for you to estimate time, cost and personnel for a web design/development project?
Then this seminar is for you.

Do you have clients clamoring for mobile and social marketing integration?
Then this seminar is for you.

Do you manage web designers/developers but you’re not entirely sure what they do all day?
Then this seminar is for you.

Are you a print professional who is considering the jump to web?
Then this seminar is for you.

This 3 hour seminar covers a broad range of topics designed to help you better understand the web design & development process, particularly if you come from a print media background.

Topics covered:

• budgeting projects time, cost, personnel
• what skill set(s) projects require
• defining UX, UI & IA
• domain name management
• how static & dynamic web pages are built (managers overview)
• what is a content management system (CMS) and why would I want one?
• differences between designing for the web and email
• trends in SEO
• forecasts and predictions for web design/development in 2010

If you think this looks good, check out the other Creative Transitions Seminars coming this spring!

If you know someone who you think is the best in their field, nominate them to become a Wisconsin Advertising & Design All-Star. Sponsored by The Eisner, this one of a kind awards show will honor the individuals, agencies, vendors, brands and schools that have had the most significant impact on Wisconsin advertising and design in the past year. Awards are given out in 22 professional categories. And finalists will be honored at a Gala Awards Ceremony in March.

*Deadline for nominations extended to January 13th!*

For more information please download the PDF Brochure and Form.

One of the more mundane tasks in animation is dealing with repeating motions. You can copy and paste motion keyframes until the end of time, but this is neither practical nor easily scalable. What if you want more rotation of an arm or a wing? You mean I have to go back and change every keyframe?

Here is an easy solution in After Effects which takes only a few steps:

1. Create your basic animation (in this case butterfly flying) in its own composition. For this example the entire animation is only about 2 seconds long.
2. Drop this precomp into a bigger composition. In this case 15 seconds.
3. Enable Time Remapping. It is in Layer > Time > Enable Time Remapping.
4. Option(Mac)/Alt (PC) click on the Time Remapping stopwatch to enable Expressions (Don’t worry this is not going to be scary!)
5. Extend the length of the animation layer. NOTE: When you enable time remapping, you can extend layers infinitely. Usually this results in a still frame after the last keyframe.
6. On the layer, by the expression, click on the little button that looks like a Play button (right arrow). This opens a flyout menu for expression snippets. NEAT! May still be foreign but just follow my lead. Go to: Property > loopOut(type= “cycle”, numKeyframes = 0).
7. Preview the length of the compostion
8. Pretty good. But not a “perfect” loop. Darn. If only there was a quick fix…
9. Go to the last keyframe on the time remapping.
10. Move one frame backward.
11. Create a new keyframe
12. Move one frame forward (back to the last keyframe)
13. Delete this keyframe
14. Preview – VOILA!
    So that is it. So why does it work?

    Well the expression we used just told the layer to loop between the keyframes. The problem comes that with nearly all instances of using time remapping, the last keyframe is blank, which is especially problematic for looping. So by making the second to last keyframe the last one (still with me?) you remove all instances of the blank keyframe.

As our New Year’s gift to you, we are offering a $10 discount* on all tickets purchased between now and January 8. Enter code “GROUPS10″ upon checkout to receive your discount.

Acrobash is the premiere networking event for anyone in a creative-related field. Started in 2009, Acrobash has quickly become the talk of the town in networking circles. Groups and organizations from around Wisconsin are represented and offer a unique opportunity for guests to find out more about their creative community.

Over 20 organizations and businesses from Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Web Design, Web Development, Graphic Design, and others related to the creative world will be represented at this unique event. All your networking groups – all in one place!

If you are talent looking to get some great connections in your field or market yourself to prospective employers, then this is for you. Don’t miss this amazing opportunity to make professional connections!

This year’s event is sure top all expectations with Live Music from Stickyfoot (comprised of members of Milwaukee’s own Old Mil), great catering from Zilli’s, awesome prizes from area businesses, and LIVE animals from the Racine Zoo. There may even be an appearance by “Indy” himself…

Acrobash is January 20th from 6:00 pm-9:00 pm at the Eisner Museum.

Find out more and register at www.acrobash.com!

*$10 discount is available for new ticket sales only. Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer or discount. Ticket sales end January 8. No at-door or day-of sales allowed, so purchase now!

Jim Locatelli, CPA to the stars

Save Time and Money in 2010

We invited our FAVORITE CPA, Jim Locatelli, of Locatelli and Company, to comment on the advantages of working with a creative staffing/talent placement agency to hire freelancers/contract employees:

With Locatelli and Company’s extensive experience in the financial structure of communication firms, we can provide some unique insight on how creative entities can rebound from the recession and improve their profit margins. As marketing clients begin to expend resources and staff workloads increase, we feel that serious consideration should be made to staffing up for the peak demand periods with temporary staff from a well recognized staffing/placement firm such as C2.

Beyond the advantage of creating billable multiples over the reasonable direct cost and avoidance of carrying staff during non-billable periods, working with C2 solves a potential employee/independent contractor classification issue with the State of Wisconsin and federal government. All temporary staff placed through C2 are employees on the books of C2 and all taxes and payroll tax reporting are absorbed by C2.

With the relative availability of freelancers, many marketing and creative firms potentially put themselves at risk if they do not review the following ten points seriously with each freelance candidate. Several of our clients have undergone audits by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development in the past year. The state of Wisconsin considers an individual an employee if they are unable to answer yes to at least 7 of the following 10 points of reference;

1. The individual holds or has applied for an identification number with the federal Internal Revenue Service.

2. The individual has filed business or self-employment income tax returns with the federal Internal Revenue Service based on such services in the previous year or, in the case of a new business, in the year in which such services were first performed.

3. The individual maintains a separate business with his or her own office, equipment, materials and other facilities.

4. The individual operates under contracts to perform specific services for specific amounts of money and under which the individual controls the means and methods of performing such services.

5. The individual incurs the main expenses related to the services that he or she performs under contract.

6. The individual is responsible for the satisfactory completion of the services that he or she contracts to perform and is liable for a failure to satisfactorily complete the services.

7. The individual receives compensation for services performed under a contract on a commission or per-job or competitive-bid basis and not on any other basis.

8. The individual may realize a profit or suffer a loss under contracts to perform such services.

9. The individual has recurring business liabilities or obligations.

10. The success or failure of the individual’s business depends on the relationship of business receipts to expenditures.

Beyond the employee/independent contractor classification issue, other reasons to work with a reputable staffing/talent placement firm include:

1. Saving time and money on recruiting.

2. Control project expenses with a competitive rate structure, often less than individual freelance rates.

3. Playing it safe with the government and allowing the placement firm to handle all of the payroll tax reporting and payroll taxes.

4. Quick turn around in finding qualified talent for rush projects.

5. Accountability and backup from a firm relating to individual performance.

Clearly, C2 and Locatelli and Company have developed a great relationship. We’d like to develop a relationship with you as well! For more information on our talent placement services, please contact Luci Klebar at 414-431-0062 or click here!

I’m very lucky to be in a position to meet so many talented, passionate and genuinely nice people everyday. Maintaining those relationships makes me feel even more satisfied and gratified. I have had the pleasure of meeting students, colleagues, clients and talents that I can also call friends.

Brad Germata was one of those people.

I met Brad shortly after he graduated from MIAD. He came to gallery night parties and other C2 events, hanging out with Anthony Russo and other MIAD grads who either worked for or were friends with the C2 crew.  I’d see him at creative industry events, in classes at C2 or just bopping around the Third Ward. He always had a smile and a hug for me. Not only a talented designer, he was an impressive fine artist. I was blown away at Open Canvas, watching him paint sailboats in the harbor. I bid on that painting, but it was one of the best of the evening and was well out of my price range before I knew it.

Brad lost a valiant battle with cancer at the tender age of 27. A shame, a crime, a travesty.

But out of an overwhelmingly sad situation comes the perseverance and positive energy that epitomized Brad and resonates throughout the community that loved him.  Check out www.sweetforcertain.com and save February 19th on your calendar. 

Better yet, donate something to honor his life and continue the inspiration he provided while with us.

Organizing Using Configurator

Adobe Configurator allows you to create your own customized Photoshop CS4 Panels which include tools, menu commands, actions, and more. It is a great and underused organization tool. There is even rumors of it expanding into other apps such as InDesign and Illustrator in the future.

Download Adobe Configurator here.

Be sure to check out Jullianne Kost’s Daily PS Tips panel here.