It is that time of the year again where I am lucky enough to be able to announce a series of speaker opportunities. The conference season is almost upon us again and so I get to announce where you can find me (online).

April 15: Creators Innovation Webinar

This is a Dutch online webinar jointly organized by HP, Nvidia and Adobe where we talk about content creation, the role of A.I.  and online collaboration. While HP and Nvidia will talk about optimizing online work procesess and which hardware and solutions will keep your hardware secure.

More info here.

April 15-16: Present to Succeed

Present to Succeed is the largest, premium online presentation conference for business professionals who want to improve the way they present their ideas, products, and services. Present to Succeed will immerse you into the world of storytelling, slide design, public speaking, and the most popular presentation tools on the market. During Present to Succeed I am presenting a session that talks about how to build better graphics for presentations, how stock content speeds up the design process and how AI-driven technology can make the difference when designing for on-time delivery.

More info here.

April 27: TechData webinar: Adobe Sign + M365

On April 27th I am hosting a webinar for TechData, one of Adobe’s partners. During this webinar I will show off how Adobe Sign integrates with Microsoft 365 solutions for automating and streamlining digital documents and electronic signature workflows. If you are a Microsoft user and are thinking of transforming your business, this is a session not to miss.

More info coming soon!

May 17-21: CreativePro Week

CreativePro Week is the world’s best HOW-TO event for creative professionals who design, create, or edit in Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and Microsoft PowerPoint. On top of that it is one of my favorite conferences so it’s extra painful I won’t get to speak there in person this year due to Covid restrictions. I have previously described the contents of  my presentations on my blog so be sure to read up here.

June 14-15: Making Design

Making Design is the Nordic region’s largest Adobe conference focusing on creative design and inspiration in InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and UX Design. Normally it takes place in the beautiful city of Oslo but this year it is mainly happening online. In my session I’ll talk about how to better organize your design assets, how to maintain your branding and how to better collaborate with designers and non-designers.

More info here.

Of course more news is to follow soon! (did anyone mention Adobe MAX?)

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Adobe XD for InDesign users

My cover article for InDesign Magazine has been published. It described why InDesign users should invest time and energy in learning Adobe XD and which opportunities that may bring to users.

InDesign Magazine is a subscription based online magazine that I highly recommend if you want to learn more about getting the fullest out of Adobe InDesign.

Learn more about InDesign Magazine here.

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InDesign, tips and friends

I’m very stoked to have been asked to speak during this year’s CreativePro Week event (happening online again). This year I’ll be presenting 2 sessions on Adobe InDesign.

10 Essential InDesign productivity tips

Let’s kick off Day 2 with a fast-paced, fun-filled tip-a-palooza to boost your productivity! We’ll zip through a ton of handy tips and tricks that every InDesign user needs to know. Plus, you’ll get amped to soak up all the InDesign goodness the rest of the conference will bring.

• If you’re not customizing InDesign, you’re not doing it right
• Essential shortcuts
• What to do when something (inevitably) goes wrong

New InDesign features you should be using right now

You’ve been using InDesign for a long time, but why are you still using it the way you did 5 or 10 years ago?! Adobe has released a ton of new features, but most InDesign users don’t take advantage of them. Take this opportunity to get up to speed again and learn what you’ve been missing!

More information here.

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I’m super proud to announce that not one, but two new courses have been released on LinkedIn Learning. And both cover Adobe XD, the best UX design and prototyping tool out there.

Using Adobe XD with the Creative Cloud Apps

In addition to all the tools and plug-ins that make Adobe XD a standout design tool, a key advantage of XD is its place in the Adobe Creative Cloud ecosystem. In this course, Bart Van de Wiele shows how you can leverage the strength of XD with other design tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Adobe Stock. He shows how to open and place native Illustrator and Photoshop content into Adobe XD, how to share and update content with Creative Cloud Libraries, and how to leverage Adobe Stock in your creative process. In addition to showing how to bring content into Adobe XD, Bart also shows how to export content out of XD and use it in other design applications.

Kick-starting Adobe XD projects with Adobe Creative Cloud from Using Adobe XD with the Creative Cloud Apps by Bart Van de Wiele

Adobe XD Plug-Ins: The 2021 ‘Must-Have’ List

Adobe XD’s third-party plug-in ecosystem is extremely rich and broad, with over 300 different plugins available to help you better design, prototype, and collaborate when building an interactive user experience. In fact, there are so many options that you might feel just a little overwhelmed. Where do you start? In this course, instructor Bart Van de Wiele’s takes you through his must-have list of Adobe XD plug-ins for UX designers in 2021. He sorted through the extensive library and picked his top choices for designing user experiences, presentations, and interactive prototypes, so you can skip that time-consuming process and get right to learning how to actually use the plug-ins.

Hidden gems to boost your productivity from Adobe XD Plug-Ins: The 2021 Must-Have List by Bart Van de Wiele

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Design the icons you want

My third course on LinkedIn Learning has just been released: Creating Icons with Adobe Illustrator. And of course as the title suggests, this is all about learning how to create your own icons using Adobe Illustrator. This course provides an overview of what an icon is and its key characteristics, then teaches you how to design your own icons using Adobe Illustrator. Instructor Bart Van de Wiele explores why you need icons, how you use them, and why scalability is important. Bart steps you through how to set up your Illustrator document before you begin your design process. He describes how to organize your work using Illustrator artboards for arranging, naming, and exporting your icons. Bart walks you through ways to import your sketch into Illustrator, then goes over how to clean up your sketch digitally. He shows you how to use simple, complex, and compound shapes to build your logo digitally, then explores several more advanced techniques. In conclusion, Bart covers best practices for exporting your icons for the web, for print, and for use in other applications like Photoshop.

Fast and efficient icon creation from Creating Icons with Illustrator by Bart Van de Wiele

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It’s that time of the year again! Adobe MAX, the biggest creative conference in the world is again taking place. However this time it is from the comfort of our couches and office chairs. But this years online edition does come bearing gifts. Because you can register for Adobe MAX for free and access all of the +350 sessions of the conference. So pretty amazing stuff if you ask me. And I am honored to be a part of Adobe MAX again!

My Adobe MAX speaker shirt was sent in the mail.

How to combine Photoshop-Illustrator-InDesign

My session at MAX this year is about using Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign as a powerhouse combination to save time, simplify your workflow, and create impressive work. Discover the value and benefits of using native file formats in each application to make roundtripping easy, and learn how you can speed up production workflows using techniques involving file placements, snippets, linking or embedding files, and much more.

The session is split into three separate sessions in order to make them easily consumable. After all nobody likes to sit in on a 90 min virtual session.

In Part 1, you’ll learn how to manage content in InDesign by:

• Using linked Photoshop snippets
• Using Photoshop layer comps to simplify your workflow
• Knowing the difference when placing Illustrator layers versus artboards
• Nesting InDesign documents

In Part 2, we’ll focus on bringing content into Photoshop by:

• Learning various ways of importing Illustrator artwork
• Discovering the value of InDesign snippets for mockups
• Learning how to use nested layer comps

In Part 3, it’s all about Illustrator. You’ll learn how to upgrade your artwork by:

• Discovering how to exchange text with InDesign
• Nesting native Illustrator documents
• Using linked Photoshop snippets to your advantage

Be sure to register for my session here.

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After much hard work I’m proud to announce my second course has just been released on LinkedIn Learning. Adobe Color Essentials will take you on an explorative journey filled with color and inspiration. During this course, I will teach you how to use all of Adobe Color’s features
and how they fit in your daily design routine. Taking you from the fundamentals of creating a color group to managing colors in Creative Cloud Libraries and tips on how to apply, share and save them. No stone will be left unturned as the second half of this course shifts from creating and exploring colors to teaching you some of the unique color manipulation features available within Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

A colorful journey from Adobe Color Essential Training by Bart Van de Wiele

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I’m super happy to announce that I’m speaking at CreativePro Week early June. Well, virtually at least since this year CreativePro Week has become an online event due to the quarantine. And because of these changed circumstances you’ll be able to follow all of my sessions online and rewatch the recordings later (which might be very valuable to some). Of course this is not the same as being able to say hi to myself and other speakers in person. But at least no one will have to miss out on great content this year. Here’s a quick rundown of my sessions.

InDesign+Photoshop+Illustrator

Tuesday, June 2, 10:30 am – 11:30 am Central

It’s the ultimate Adobe power-trio: InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator! But you’ll never be efficient with any one of them if you don’t understand how they work with the others!

Topics include:

• Why layers are such a big deal
• How to properly set up Photoshop and Illustrator files for InDesign
• Choosing between layers and artboards
• CC Libraries: the secret back door conduit
• Best practices for managing vectors and pixels
• And much more!

Managing Your Assets with Libraries

Tuesday, June 2, 3:45 pm – 4:30 pm Central

Working smarter-not-harder is possible when you leverage features in InDesign like native libraries and Creative Cloud libraries. Both offer a way to save, organize, and share your brand assets. In this session, you’ll explore the differences between InDesign native libraries and Creative Cloud libraries, and see how you can significantly speed up your daily workflow and help you push through global updates over multiple programs and projects.

Topics will include:

• The difference between InDesign libraries and Creative Cloud libraries
• How to create and manage Creative Cloud libraries
• How to store your assets in online folders
• How to use the web portal to manage your assets
• How to share your libraries and collaborate with others
• Best practices when re-using assets in multiple Adobe applications

XD for presentations

Thursday, June 4, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm Central

Adobe XD is changing the way many think about designing and prototyping for the web and mobile applications, but it’s also found an unexpected use case. With its blazing fast performance and intuitive features like Auto-Animate, more and more users are starting to craft their presentations completely using XD. In this session, Bart will share their tips and tricks for how to get the most out of Adobe XD for presentations, how to build incredible animations to tell your story (without having to use a complicated timeline interface), how to collaborate with others to build your presentation, and how to share and present your final masterpiece.

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This is something that’s been on my bucket list for a long time and was finally able to make this a reality. In January of this year I traveled to sunny Carpinteria (CA, USA) to record my first LinkedIn Learning course (formally Lynda.com). I am not new to the world of recording, however this was my first time working on a personal project of this size. And instead of recording short videos from the safety of my home office, I spent a good amount of days in a professional recording booth working with my producer.

The result: Photoshop-Illustrator-InDesign Powercombo for Design

As a designer, you’re used to using a myriad of different tools, like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. And often, you need to place, import, or paste content from one of these applications into another. But choosing the wrong technique or file format can sometimes lead to restrictions in your workflow. Typical symptoms of this are difficulties round-tripping between applications, having to flatten layers, or having to save multiple versions of the same file. All of this can result in lost time or unnecessary additional files for you to manage. In this course, we explore the best ways to navigate Adobe’s flagship applications, using real-life production techniques you can apply in your print or online design workflows.

The courses is designed for anyone that wants to do more with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign and includes both old and new techniques. The inspiration for my course came from my years working as a designer. I almost every project in this course is based on a specific project or situation that I encountered myself and was able to solve using these exact same techniques. So I hope this course will be useful to everyone.

Be sure to check out my course and try some of the free videos!

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My top reasons for attending CreativePro Week

The people

First of all, it’s actually my first time speaking at CreativePro Week. I know I know, I’ve spoken at PePcon and the InDesign Conference before. But this is CreativePro Week, the all-in-one-super-awesome-graphic-design-conference, with a pickle on top. So this means I’ll get to talk to not only print designers but also photographers, illustrators and many other talented people. And then of course there are the speakers. I have to say it’s quite an impressive line up (for the record, not because I’ll be there myself ;-P). Mark Heaps, Julieanne Kost, Nigel French, Von Glitschka, Russel Brown … the list goes on and on. To me it’ll be a time of seeing old friends and hopefully making new ones.

The content

Because of this wide range of speakers and topics through out the week, there’s bound to be a few very juicy tips and tricks. And though I live and breath “Adobe” everyday I’d never go around claiming I know everything. I always like to compare this to cooking. It’s not because someone is a great chef that he can’t experience good food or learn a few new dishes using the same ingredients. So I hope I’ll have some extra time to attend a few sessions myself. And if I don’t learn any new tricks, I can always end up learning interesting presentation techniques (btw, did you know during CPro there’s the “Click” conference as well? Be sure to attend that if you want to beef up your own presentation skills).

I’ll be able to disclose more about my exact sessions pretty soon, so stay tuned!

The location

I’ve visited the U.S. many times now, on an average of 2 times a year. But I’ve never been New Orleans before and it looks so exciting and different. So I’m very much looking forward to just being a tourist. You know, try the food, stroll around, buy things I don’t need. And best of all, the conference is located downtown.

So as you can see it’s more than worth jumping on a plane and visiting New Orleans next June. And if you do, be sure to say hi when you see me. You can’t miss me, I’ll be the tall guy ;-).

More info here.

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