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Noble Desktop, LLC was founded in 1990 by Scott
Carson as a desktop publishing studio, using QuarkXPress,
Illustrator and Photoshop to produce books, magazines, catalogs,
and other print material.
In 1991 Scott began to teach at Parsons School
of Design. Word got out that a good class in QuarkXPress was
being taught, but demand was far more than Parsons could handle.
So Scott started teaching at Noble in the evenings.
Eventually, students asked for other classes,
so Noble slowly added programs such as Adobe Illustrator and
Photoshop. By 1994 we had a staff of five instructors and
spent a lot of money advertising in local papers. When competition
heated up and the advertising became unpleasant, Noble stopped
advertising altogether.
But a funny thing happened. The students kept
enrolling, mainly through word of mouth. Noble had built up
such a base of previous students that referrals kept classes
full. In those days, class size was limited to 5 students.
These days, class size can be more than 15. Noble has not advertised in years, but business
remains robust. The reason is because we are continually improving
the training experience. In 1994 we hovered around one computer
monitor and handed out practice worksheets to students. Now
we teach with a projector and hand out bound workbooks to
students.
In August 1999 we typeset our last 1,000-page
book and decided to focus exclusively on training. Now we
have a staff of 3–4 that works expressly on improving
classes. We get to practice what we teach by working on our
own books and websites. It all makes for a very rewarding
mix of doing and teaching. Hope to see you in class soon and
thanks for visiting our Web Site!
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