Free Stuff: CS5 Keyboard Shortcut Guides Updated 

For each Adobe CS program, we put all of the best keyboard shortcuts on one webpage and on one PDF for you to download. And these aren’t just the obvious shortcuts like Command-C, but secret shortcuts that are known only to members of the Secret Society of Creative Sweethearts (shhh! don’t tell them we did this). These shortcut guides come straight from our workbooks. Go ahead and download one now!

Click here for all of our Keyboard Shortcuts, Mac & PC:
http://www.nobledesktop.com/shortcuts.html

Attention Apple Mail Users 

If you are using Apple Mail, you may notice that links from our Table of Contents do not go directly to the item listed. This is because Apple has updated something in their operating system that prevents named anchors from working properly.

This affects all HTML emails, not just ours! When you do click the link, it will go to the linked item, but put the linked item at the bottom of the window. Just scroll down a little bit more to see the whole item.

Once Apple fixes this issue (or a workaround is discovered), we will let you know! Thanks and apologies for any inconvenience.

New Fall Class: Graphic Design Fundamentals: Concept and Application 

Noble Desktop announces its first full-length Graphic Design Fundamentals course! This class meets once per week for 10 weeks beginning September 15. We are responding to numerous requests for graphic design courses that cover not only where to point and click, but how to design.

Projects

You may use your own content and subject matter, or we will provide materials for you.

1. Develop abstract designs
2. Wrapping paper
3. Logo
4. Identity system design
5. Typeface research
6. Advertisement with type and images
7. Magazine article
8. Web site (static)—we will discuss development goals & considerations; those proficient in HTML/Dreamweaver may begin development in class if time allows

About the Instructor

James Puckett is the founder of Dunwich Type Founders, a type design studio based in New York City. In addition to typeface design James is a skilled graphic designer. He is a book critic for ILoveTypography.com and an adjunct professor at Fordham University.

Read more about the class here:
http://www.nobledesktop.com/gdf.html

New Fall Class: Design & Self-Promotion Workshop 

In this class, which meets once per week for 10 weeks beginning September 13, students will design and produce a complete set of self-promotional materials, including a print portfolio. Group critiques will be emphasized so that students may gain an objective understanding of the relative impact of their self-promotional efforts.

Projects

1. Holiday Mailer
2. Set up Social Networking Pages
3. Leave-behind
   
4. Eblast or eNewsletter
   
5. PDF Sampler
   
6. Business Card or Thank-you note
   
7. Portfolio Workshop

About the Instructor

Carrie Hamilton is designer and founder of Kismet, an independent graphic design studio in New York City. Her work has won awards from the AIGA and The Bookbinders’ Guild of New York, and has been featured in New Vintage Type: Classic Fonts for the Digital Age by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson, Metropolis magazine and in the design blogs Felt & Wire, FaceOut Books, FPO: a Division of UnderConsideration and Swiss Miss. She teaches portfolio design at Parsons the New School for Design.

Read more about the class here:
http://www.nobledesktop.com/self-promotion.html

Get Started With WordPress.com  

Interested in starting a blog? This comprehensive course will help you setup and manage your very own blog using WordPress.com. WordPress makes it easy to maintain a website, even if you have no web design background. This is probably why WordPress is the most popular blogging platform on the web today! Check out our complete syllabus.

Below are a few of the topics covered in the course:

• Setting up an account with WordPress.com
• Customizing an account
• Creating Posts
• Adding Pages
• Including Media (Images, Movies, PDFs)
• Creating Link Lists
• Customizing the Blog’s Appearance
  - Uploading Custom Graphics
  - Using Pre-Made Themes
  - Choosing Custom Fonts with Typekit
• Using the Dashboard

At the completion of the course you will have a fully functioning blog, web address and the skills required to run it. Your blog will be up and running!

This is the first of two WordPress classes we will be offering, the second of which is currently in development. This class is geared for anyone and everyone, no experience with computer graphics or coding is required! Even if you are a web designer that is unfamiliar with WordPress, this is the first step to learning it so you understand how to make posts, pages, etc.

Click here to check out the schedule: Next class is Oct 22!
http://www.nobledesktop.com/schedule.cfm

Free Seminar: Roadmap to a Career in Web or Print Design 

A Noble Desktop Open House

You may be thinking about a new career in computer graphics, but where do you start? And in which direction should you aim? Is it web page design, Flash animation, or print? To answer these questions Noble Desktop has created a free seminar, Roadmap to a Career in Web or Print Design. We’ll tell you what you need to know to get started in web and/or print graphics.

Here’s some of what we will cover:

• A look at current trends in computer graphics and how to learn them
  • Should you focus on web page design?
  • What about Flash animation?
  • Is print dead? If not, where are the opportunities?
• Recommended classes to achieve your career goals
• Suggestions on free resources to achieve your career goals
• Once you decide on a career-path, what’s the best way to get there?
• How do you get that first website up?
• If you are doing print, do you still need a website? (Yes!)
• Should you have an online portfolio, and what should you put in it?
• Q & A

To sign up for this “on the house” seminar, held in-person at our office, click here: http://www.nobledesktop.com/seminar.cfm

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Free Seminar: Employment Strategies 

As both a training center and employer, Noble Desktop is in a unique position to tell you what works and does not work when looking for employment. There are a few rules that most graphic designers and production people should follow, though 90% of them do not! We will have candid advice that may surprise and enlighten you. Our goal is to provide the best training in the world AND for our students to be gainfully employed.

Here’s just some of what we will cover:

• Resume dos and don’ts
• Strategies for improving your computer graphic skills
• Strategies for developing and building an Online Portfolio
  
• Examples of good online portfolios
• Strategies for getting freelance work
• Strategies for getting fulltime work
• Places to look for jobs

To sign up for this “on the house” seminar, held in-person at our office, click here: http://www.nobledesktop.com/seminar.cfm

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Free Seminar: Intro to Adobe InDesign 

InDesign has proven itself to be the undisputed champion in the page-layout wars. In this seminar we’ll demonstrate the ease and power of InDesign. We’ll create some layouts from scratch, as well as demonstrate some of the more powerful functions on existing layouts.

Here are some of the topics we’ll touch on:

• The InDesign Interface
• Importing images and text
• Style sheets:
  • Nested Styles allow InDesign to automatically style text for you
  • “Apply Next” feature allows you to apply multiple styles in one click!
  • Various wonderful style sheet importing and overriding tools
  • Object styles
• The Eyedropper Tool
• Automatic bulleted lists
• The Adobe Paragraph Composer
• Glyphs
• Transparency, Drop Shadows, etc. (and how to get them to print properly)
  
• Creating PDFs—the definitive explanation.
  
• and more!

This seminar is designed for people who are new to InDesign, not just looking for the Upgrade features.

To sign up for this “on the house” seminar, held in-person at our office, click here: http://www.nobledesktop.com/seminar.cfm

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Free Seminar: Intro to Adobe Photoshop 

Photoshop may be a household word, but not everyone knows how to use it. In fact it is still one of our most popular classes. In this seminar we’ll cover the basics of Photoshop so you can get started using it for photo retouching, or web and print design.

Here is a sampling of the great stuff we’ll demonstrate in this seminar:

• clone stamp / healing brush
• layers
  
• making selections
  
• type
• layer effects
• color correction with adjustment layers
• resolution:
  • what is the appropriate resolution for print and web?
  • issues you need to keep in mind when changing resolutions
• how to save your files (appropriate file formats for print and web)

To sign up for this “on the house” seminar, held in-person at our office, click here: http://www.nobledesktop.com/seminar.cfm

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Free Seminar: Illustrator CS5 Upgrade—What’s New? 

In Illustrator CS5 Adobe went back to the basics and greatly improved some fundamental features like strokes. Now you can create amazingly expressive lines very easily. Creating complex shapes is easier with a Shape Builder tool, and you can draw in proper perspective with a perspective grid. Even web graphics look better because they now snap to pixels. Come and see why we’re digging Illustrator CS5.

Here’s a sampling of what you’ll learn:

• Vary the width of individual strokes.
• Build shapes more intuitively with the Shape Builder tool.
  
• New drawing modes.
  
• Draw in perspective.
  
• Improved Strokes: Better Dashed Lines and Arrowheads.
  
• Crisp web graphics and text.
• Resolution-Independent Effects.
• Artboard Improvements.
• The new Bristle Brush brings realistic painting to vectors.
  
• and more!

This seminar is for people who have already been using Illustrator.

To sign up for this “on the house” seminar, click here:
http://www.nobledesktop.com/seminar-online.cfm

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Word That Should Be Used More Often — Of The Month! 

A new feature in the Noble Enewsletter: not just a “Word of the Month” but a word that should be used more often — of the month! This devious entertainment device was hatched up with the help of one of our linguistically-inclined students.

This week's word is murdelize.

As we understand the meaning from our Mid-Western roots, murdelize means “absolutely destroy” in many ways, such as “murdelize a plate of food” (devour it), or have one team murdelize another (crush them on the field). UrbanDictionary.com has a rougher version, meaning “to brutally murder, may involve disembowelment or cannibalism.” We think that is a little extreme; we'll take our definition. Try it out and let us know if it works in your conversation.

If you have a good Word that Should Be Used More Often, send it in, and if we use it you’ll earn a stylin’ Noble T.
Email to: educator-in-chief@nobledesktop.com