I’ve just returned from CreativePro 2024 in Washington DC that took place between 8-12 July. This was the first time since 2019 in Seattle that I had attended a CreativePro conference in person. For context, the 2020 Austin CreativePro was changed last minute to an online event due to the pandemic halting travel worldwide, and since then CreativePro has offered an online alternative for those who cannot attend in person.

That’s a long journey!

As an attendee who has travelled in excess of 20 hours – one way – to attend the conference, one might ask “why not attend remotely?” To be fair, I’ve attended the last two CreativePro events remotely following the pandemic. That said, there is something about attending in person – there are all the benefits of the remote sessions, plus:

• Ability to talk directly to speakers outside of sessions.
• Network with other attendees.
• Merch. In person attendees do get a ‘swag bag’ and an opportunity for further merchandise from the exhibitors booths.
• Participate in after hours events on location, or take an opportunity for some sightseeing.
• Participate during daylight hours, rather than participating in my usual timezone that is approximately 11 hours difference.
• The meals and light refreshments served as part of the conference (way better than the remote catering).

Small tips are worth the admission price

For me, this conference was an opportunity to improve my Adobe Illustrator skills, particularly as my employer leans more towards the high-end wine label market. It didn’t take long to find a small tip that was going to save my colleagues and I hours – graphic styles. For years, my colleagues and I have drawn rounded rectangles with the spot colour “Dieline” so that clients can see the dieline of the label. It usually takes four steps:

• draw a rectangle to the appropriate size;
• open the CC library and fetch the dieline colour to apply to the stroke;
• go to the properties panel and change the rounded corners to 0.8mm;
• change the stroke to overprint in the attributes panel.

Now it takes two steps – draw the rectangle to the appropriate size and then apply the Dieline graphic style. This was an adaptation of a technique demonstrated in Laura Coyle’s session Illustrator Graphic Styles for Workflow Magic. It didn’t take long to realise that this technique also had further practical application, such as the creation of:

• White Ink Masks;
• Embellishment colours (high build, foil, emboss);
• Crop Marks

It is a simple “a-ha!” moment like this that – for me – makes it all worthwhile, as I can now take this information back to my colleagues and save collectively hours per year performing an otherwise routine task. Every conference I’ve attended has these “a-ha!” moments!

Themes of the conference

Those who attended the conference would have definitely noticed some themes running through the event:

• Artificial Intelligence – it’s here, it’s the next challenge – what will we face, what will be next, and how do we plan for the future?
• Accessibility and WCAG2.0 compliance for publications.
• The power of the printed product and novel printing techniques now available in the market.

Beyond attending

Though I’d arrived as an attendee that intended to deliver an ignite session (A five minute session of 20 slides, each slide advancing every 15 seconds), I was encouraged to speak at the Creative Developers Summit to demonstrate that a prepress operator can still write powerful production tools using extendscript.

The ignite session was a way to document my journey that has been the technique of preparing variable bar graphs using InDesign’s Data Merge feature. It shows the early complicated iterations, the clever iterations that used GREP styles to change a number to a bar graph, to the current technique that allows the technique to be performed in virtually any software, provided it has both:

• the ability to control the format of an underline; and
• a data merge or mail merge feature.

A full write-up of this technique can be found over here at CreativePro.com.

A last minute cancellation also allowed me to participate in the Three Minutes Max challenge for InDesign. While my entry for the challenge polled the lowest out of the nine tips on offer, I have to tip my hat to the other eight entries that earned their bragging rights. Let’s face it, when you’re competing against seasoned veteran speakers, you have to bring your A-game…

Wearing my Adobe Experts Group hat as well, had a couple of stints holding the fort at the Adobe booth along with fellow Adobe Experts.

By chance, I’d also received a Colecandoo enquiry asking for support concerning an epub that was persistently being rejected by a vendor. This was the perfect opportunity to ask fellow attendees about the issue – something that I would not have likely been able to do back home.

There was also the opportunity to participate with the Adobe Illustrator and InDesign teams privately in focus group sessions.

A round of applause please!

To the CreativePro team who puts on the conference each year, thank you very much for all your efforts not just on stage, but behind the scenes.

To the Adobe staff and developers, thank you for your time to not only meet with myself and other attendees, but to also take the information on board to make future versions of the products better.

To my friends that I get to see in person during the event, it’s always great to catch up and if we don’t meet again at Adobe MAX in Miami, hopefully we will meet in Phoenix next year.

See you in Phoenix 2025

Now that the conference has wrapped up for 2024, I definitely recommend attending next year’s CreativePro in person in Phoenix – June 2-6.

If that is too long a wait, note that the CreativePro team have some online summits scheduled for later this year – check out their page for more details: https://creativepro.com/events/

Full disclosure

I’ve written over 30 articles for CreativePro over the last 10 years and attended several CreativePro events both in person and remotely, and as both an attendee and speaker. With all of this out of the way, this article is my own initiative and I’ve not been paid for this article to be prepared.