Adobe Training Case Studies

Technical Book Project

The Problem

A student participated in a 3 day public course with other students. He learned the basics but was struggling to apply his new knowledge to his current project. The technical manual he was responsible for was a complicated problem.

The Process

Working together one on one, on an as needed, on an hourly basis we tackled the overwhelming task one piece at a time. We met for a few hours almost every day for a couple of weeks and he would immediately continue to put his new skills to work on his own. This helped cement the new knowledge into his workflow.

Success

Over the span of several weeks in short sessions he learned the skills required to complete his job. It was the first of many technical manuals to come. Creative Training is always here to answer questions and be an expert advisor.

Commercial Pool Compnay – Rockville, MD

The Problem

Paddock Swimming Pool Company was looking to train staff in the Adobe creative apps. They wanted to bring all marketing efforts in-house, including web design and maintenance, RFPs, brochures and advertising. They had 2 people assigned to these tasks. One had no experience and the other had some experience but wasn’t up to speed on the software. The skills required ranged from editing photos to working with CAD files in Illustrator and hand coding a website.

The Process

We worked together as a team for about a year, learning and creating in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, HTML & CSS. I would spend a full day with them every other week. We would work on learning things and they would have a couple of weeks to practice and be productive with their new skills.

Starting with Photoshop, I taught them how to edit and retouch photos. These were used for advertising, posters, manuals, RFPs and a website. We moved onto creating web graphics marketing collateral.

They needed to work with CAD files from the engineers. I taught them how to open and edit the CAD files, add color and resize them so they could be used in other documents like brochures and manuals. We used Illustrator for their logos, business card designs and more.

For RFPs, manuals and brochures, we used InDesign to bring it all together. The next step was their website. They had a website that was designed by outside company. We redesigned and built the entire thing from scratch using Dreamweaver, HTML & CSS and javascript. I wanted them to be very comfortable hand coding so they could maintain the website without help and redesign it on their own if needed.

Success

I would spend a full day in their office with them once every 2 weeks for about a year. At the end of the year they felt confident and had the skills to continue without any outside help. Using employees they already had allowed Paddock to save time and money on outside contractors. At the time of our training, these employees had been with company for 11yrs and 19yrs.

 

Landscaping Company - Leesburg, VA

The Problem

Sunrise Landscaping & Design needed a new, updated website. The person who had built the website originally was no longer with the company.  They hired 2 young people eager to get the job done but lacking in knowledge and skills. They wanted to keep the website in house and have their new employees design and maintain it.

The Process

I spent time at the company offices training the new employees. We covered Dreamweaver and HTML & CSS. I taught them the fundamentals of web design. Using their old website, we created a new fresh updated site. We worked as a team with me teaching and mentoring and encouraging the employees to take on more of the responsibility and design of the website.

Success

After spending a couple of months training and holding hands, the young employees’ skills grew and they became confident and competent to take over without any outside help.  This saved the company time and expense having in-house people to do the job and not having to  rely on outside contractors.

 

Motorcycle Company – Lathrop California

The Problem

The Eagles Nest Harley-Davidson produces web graphics and advertising. They prefer to keep all graphic design work in-house and not rely on contractors. They often hire new employees with little to not enough experience or expertise in graphic design.

The Process

Our relationship began when I trained 2 employees in Photoshop. We covered the basics and moved onto working on specific tasks that would be needed like bringing images together in collages, adding text and effects, changing colors and more. This training was done online in 3 days.

Over time, employees move on and new ones are hired. When that happens, they call me to train the new hires in a 3 days training session to get them up to speed with graphic design and using Photoshop.

Success

The three day training is a fast and efficient way to get new hires up to speed. It costs less than hiring more experienced designers and provides a great benefit to the new employees.

 

Cook Book – Highlands Ranch, CO

The Problem

The cookbook was a labor of love. Hours and hours were spent perfecting ethnic recipes, taking photos and putting it all together into a beautiful eye-catching book. The author was using InDesign to make the book. He was self-taught and got as far as he could on his own. Repetitive tasks were time consuming and he knew there had to be a better, faster way.

The Process

I invited him to sit down at my dining room table with me, as he preferred to be face to face rather than online together. In just one day, I taught him all about using master pages and techniques to automate the repetitive tasks that were slowing him down.

Success

Before he found me, he was struggling on his own. He learned new tools and techniques to get his book finished and he had a resource he continue to come to with questions and find more quick tips.