Adobe Case Study - Creative Team

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Cross-Media

Cross-Platform

Experience

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IDG India Creative Team

Enhanced Output for A Range of Cross-Media & Cross Platform Products Global technology services powerhouse India’s operations uses Adobe software to develop a broad palette of offerings encompassing print, Web, multimedia for its vast customer base.

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eadquartered in Bangalore, IDG MEDIA India is a wholly owned subsidiary of IDG Inc., the world’s leading technology media, event and research group. Its industry acknowledged publications viz. CIO India, ChannelWorld and PC World India offer unparalleled depth, quality and reach. Its other offerings spanning Websites, micro-sites, technology-focused tradeshows, events, and seminars address the information requirements of decision-makers across industries and geographies. These Websites offer up-to-date information for a wide spectrum of IT audiences. IDG’s events meet the ever-changing needs of technology professionals across a wide range of industries and disciplines. IDG India’s landmark CIO 100 Awards is a proud tradition of honoring organizations and their CIOs who use information technology in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationships with customers.

Enhance Quality and Time-To-Market Metrics of Recent IDG India’s Offerings and Services The booming IT industry in India has attracted a host of players looking to address the growing informa-

tional and multi-media needs of the industry by offering a number of value-added services. US-based IDG INC.’s India foray was timed to perfection in the early years of this century. IDG India, since it began operations in India three years ago, has been offering the same breadth of portfolio of services of parent group IDG INC. to a very eager and growing Indian audience. A slew of magazines, events, trade-shows, seminars, Web sites and micro -sites are targeted towards a wide spectrum of IT audiences. Frequent and aggressive launches of products and organization of 14-15 signature events and tradeshows annually called for investment in the right technology and attendant toolsets to offer a holistic and interactive experience for its vast audience.

Within the first few months of IDG’s launch in India in 2005, a Design and Production team under the stewardship of Jayan Narayanan was put in place to supplement the efforts of the IDG editorial team.

The brief was to develop high -end graphic and design -based solutions based around Adobe’s rich, interactive and versatile products. Narayanan, an old hand at using Adobe products and solutions, quickly set up training schedules for his hand-picked team to handle a whole gamut of design and creative activities. In a short span of time, IDG India’s offerings across various mediums and platforms have helped

| Client CaseFiles it carve a leadership position in the media/content industry sweepstakes. However, it is the churn rate of the business and domain activities such as updated Web sites, micro -sites, events-based activities and marketing/communication activities in recent times that keeps the Design and Production team on its toes. And fast-forwarded the need and decision to invest in Creative Suite 3 Design Premium software.

Affirms Jayan Narayanan, Creative Director, IDG MEDIA India Ltd., “ So while having already invested in Adobe Creative Suite 2 in 2005, a spate of activi-

and events that IDG India organizes or manages throughout the year at places like Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, etc. IDG disseminates a whole host of marketing/communication paraphernalia at these targeted conferences attended by visionaries, business leaders, entrepreneurs, financiers, government officials etc. These business activities encompass multi-media, online, video, print and also advertising areas. The design templates for IDG’s main magazines viz. CIO, ChannelWorld and PC World have also been developed by

“My team gets involved at various stages of creative development and in various activities; from the pre-event, marcom flyers, videos, advertisements and related material to the layouts for the print publications. A whole host of Adobe tools are used to add value to, enhance, innovate on or create new services/packages for the whole gamut of IDG India businesses.” ties and products/services launches in recent times coupled with the shifts between changing mediums like print, online, motion meant that we had to look to update quickly to Adobe’s new offering CS 3 Design Premium edition. There was a clear need and mandate by the top management to deliver a range of ever- increasing IDG India services and offerings across media and platforms and to a growing customer base-both offline and online. Adobe’s new version of the CS Suite has surpassed all expectations and has made enhancements, adaptations and changes very seamless and flexible. The best part is that the compatibility issues and the inter-linking so necessary from the previous Suites have also been addressed and that too all in one consolidated Suite.

These are exceptionally productive tools for designing print, Web, film, video in one value-packed offering.”

Boost Output and Overall Productivity Narayanan’s team is on call to execute a whole host of occasional projects –sometimes on very short notice- and a number of technology-focused tradeshows and signature seminars/conferences

Narayanan’s team. Now the team concurrently also produces time-based issues of these magazines in terms of artwork, layout, finish and design.

Explains Narayanan, “ My team gets involved at various stages of creative development and in various activities; from the pre-event mar/com flyers, banners, advertisements and related material to the layouts for the print publications. A whole host of Adobe tools are used to add value to, enhance, innovate on or create new services/packages for the whole gamut of IDG India businesses. We use After Effects to help create infomercials and broadcast quality videos and for design, animation and audio-visual effects for various DVDs and tutorials that are given with various magazines. Also since After Effects works smoothly with Illustrator CS3 and Photoshop CS3, it enables the artists in my team to mesh artwork and graphics into audio-video projects. So even if the majority of the work and projects –about 80 %- that I allocate to my team is in publishing, the scale and range of IDG India businesses means that they are geared to supplement and enhance the various multi-media, online and mar/com activi-

| Client CaseFiles ties at regular intervals. You name it and virtually all features of Design Premium are used and leveraged by my team; InDesign CS3 for layout , Flash CS3 professional for interactive design, Dreamweaver CS3 for Web design and development, Acrobat 8 professional for PDF workflows and so and so forth. Truly, Adobe’s versatile suite of applications and integrated set of tools-primarily in CS 3- have been there to support and enhance the quality of our output in a sustained manner.”

Common Interface and Compatibility Makes Training a Breeze Within a month of launch of the Design Pre-

only has my personal training sessions have been easy to manage but my team has been able to update its skills is a matter of days. Because they had been using Illustrator, Photoshop and Dreamweaver, it became easier for them to understand the toolsets, the various commands and the functions and how they are inter-linked in CS 3. In many ways, the team members have become multi-skilled now. This is in line with my 2005 vision of ensuring that the team members I choose have the necessary aptitude, flexibility and desire to master different aspects of the Creative Suite package and not necessarily just familiarize themselves with the domain that they may been good at in their previous jobs/careers. It is

“Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 Design Premium’s enhanced and versatile features have provided unified, integrated and innovative design possibilities and outcomes for IDG India’s creative team.

These tremendous productivity gains have helped us to offer a holistic, interactive experience for customers availing of our varied products and services.” mium product, IDG India became one of the first companies to invest and leverage its immense possibilities. The strong inter-connection between various toolsets has streamlined workflow processes and enhanced productivity. The same kind of features palette, interface and toolsets has made it possible for Narayanan to refresh the skill-sets and capabilities of his team in doublequick time. The relevant design and production team professionals are able to depend on reliable PDF workflows for print production, move seamlessly from print design to Web design by exporting XHTML from InDesign to Dreamweaver, edit and make minor corrections in PDF as desired by the editorial team etc. As a set of tools, they are strongly connected to each other and this has enhanced our output and creates more interactive, rich experiences, says Narayanan.

Adds Narayanan, “ The versatility and flexibility of the CS 3 Design Premium software is such that not

the modularity, facilitative and ease-of-use functions and toolsets of CS 3 Design Premium that has been one of the biggest benefits.”

Making Design and Production Team Multi-Skilled and Versatile The 6 –member team assembled by Narayanan in 2005 is now 17 members strong. While different teams work on defined and earmarked projects, due to the pressure of certain events and IDG India’s big business push in India, many of these team members have collaborated on various projects and assignments. To be sure, it is here that Adobe has provided the ideal and highly integrated toolsets for these cross-media and cross- platform projects and enabled the Design team to execute these projects quite seamlessly. So whether it is importing Photoshop and Illustrator files into Flash or copying Photoshop files into Dreamweaver, the inter-operability and unified, integrated design experience has streamlined as well

| Client CaseFiles as enhanced productivity on all parameters. Further, Adobe Bridge helps the team to easily organize, browse, locate, and preview assets and thereby save time and resources. Customization and easy batchediting of TIFF, JPEG files are other advantages that become possible with Bridge.

A 2 member multi-media and online team is responsible for most Web-based projects -developing various micro-sites, events/seminars lead-up material. One more extension of this team lends audiovisual support for the multi-farious events, seminars and tradeshows. 2 more professionals are involved in marketing and communication-based activities.

Around 7 people are involved in layouts and infographics and related specific job activities for different magazines. Narayanan gushes about the versatility of his team and their ability to inter-change roles and re-

sponsibilities depending on workloads and businessbased needs even while being involved with their core activities/responsibilities.

States Narayanan, “ I firmly believe that you have to avail and leverage the full benefits of a dynamic and versatile product like Design Premium. There is no point investing in such a Suite if one does not use as much of the features as possible and customize them according to unique work/domain needs and requirements.

IDG’s breadth of offerings in India and its ever expanding portfolio means that we will continue to use and update Adobe software for all our cross-platform and cross-media offerings and services. Adobe’s latest product has more than satisfied all my needs and even surpassed my expectations on various parameters.”

SOLUTION SUMMARY Company

IDG MEDIA India Ltd. Bangalore, India www.idgindia.com

Challenge

• Invest in latest Adobe software at all times to match IDG MEDIA India’s growing expansion plans • Offer designers and visualizers the best-in-class industry tools to enhance productivity and workflow management • Use available latest, integrated tools to meet increasing cross-platform and cross-media business needs.

• Concurrently work with editorial team to showcase the best of IDG in print and Web products and offerings.

Solution

• Adopt Adobe CS 3 Design Premium software including Adobe InDesign® CS3 to streamline magazines’ layout and supplement Web, multi-media and marketing communication activities • Develop Web sites and need-based micro-sites using Flash for a rich, interactive experience.

Benefits

• Online collaboration and print output • A holistic experience for customers across Web, print, • Broadcast, and other cross-platform media • Greater creative freedom and layout/design options for various magazines • Multi-skilled team capable of handling diverse projects seamlessly.

• Enhanced workflow management productivity • Superior Time-to-Market metric for future launch of magazines and other product offerings.

Toolkit

The Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium.

Components used include:

• Adobe InDesign® CS3 • Adobe Photoshop® CS3 Extended • Adobe Illustrator® CS3 • Adobe Flash® CS3 Professional • Adobe Dreamweaver® CS3 • Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional 1 Apple Power Mac G5 machine and 16 Windows® XP-OS-based assembled PCs