Their names are on the spines of some of your most-thumbed texts and you devour their feature stories every month. Now you can meet your design heroes in person at the first InDesign LIVE conference in Auckland next month.

David Blatner has written 15 books on InDesign, Photoshop, and QuarkXPress, and is the presenter of Lynda.com's InDesign CS3 training series. He is editorial director of InDesign Magazine and the co-host of InDesignSecrets.com. Over a half a million copies of his books are in print in 12 languages. Their names are on the spines of some of your most-thumbed texts and you devour their feature stories every month. Now you can meet your design heroes in person at the first InDesign LIVE conference in Auckland next month.

David Blatner has written 15 books on InDesign, Photoshop, and QuarkXPress, and is the presenter of Lynda.com's InDesign CS3 training series. He is editorial director of InDesign Magazine and the co-host of InDesignSecrets.com. Over a half a million copies of his books are in print in 12 languages.Sandee Cohen is an internationally-known speaker, the author of the InDesign Visual Quick Start Guide, and writes tips for the InDesign Magazine tip of the week.

Tim Cole is the Senior InDesign evangelist and works with many publishing segments, including newspaper, magazine, and ad agencies. He writes the InDesign Backchannel blog.

Cari Jansen, Mike McHugh and Michael Stoddart are certified trainers and Adobe experts, each with several years of experience, making up the remaining presenters at this exciting live event for graphics professionals.

Blatner, fresh from April's InDesign Conference in Toronto, drew similarities between that city and what he expects from Auckland's audience, each equally eager to connect with the global design community through events like this.

"There are some significant similarities between Toronto and Auckland in terms of how many high-end training and conferences are available," said Blatner.

"Many people think, 'oh, I'll read a book or see a video or scan web sites for information about InDesign and the Creative Suite,' but the truth is that there is just nothing like having an expert in the room with you."

Twenty topics in two streams will be covered on days one and two of the New Zealand conference. Day three is devoted to mastering the Creative Suite. This will be a rare opportunity for designers, production managers and others to learn first-hand from Sandee Cohen, the tips and tricks in combining Creative Suite applications. But wherever in the world these sessions are presented, a highlight for delegates is the opportunity for personal design advice, direct from the legends.

"One of our philosophies for these conferences is, 'we're here to answer your questions'", Blatner noted. "You can't do that easily staring at a computer screen or reading a book. Conferences offer a real-life and very efficient method for communicating knowledge and ours do this in an informal, fun, easy-going environment. Of course, we don't really have all the answers, but we all have a lot of experience and we enjoy working with our attendees to find solutions to their problems."

InDesign LIVE is on at Eden Park Conference Centre on 17-19 June. Easy online registration and the full program is available at www.mogo-media.com/events.

Adobe Systems Inc., Desktop Magazine, Digital Arena, InDesign Magazine, i.t.i.p GmbH and Typefi are sponsors of the inaugural Auckland InDesign Conference.

27/05/08