If your job involves determining or recommending the most efficient tools for creating Web pages, Flash animations, electronic books and printed documents, this report will give you the factual data that otherwise is buried in hype (from either Adobe or Quark). One of my favorite quotes from the summary is this:

“With InDesign CS5 we believe it has become clear that apart from designing simple moving objects and some video, more complete web and interactive design is not something that Adobe is expecting layout designers to do in InDesign.”

And this: “Graphic designers can work in a more efficient and therefore cost-effective way with QuarkXPress 8, because they can take on projects that would otherwise require training in Dreamweaver and Flash Professional if they were to use InDesign — or handing off a project to a developer much sooner, risking design inconsistencies and higher costs.”

Below is further information from their press release, and how to download the free report:

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The author tests and rates both products on their performance in creating 10 specific types of Web and interactive project that a print designer might want or need to undertake, such as portfolio or product microsites, banner ads, presentations and digital signage.

“We wanted to cut through the feature hype that software companies all too often propagate and look at what both products offered in practical terms to a graphic designer that works in print but wants to extend to Web and interactive design.” said Erik Vlietinck, author of the IT Enquirer Report. “The results somewhat surprised us. We expected with the enhanced Web and interactive functionality that has been added to InDesign CS5 that it would have either substantially closed the gap or even overtaken QuarkXPress 8 in these areas. While InDesign CS5 has certainly closed some of the feature gaps for interactive design, in reality QuarkXPress 8 came out on top in 9 of the 10 project types, matching InDesign CS5 in the other one.”

“QuarkXPress 8 has an edge when it comes to efficiently outputting content to multiple channels. It seems that Adobe considers InDesign CS5 an inferior tool compared to any Integrated Development Environment (IDE) hence the print designers are pushed out of the design process for Web and interactive very early on in the process. For anything more complex than exporting a digital magazine, users of InDesign CS5 are left in the cold and expected to either learn to code or hand-off the work to developers to do” continued Vlietinck.

“This is an area that is evolving very quickly.” said Vlietinck. “With Adobe’s well-publicised issues outputting from InDesign to the iPad and iPhone and Quark’s recent unveiling of Digital Publishing 2.0 to take their customers to digital devices and specifically their new partnerships around the Blio eReader, there will be a continued and rapid evolution in this area over the next 12 months. Desktop publishing is no longer just about print. It’s increasingly important to be able to design for and output to digital including the new generation of digital devices that lend themselves to design-rich layouts. With the right tools, print designers are very well placed to benefit from this revolution.”

The Executive Summary can be found at: www.it-enquirer.com/?p=1105
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3M Visual Attention Service (VAS)

VAS attempts to refine that process by analyzing everything from color and shape to a design’s visual hierarchy, and then rates the amount of potential impact. Users simply upload an image to 3M VAS website and wait for the analysis, which comes in the form of a region map and a heat map.

The region map displays probable areas that will be read and the heat map highlights areas that are more likely to get attention. Pay-as-you-go and monthly subscriptions are available; each analysis costs from $11 to $20.

The second is “Once Upon A Curve“,  a book written by educator Annie Bealey to encourage kids to write, and produced by Julie Pruitt, who is also a “QuarkXPress Magician”.

In addition, this $80 Mac-only utility can extract all objects (images, sounds, video, shapes, text, morphs, ActionScripts, etc.) used in SWF and Flex files into various file formats. This is a useful tool for recovering the parts from a compiled Flash file when the original isn’t available or is corrupted.

Besides being a great showcase for artists’ work, www.DeviantART.com is a community of artists who enjoy sharing all their creations, like those brushes, as well as backgrounds and other design elements. Just remember as you’re browsing the site that each shared item has a different licensing structure that needs to be respected. When in doubt, the artist is often only a comment box away!

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Join Quark for a FREE DesignCast
No Code Required: Creating Flash and Interactive Design with QuarkXPress 8
Date: July 7, 2010
Time: 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time / 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Duration: 1 hour
QuarkXPress® 8 allows designers to leverage their print layout and design skills to create Flash output without learning code–which is helping designers of every level take on new professional opportunities. Join Quark’s Dan Logan as he demonstrates a few of the practical applications for the Flash® output that can be created in QuarkXPress 8®, such as a presentation or slide show.
You’ll learn how to create:

• Looping content
• Rotating animations
• Image sequences that cycle through images continually

Register here.

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QuarkXPress makes it easy to add videos to your Web and Interactive projects combining the rich design capabilities of QuarkXPress.

Join this eSeminar to learn more about importing and handling videos within QuarkXPress 8 Interactive layouts. Use pre-designed video skins and control buttons to customize the look and feel of videos. Find out more about the different types of videos that can be imported into your Flash projects. Learn how to export the videos so that they play successfully on your computer, within a presentation or on a Web site.

Register now for the next eSeminar which takes place on July 20.

» 9am MDT session
» 12pm MDT session

Did you miss any of our Flash dedicated eSeminars? No problem!
» Watch the recordings now

We have made the demo files of our “Self-running Flash Presentations” session available for your to help you get started creating your own looping presentations.
» Download the demo files

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QuarkXPress has been able to produce web content since version 5, but compared to print there are more restrictions in terms of graphics and font support. However web content can incorporate features unavailable in the flat print world and web layouts created in QuarkXPress can offer interactive elements, such as user-activated buttons, menus, hyperlinks, submittable forms and Flash content. We’ll explore a few of these options here, and see how QuarkXPress 8 also lets you convert an existing print layout to a web layout.

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Check it out here

Now, to recognize the best Flash designs and to encourage other QuarkXPress users to explore its Flash capabilities, Quark has begun a design competition with valuable prizes. Their press release below spells out the details. Be sure to act quickly, as submissions begin now and voting begins June 6th!

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Quark Launches Flash Design Competition; Voting Starts at HOW 2010 in Denver

QuarkXPress 8 Flash Competition Winner will Appear in HOW Magazine’s Blog, Win Membership to HOW’s Design Insider Program, and Take Home an Exclusive Pack of Designer’s Tools, including the new PANTONE PLUS SERIES Guides, a Pantone ColorMunki, and a VisTablet

Denver – May 26, 2010 – Today Quark, Inc. launched a new Flash design competition that is open to designers who are creating Flash® projects, such as Websites, banner ads, and online design portfolios, with QuarkXPress® 8. The competition kicks off today and voting will begin at the HOW Conference 2010 being held in Denver June 6 – 9, 2010. Submissions will be accepted at www.ilovedesign.com/gallery/competitions/how2010 from May 26 – June 30, 2010 and voting will be open Sunday, June 6 – June 30. The designer who submits the best Flash project as determined by voters will appear in HOW Magazine’s blog, win membership to HOW’s Design Insider Program, and take home an amazing pack of designer’s tools, including the new  PANTONE PLUS SERIES Guides, a Pantone ColorMunkiTM, and a VisTablet from VisTablet Systems Inc .

Enter Quark’s Flash Competition
To enter the competition, designers must submit SWF files created with QuarkXPress 8 to www.ilovedesign.com/gallery/competitions/how2010 by 12:00 p.m. Mountain Time on June 30, 2010. For projects that are online as complete Web sites and not available as separate SWF files, entrants are also permitted to upload images of their work and provide a link to the work online. Designers do not need to attend the HOW conference to enter the competition or to win, and can submit their Flash projects right up to June 30th deadline. However, because submissions can be rated online at any time during the competition, the longer a submission is showcased in the competition the better chance it will have of attracting the popular vote. The winner will be announced during a Webcast being hosted by HOW Magazine and Quark on July, 7, 2010.

“We’ve heard from many QuarkXPress 8 users who let us know that being able to leverage their print layout and design skills to create Flash output has extended their value as creative professionals, which is crucial in today’s job market,” said Sophia Farina, director of marketing for Quark. “We look forward to honoring our talented Flash designers at the HOW conference, as well as awarding the winner fantastic visibility and a package of top-notch technology.”

Voters will be encouraged to rate submissions as well as select their favorite Flash project based on creativity, composition, and level of interactivity within the design. All submissions must be technologically sound and utilize the Flash functionality of QuarkXPress 8. To vote or enter the contest, designers will need to create a free account on www.ilovedesign.com.

The Prizes
Quark, HOW Magazine, Pantone, and VisTablet have put together a prize package worth more than $1100 – not to mention the incredible opportunity to be spotlighted in HOW Magazine’s blog (http://blog.howdesign.com/).

• HOW Design Insider Program:* This package includes a one-year U.S. subscription to HOW Magazine, a one-year subscription to Print Magazine, one year online access to more than 20,000 award winning graphic designs from the Regional Design Annual, access to HOW Magazine’s popular designcast – From Print to Web, discounts on HOW design conferences, and more.  http://www.mydesignshop.com/product/design-insider/
• PANTONE PLUS SERIES: A modern evolution of the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM, the PANTONE PLUS SERIES provides designers with a chromatic arrangement of colors for more intuitive selection, an expanded palette of spot colors, the addition of new premium metallics and a broader range of neons – 566 new colors in all. www.pantone.com/plus
• Pantone ColorMunki™ Design: Pantone’s all-in-one spectrophotometer easily captures colors and calibrates monitors, printers and projectors. www.pantone.com/cmdesign
• VisTablet Original 12″ Silver Graphics Tablet: Setting new standards for graphic tablets, VisTablets feature large surface area to ease design and are extremely thin for portability. http://www.vistablet.net/

*In place of the Design Insider Program, a winner outside of the U.S. will receive a one-year, international subscription to HOW Magazine and Print Magazine.

QuarkXPress 8 Flash Magic
Quark launched its ‘Flash Magic’ global campaign in March 2010 in an effort to help QuarkXPress 8 users get more value from their investment. The campaign is built around a dedicated microsite developed in QuarkXPress 8 (www.quark.com/magic) that includes video training, downloadable Flash® resources, real-life customer success stories, and more. With an estimated value of $750, the Flash resources represent substantial additional value for new and existing users alike.

The Flash Magic site:

• Identifies ten types of interactive projects that users might build using QuarkXPress 8, including online design portfolios, product microsites, multimedia Web sites, digital signage, interactive CDs/DVDs, and banner ads.
• Gives QuarkXPress 8 users access to more than 500 downloadable Flash assets, including generic buttons, menus, video and audio players, and complete Web sites.
• Invites QuarkXPress 8 users to become QuarkXPress Flash Magicians by demonstrating their Flash design skills in QuarkXPress 8. Flash Magicians have the opportunity to win a LinkedIn recommendation from Quark, a QuarkXPress Magician certificate, and receive 2 years free QuarkXPress maintenance.

Visit www.quark.com/magic to start learning more today.

About Quark
Quark® Inc. is a leading provider of publishing software for professional designers, small and mid-sized businesses, and large organizations in more than 160 countries. Two decades ago, our flagship product – QuarkXPress® – changed the course of traditional publishing. For more than 25 years, Quark has built on its knowledge and experience in design and publishing to provide software solutions that support collaborative workflows and automated publishing across multiple channels. Today, Quark is revolutionizing publishing again by setting new standards in XML-based publishing across print, the Web, and digital media as well as by helping owners and employees of small and mid-sized businesses promote their products and services easily, professionally, and affordably. Denver-based Quark Inc. is privately held.

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Any presentation can be undermined by spelling errors. Learn how to check for typos within your Flash layout. Get the most out of your design by bringing in pictures to enhance the look and feel. Get to know the types of images that work best in Flash presentations. Make your presentation pop by adding effects to your added pictures and objects by making them zoom in and out as well as getting the objects to move along a path. Boost your presentation by making it more three-dimensional. Add window objects in different shapes that can display on top of pages so that they pop off the page to add emphasis. Use these windows to display specialised content or to show videos in their own viewing window.

Register now for the next eSeminar which takes place on May 18th.

Register now for the 9 am MDT session.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/684888769

Register now for the 12 pm MDT session.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/803754129

Please note that we are changing our online event tool from May onwards. No password is required to attend our eSeminar sessions. Simply register and you will receive the information on how to attend via email.
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If you missed Quark’s previous eSeminars, you can watch recordings of these sessions, dedicated to the Flash features in QuarkXPress 8. Watch them here. http://www.flash8magic.com/en/recordings/