Adobe Creative Suite Idea Kit (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Adobe's flagship products--Photoshop, Illustrator InDesign, Acrobat, and GoLive--offer a wealth of creative print and Web solutions when used separately. Use them together, and you're ready to conquer the world--at least if you have this guide! In this elegant yet affordable volume, highly regarded graphic designer Katrin Straub uses easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions and a wealth of full-color graphics to show you how to take advantage of Adobe's brand-new Creative Suite to take your design work to new creative heights. As you work through the lessons in this book/CD package you'll learn about print design basics (how to create CD labels, invitations, newsletters, and slide presentations), Web design essentials (roll-over buttons, banners, kiosks), and the various programs' common features. Just because you know one Adobe product doesn't mean you know them all -- or how to leverage their combined power: For the big picture (and the big productivity pay-off), you need this guide!

About the Author

Katrin Straub is a graphic designer with more than 15 years experience working as a design director in the United States, Hong Kong, and Japan for companies such as Landor Associates, enVision, and Fontworks International. Her work includes corporate and retail identity, packaging, promotional campaigns, multimedia, and Web site design. She holds degrees from the Fachhochschule in Augsburg, Germany, the Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche in Urbino, Italy, and The New School University, in New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Adobe Press (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321245792
• ISBN-13: 978-0321245793
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #721,898 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Gloss But No Substance, January 28, 2004

By	Mitchell Small (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is the weakest of the Adobe help books I've read so far. I feel it has some serious shortcomings.

Let me put all this in perspective by giving you an idea of my Adobe skill set and what I was hoping to get from this book. I've worked extensively with Acrobat for about three years and Photoshop Elements (PSE) for almost as long. I've been through most of the Classroom in a Book for GoLive 6.0 and LiveMotion 2.0 Recently, I purchased Creative Suite Premium. Through the Classroom in a Book (CIB) for InDesign CS I've become fairly fluent with that program and I've transitioned from PSE to PhotoShop CS very nicely, but still consider myself a beginner with that program. I've had no trouble with GoLive CS and LiveMotion is not part of the Adobe Creative Suite lineup, so that's a moot point. I've had minimal exposure to Illustrator. I do have the CIB for all the major pieces of CS, except Acrobat, so what I'm lacking, I'll pickup at my own pace when I'm ready.

What I was hoping for was a real nice way to tie all these applications together and have fun in the process. That's what the promo blurb promises. Sadly, the projects fall far short. The style of project reminds me of a kids' creative crafts book adapted for computer users. The book is also full of errors and omissions, beginning with the first chapter.

In "An Overview" the author cites Creative Suite being available in two versions, Standard and Pro. The Standard designation is correct, but Adobe lists the other version as Premium, not pro. This may be minor, but it sets the tone for the rest of the book. Not enough validating of examples and checking for completeness of information.

The first project is not fully presented. For the first lesson, you are to design a postcard. Using PhotoShop and Illustrator. Sadly, PhotoShop is drastically underutilized. The student uses it only to check the pixel count of a canned graphic. No image manipulation is performed. Too bad, as that is PhotoShop's forte. Even as a beginner, I could think of a lot more creative uses for PhotoShop. The Illustrator template is easy to use, but I feel the wrong tool was used here. InDesign could do this job simpler and is much more amenable to layout tasks which is what this exercise is reduced to. There is no guidance for using Illustrator to create any graphics. In fact, the student is left on their own to figure out how to properly insert and format text once you've positioned the canned graphic. Oh, yes, and to create your own text while your at it. There is no sample text included in the book.

And so it goes through out the book. I did not expect total hand holding, but I was looking to make better use of this fine collection of tools. While it is much more expensive, I'd suggest buying the individual Classroom in a Book for each application. The lessons are more accurate, complete and provide a higher level of instruction than the Creative Suite Idea Kit. If there is a plus side to this book, it is the graphics. The illustrations Ms Straub uses are wonderful. I only wish we were let in on how she created them.

If I could rate this fractionally, I'd give it two and a half stars. The book is written in a readable manner, but the content is not worth the reading. The illustrations add the extra half star. Clearly below average usefulness.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars All hat and no cowboy, April 28, 2004

By	Richard E. Bethard (TACOMA, WA United States) - See all my reviews

Once again a Peachpit/Adobe Press book has convinced me that no one involved in the production of their books ever reads and goes through the book (either before or after it's printed) to either proofread it or otherwise look for errors. Nor do many of Peachpit's authors acknowledge there inevitably will be errors and setup and publicize a web page for the book's errata. Straub keeps up this fine Peachpit/Adobe Press tradition by not providing one either. This book is certainly not for anyone with experience with the individual apps in the Creative Suite but because of so many errors and omisions it's not for beginners either. Don't waste your money on this book unless you're buying it for the many nice illustrations!

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for the novice Adobe user, January 11, 2004

By	Andrew Schwarz (Mountain View, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This book was perfect for starting me out. As a beginner in the area of graphic design and having little experience with the Adobe software line, I just wanted to learn the basics. Each chapter is setup to guide you through a typical project (creating a newsletter, postcards, CD labels, web pages, etc.) from start to finish. The instructions within each chapter were very easy to follow and there were plenty of figures to look at. After going through a few of the chapters and playing around on my own I felt quite confident in editing and creating my own images in Illustrator and Photoshop and then using the images to create my own PDF documents. This book is definitely recommended for any novice who wants to learn how to create with Adobe.