Adobe Success Story

Project Details

The Sun-Sentinel traces its roots to Fort Lauderdale's early settlement days. By the end of the Great Depression, the newspaper, along with Fort Lauderdale, emerged from the economic downturn and began a dramatic growth cycle. The first Sunday morning edition was printed in 1953. In 1963, the Sun-Sentinel was purchased by its present owners, the Tribune Co. of Chicago, linking it with an international group of media and publication properties. Sun-Sentinel has the largest news-gathering staff in its market -- more than all other newspapers, radio and television stations combined. The company has been repeatedly recognized with awards for its editorial sports coverage, investigative reporting, local Sunday magazine, and color technology applications.

Sun-Sentinel has been using Macromedia technologies since 1996, when it began creating interactive elements for its website in a feature called "The Edge." According to R. Scott Horner, Assistant Graphics Director, Macromedia Studio MX, now including Macromedia FreeHand MX, has effected the greatest productivity improvements at Sun-Sentinel to date - a boon for staff working in the production-heavy environment of a daily newspaper.

"I'm responsible for organizing and growing the multi-media efforts of the print graphics department," says Horner. "We have an area on the newspaper's website where we post our own interactive graphics to complement stories and features in the paper. Macromedia Studio MX offers a completely integrated work experience that delivers product integration and a streamlined workflow that's improving our ability to land graphics content on the front page."

Macromedia Studio MX

The productivity enhancements developers enjoy from the tight integration built into the Macromedia Studio MX suite is exemplified by Horner's experience working with FreeHand MX and Macromedia Flash MX. Since its inception in 1988, Macromedia FreeHand has focused on solving the design problems that graphic designers and illustrators face. FreeHand MX continues this trend; however, when combined with Macromedia Flash MX, it provides a set of multi-publishing tools that allow Horner to create graphics that easily transition from print to high-impact web experiences.

Storyboarding a Macromedia Flash MX site is an integral part of the design process that only FreeHand MX makes possible through its tight integration with Macromedia Flash MX. "We've streamlined the process of producing online graphics thanks to the working relationship between FreeHand and Macromedia Flash," says Horner. "We do all our prototypes, designs and storyboards in FreeHand. As a proofing tool for online projects, FreeHand helps us save time with features like Print Area which allows you to print only those areas with text. Once the story board is edited, we import it directly into Macromedia Flash and all the text is right in place."

While FreeHand MX improves the efficiency of producing web-ready graphics, Macromedia Flash MX provides further technology innovations on Sun Sentinel's website. Producing special interactive elements, for example the Sun-Sentinel's interactive graphic on the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, would not have been possible without Macromedia Flash MX because it includes video footage of the storm. The site's interactive timelines would have taken much longer to build using another tool. In addition, Horner uses Fireworks MX to compress the images to accommodate low bandwidth users and Dreamweaver MX for embedding Macromedia Flash MX files on the pages and posting and managing The Edge.

"Macromedia Studio MX helps us reduce production time, respond quickly to editors' demands, and meet our deadlines," says Horner. "The end result is that we have more time to devote to creating compelling graphics like the Hurricane Andrew project that tell our stories in new and engaging ways to attract a larger audience."

FreeHand MX Boosts Productivity

Horner is particularly excited about Image Alpha Channel Support, the ability of FreeHand MX to import PNG files and still allow him to edit the objects and text. Live Effects, which allow a designer to apply vector effects like Bend, Sketch and Transform and raster effects like Bevel, and Transparency, either to an entire object or to selected attributes of the object, are also high on his list of new FreeHand MX features.

"Because FreeHand is a superior layout tool I used to do all my layouts in FreeHand, using Photoshop to enhance my images. Now FreeHand MX has an enhanced effects list so I can get those nice little touches, like drop shadows, blurring, transparency effects and gradient masking so I can create more sophisticated art work within FreeHand itself. With new 32-bit image alpha channel support for PNGs, as well as other graphics files, I'm not jumping in and out of Photoshop because I can save and fine tune my images within FreeHand MX. This gives me the ability to re-organize layouts within minutes to meet our deadlines."

Saving the image as a FreeHand file allows Horner to open it up later and quickly edit the text and any effect he has used to re-purpose work for another use. "This happens all the time in newspapers," he says. "We re-use content for different media-television, print or the web-altering format to fit the medium. Mock-ups built completely in FreeHand, without PhotoShop are a lot easier to update so I can quickly respond to demands from editors in different departments."

The Properties Inspector and Object Panel in FreeHand MX allow Horner to quickly inspect and change object properties like Stroke, Fill, and Effect in one centralized location. He can also use the Object panel to order attributes, directly editing graphic and text styles in the FreeHand MX workspace.

Getting on 1A

Horner expects that the proofs he produces with FreeHand MX will look more polished, helping him compete with the news room and photos for space on 1A. "In the newspaper business everyone wants to be on the front page," he says. "We need to produce proofs that really sell the graphic that we're working on. Many times an Edge graphic will come in as a top ten page, and there are many visitors that navigate directly to The Edge because they know about the interactive graphics and want to see what's new. Producing more and better graphics positions us favorably against the competition. Macromedia Studio MX provides the best toolset to get us there."

Return on Investment for Sun-Sentinel

Benefits for Designers and Developers

Benefits for End Users