Adobe Success Story

Wow factor
Exceptional programming is only half of the equation when it comes to success in television. The other half is standout promotional materials and an engaging brand—and that’s where Showtime VP of Print and Broadcast Production Paul Nicholson is totally tuned in. Nicholson oversees various departments within Showtime’s in-house creative agency, The Red Group, a team of more than 60 creative professionals who produce promotional and branding materials for all of Showtime’s properties, including Showtime, The Movie Channel, Flix, and pay-per-view sports and events. For The Red Group, Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium software is an indispensable part of the mix.

“Whether we’re retouching images of talent using Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, creating logos or title treatments in Adobe Illustrator CS3, or designing direct-mail pieces, billboards, or posters in Adobe InDesign CS3, our artists spend a significant part of their time using Adobe Creative Suite 3,” says Nicholson. “Adobe software helps us keep productivity and creativity at an all-time high.”

Benefits

• Produced exceptional promotional materials that help the media giant compete more effectively and garner viewers
• Reduced steps and effort in the workflow for increased productivity
• Enhanced designs using built-in creative options in Adobe InDesign CS3
• Managed assets via integrated digital asset management system
• Composited perfect group shots of talent using Photoshop CS3 Extended
• Easily route designs for review and approval

Project Details

Easy as punching a button on the remote
The Red Group designs and produces more than 2,500 individual print marketing materials annually, and Nicholson credits a significant portion of the group’s efficiency and design flair to a switch to InDesign. Nicholson’s team moved from QuarkXPress to InDesign when InDesign 2 was first introduced. He says the transition from QuarkXPress to InDesign was “unbelievably easy.” Within a couple of weeks, The Red Group was at 100% capacity, and has never looked back.

“We couldn’t wait to move off of QuarkXPress,” says Nicholson. He cites tight product integration among Adobe applications, the superior stability of InDesign, less need for training because of the similar interfaces and commands among Adobe applications, and strength of the Adobe brand as reasons The Red Group made the move to InDesign.

Advantages of an all Adobe workflow
From the beginning, it was clear that The Red Group could get more done, more creatively, and in less time with a workflow built around all Adobe tools. “We immediately saw that we could do more right within Adobe InDesign, without jumping back and forth among applications,” says Nicholson. “We also started saving time and storage space because we didn’t have to save out flattened versions of Photoshop files before placing them into layouts.”

Since switching to InDesign, The Red Group adopted Adobe Creative Suite and is now using Adobe Creative Suite 3. In July 2007, the group began developing an integrated print campaign to promote the second season of the top-rated Showtime original drama series Dexter. Components include consumer ads in magazines and newspapers and on billboards and bus shelters. The campaign also features corporate communications and public relations materials, such as press kits, direct-mail pieces, point-of-sale campaigns, standees, and posters.

Working from a central creative hub
During production of this and other campaigns, the Showtime team organizes photos and artwork in Adobe Bridge CS3 software. As members of the creative team enter metadata in XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) into the familiar Bridge CS3 interface, the data flows directly into Showtime’s MediaBeacon digital asset management system, which tracks each campaign element. “Adobe Bridge CS3 offers tremendous performance enhancements,” says Nicholson. “That’s a big step forward for us, especially because our workflow is so heavily asset management-driven.”

Putting it all together
After solidifying creative concepts for the Dexter campaign, artists began retouching photos of talent and compositing body parts to create a perfectly blended group shot. “We switch out a lot of body parts and faces of actors,” says Nicholson. “Using Photoshop CS3 Extended, our expert retouchers have no problem making it appear as if we captured everything just right in one shot.”

Meanwhile, artists used Illustrator CS3 to create line art and title treatments and refine logos. Designers also began creating layouts and finessing text using InDesign CS3. According to Nicholson, InDesign CS3 is a major boon for the team because of its built-in creative options and efficiency-enhancing features. In particular, The Red Group appreciates having one comprehensive workflow that combines the creative tools the team uses every day and fuels the productivity and creativity of the design process.

Advanced Find & Change options in InDesign CS3 are useful in creating long documents such as press kit materials. Books for the media contain 40 to 60 pages, as well as pocket folders and information sheets. The team can update these materials with ease by globally finding and changing specific numbers, facts, and other elements. They can also use the Thumbnail view in the pages panel to stay oriented while working on long documents.

The ability to place multiple files using a single command is another favorite timesaver. “Whether we are creating a 60-page book or a direct-mail piece with 17 images, the ability to place images all in one step is a big help,” says Nicholson.

Nicholson adds that the contextual user interface shared by applications in Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium is intuitive and elegant. For example, clicking on the text frame automatically brings up all the text formatting options in InDesign CS3, providing faster access to necessary tools.

As designs come together, the creative team outputs them from InDesign CS3 to Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) for review and mark-up using the annotation tools in Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional. And, when print ads are ready for distribution, The Red Group relays them to magazines as Adobe PDF/X files for reliable output. “The support for Adobe PDF and Adobe PDF/X in InDesign is tremendous, whether we are routing pieces for approvals or helping ensure that our ads run flawlessly in magazines,” says Nicholson. “Integration with Adobe PDF is one of the main reasons we moved to InDesign.”

No looking back
For The Red Group, the move to Adobe Creative Suite 3, including InDesign CS3, has helped a high-octane team of designers stay ready for prime time, not to mention making Showtime more competitive in the cable television space. “We’re moving on to create campaigns for Weeds, Californication, and other Showtime series, and you can bet Adobe Creative Suite 3 will be heavily involved,” says Nicholson. “Although many of the best new features in Adobe Creative Suite 3 are utilitarian in nature, when you combine them, there’s a definite ‘wow factor’ that makes a big difference in the way we design—and ultimately in our ability to create promotional materials that get noticed.”

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