Last month Scott and I spoke at PePcon in Chicago. It was our first time attending this Publishing and e-Publishing conference. Anne-Marie Concepción and David Blatner have done an amazing job creating this completely sold out InDesign specific conference.
A constant theme we heard was how many creatives have been charged with turning their print material into engaging and interactive digital publications.
It was exciting to see just how wide the use cases are spreading. We saw many examples of corporate communication, catalogues, presentation tools, programs and portfolios from all sizes of businesses. However, seeing how many creatives were expected to wear both the hats of designer and developer reminded me of the early days of web design, when the same person was expected to design the site and write the code.
We did our best to remind attendees how different those roles are — and how beneficial it is to work in teams. Even though Adobe DPS is a super easy tool, which takes advantage of the fact that most designers are fluent in InDesign — it should not replace the value of a designer and developer team.
“Interactivity should not be used just for the sake of interactivity. Instead it needs to be used to add value to the content and the experience.”
When designers and developers work collaboratively at every stage, the result is a more innovative product and one that ultimately takes less time to produce.