Game, Set, Match — Layer Tennis Returns

Theresa Stone

The 2009 Layer Tennis design tournament will kick off on Friday, Feb. 6, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Produced by Coudal Partners, Layer Tennis (originally named Photoshop Tennis) is a series of live online design events where creative professionals swap files back and forth in real time while a third party offers play-by-play commentary. This season, the 43 live matches will run every Friday until May 29.
“Layer Tennis always brings out the creative community’s most innovative and groundbreaking work in the spirit of friendly competition,” said Jim Coudal, president of Coudal Partners. “This year we’ve expanded the playing field to include participants from around the globe and also added a qualifying category for our student competitors.”
Each match consists of 10 volleys, each lasting 15 minutes. Spectators have the opportunity to watch and post commentary, and are encouraged to vote for a winner after each match on the Layer Tennis Web site. Every volley can be bookmarked and live updates for all matches will be available as RSS and Twitter feeds. Spectators will be able to download files from each match, mash them up and post links to their creations. Also, a custom PDF Portfolio will be made available at www.adobe.com/creativesuite and www.layertennis.com profiling artists who created work for the Adobe “Shortcut to Brilliant” campaign. The PDF portfolios will showcase the artists’ creations, their creative process, and the new timesaving features in Creative Suite 4.