I come from a family of salesmen. My dad was a salesman his entire adult life, selling everything from juice to life insurance. Both of my older sisters married salesmen, too, so I felt some pressure to fall in line. But I always resisted, thinking that sales and marketing were less noble pursuits because they were bottom-line focused, and not as creative as writing and design. On that latter point, I could not have been more wrong. In today’s information overload, a product or service without a smart, creative marketing force behind it has almost no chance of succeeding. And that bottom line is what fuels the business, making everything else possible.

So I have tremendous respect for the folks who produce great marketing and branding. Their writing, design, and production skills not only have to be top notch, but also agile enough to respond to the latest trends and technology. It’s an incredible challenge, so to support those folks we’ve put together an online event called The Design + Marketing Summit, coming to a screen near you July 18–19, 2022. In conjunction with the event, we present a trio of articles in this issue to support marketers in three areas: design, production, and new tools. Of course, you don’t have to be involved in marketing to benefit from these articles—they have something for everyone.

We kick things off with Color and Culture by Nicte Cuevas. She shows how your color choices can make or break your ability to connect with customers. Next, Khara Plicanic gets you started with Canva, an incredibly convenient and low cost tool for designing almost any kind of print or digital content. More into the traditional tools? Keith Gilbert is your guide to exporting web graphics from Photoshop.

We also have Monika Gause on hand to teach you all about expanding Illustrator effects. Conrad Chavez reviews a powerful tool for connecting InDesign to your web content.

Plus, we have five more great articles from CreativePro.com. Enjoy!