I grew up in a family full of sales-men. My dad and two brothers-in-law made great careers out of selling everything from liquor to life insurance, paper to produce.

The fact that I had zero interest in becoming a salesman too made me a bit of a black sheep. I was always more hippie than huckster, getting more joy from creating things than selling them.

It wasn’t until I took this job that I truly started to grasp the vital role salespeople—and their allies in marketing—play in a successful business. At CreativePro, we could have the best content in the world (and, by the way, I think we do), but we’d be out of business quickly if we couldn’t make potential paying customers aware of what we have and what it could do for them.

So, when Julie Shaffer offered to distill her years of experience into the Seven Essential Ingredients in Great Marketing, I was all in. If you can incorporate these key traits into your messaging and design work for clients, you’ll be cooking in no time.

Next, Chana Messer walks you through the process of saving Photoshop selections with channels. If you regularly work with complex image files, this is a technique you need to know. When you start to see how channels, selections, and masks are all different ways of using the same information, you begin to understand how Photoshop “thinks” and can take your skills to the next level.

Then, Hannah Peterson interviews Izzy Poirier to learn about the nonintuitive ways she has been experimenting with Adobe Firefly to create abstract art. It’s an interesting experiment of combining human creativity with generative AI. As a special bonus, you can download Izzy’s full Composition Decomposed zine and explore the ideas and imagery in depth.

Peter Kahrel checks in with a look at the new Find/Change Case options in InDesign. He’s discovered that you can accomplish a lot with the new feature, particularly when you combine it with GREP.

Our Resource of the Month is a fun set of Halloween graphics and patterns that are both spooky and super sweet. But I guarantee it won’t rot your teeth.

Enjoy!