Lindsay Beach

Markatos | Moore gains greater creative control and reduces costs by developing interactive projects in-house using Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium software

Peter Markatos and Tyler Moore share a passion and talent for communicating brands — and their services are in high demand. Their leading design firm, Markatos | Moore, caters to a range of clients such as Discovery Channel, GAP, Nokia, and Tahoe Mountain Resort, providing them with brand identity, print, packaging, motion, interactive, and environmental design.

Their traditional stock in trade is graphic design, but they have also become experts in interactive design. Previously, when it came to interactive projects, they had to hire outside developers. Now, with the addition of Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 to Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, they have greater creative control and can complete portions of interactive projects in-house, saving time and money — and opening new business opportunities in the process.

“Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 enables us to design transitions and interactions, without the code,” says Peter Markatos, principal at Markatos | Moore. “Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 gives us more control and visibility into how an element will act when someone rolls over it or clicks on it, and it lets us build some interactive components for websites in-house. It’s especially beneficial for clients who need to keep a close eye on budgets. For us, it’s great because we maintain creative control and generate new business opportunities at the same time.”

Benefits 

• Developed engaging websites at lower costs
• Streamlined ability to add basic interactivity to sites
• Brought processes in-house that would typically require outside development
• Saved time through integration among Creative Suite 5 components

Project Details

Interactivity, made simple
Markatos | Moore’s first trial of Flash Catalyst CS5 was in designing interactive elements for a website for the firm’s innovative new SUMMIT program, designed to foster up-and-coming, college-level designers. The site required interactivity to attract a young, hip audience while consuming minimal resources — and Flash Catalyst CS5 delivered.

SUMMIT is an intensive course geared towards enriching students with a world perspective through design. Each student is to submit a portfolio, letters of recommendation, a letter of intent, and a resume. Once the jury of high-level Bay Area designers reviews each student’s submission, the new crop of students selected for the program visits a different country each year. The program is designed to let students actively engage with design firms and become immersed in a culture’s design history and visual vocabulary.

The 2010 SUMMIT program will be hosted in the Netherlands. Eager to make the first SUMMIT a success, Moore and Markatos began creating an innovative website for the program. The site is the primary venue for inspiring students to participate in the SUMMIT experience and for showcasing visual assets from Dutch design firms and academies. It also offers innovative features such as an interactive map of the locations students will visit during the SUMMIT experience.

“Visitors to websites today have to be engaged with interactivity,” says Tyler Moore, principal at Markatos | Moore. “Otherwise, they abandon a website in an instant. In catering to young designers who might want to participate in the SUMMIT program, we had to provide interactivity, yet create the site on a shoestring budget.”

High-fidelity graphics
In developing the website, Moore and Markatos used the same disciplined approach they take toward every branding project, first creating a brand brief and executive summary and then documenting the emotional traits of the SUMMIT brand. From there, they went into the research and execution phases, relying extensively on Adobe Illustrator CS5 to create assets for the site.

“Using the enhanced multiple artboards in Adobe Illustrator CS5 was fantastic when reviewing each section of the site,” says Moore. “Being able to see all the elements of the site at once as opposed to hiding inside layers off the canvas helped everyone have a clearer vision of how the site would look and function when it was complete. Delivering multiple artboards on one screen to our developers working on the HTML shell also gave them an exact view into the flow of the website — without having to dig around through layers.”

In creating artwork for the site, Markatos and Moore took advantage of the ability to create crisp graphics for the web in Illustrator CS5. They also were able to create vector objects precisely on a grid for delivering pixel-aligned artwork in Illustrator CS5. “We found that the imported and embedded graphics in Illustrator CS5 offered superb quality, helping us in delivering a high-fidelity final product,” says Markatos.

Basic animation, now in-house
Markatos and Moore then began creating transitions and interactivity for portions of the site, including an interactive map showing the destinations students will visit during their coursework. Traditionally, Markatos and Moore would hire outside developers to animate and code all of the interactive elements of the site. Now, however, leveraging the integration between Illustrator CS5 and Flash Catalyst CS5, they were able to import layered Illustrator CS5 files straight into Flash Catalyst and create some of the interactive elements on their own.

“We imported a complex, layered Illustrator CS5 file directly into Flash Catalyst CS5 with virtually 100% fidelity and started making it interactive,” says Moore. “The smooth integration between Illustrator CS5 and Flash Catalyst CS5 makes it easier for us to transform our Illustrator artwork into interactive designs. It’s a genuine breakthrough for us. Now, we can produce many interactive design elements on our own.”

Greater integration and consistency
Throughout the project, Markatos and Moore leveraged the streamlined integration among components of Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium. “With Creative Suite 5, Adobe has yet again taken integration to the next level with easier importing and file translation from one program to the other,” says Markatos. “While there are major breakthroughs, it’s also important to note that the key commands and functions among the programs are becoming more standardized. It saves time and makes it feel as if you are working with one unified, consistent program — whether you’re working on brand identities, web projects, or interactive design.”

For Markatos | Moore, a firm that begins and ends its days in Adobe Creative Suite software, the latest versions of Adobe tools are a major boon. The founders couldn’t run their firm without Adobe Creative Suite, and Flash Catalyst CS5 is an addition that they’ve quickly realized can transform their business.

“The ability to add basic interactivity is very freeing — not to mention beneficial to our business,” says Moore. “Now, with Adobe Creative Suite 5 and Flash Catalyst CS5, we can save money and create opportunities for new business success. It’s a genuine breakthrough for people who traditionally focus on graphic design to be able to add basic interactivity — all on their own.”