Publicious: Publishing Tech & Tools

That’s me, squinting into the sun while picking blueberries last summer. Sorry I don’t have a better picture. With two little kids, I’m always the one behind the camera.

Professional

I’ve worked in publishing since 1995, mostly making grade 6-12 educational products for history, science, mathematics, and world languages disciplines. I worked as an illustrator for a few years, drawing for anatomy books, but my real strengths are page layout and Photoshop. Nowadays the only things I draw are Pokemon characters and ponies with my kids.

I consider myself an expert in InDesign and Photoshop, proficient in Illustrator, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, and a padawan learner the Altova XML tools.

InDesign is my bread and butter. I love that app and feel totally at home in it. I have the most fun with Photoshop. I am a NAPP member, and erstwhile Certified Expert (I let my certification expire, but plan to get re-certified for CS3). I love working, playing, and training people in Photoshop. I have taught color management, making separations, and retouching. I’ve enjoyed doing a few photo restoration projects for friends, using techniques learned in the Katrin Eismann books. I still have my first Photoshop 3 book, useless doorstop that it is, I just can’t throw it away.

I spent a few years as Prepress Specialist and Software Trainer, and that love of teaching tech probably led directly to the creation of this blog.

I’ve used Prinergy Publish extensively to make and edit press-ready PDFs.

I underwent Six Sigma Black Belt training in 06-07. That will be fun to blog about someday.

I’ve gone to more than my share of conferences in the past decade: XML Conference, AdobeMAX, The InDesign Conference, PhotoshopWorld, Kodak GUA Conference, MacWorld, Seybold Seminars, BookTech. Just can’t get enough of the nametags, shuttlebusses, and free coffee.

Personal

At home, I spend my time trying to keep up with my kids, whose insatiable energy, curiosity, and creativity simultaneously make me feel very young and alive and very old and bent. I also try to cope with the bibilophilia that my wife and I suffer from. It doesn’t help that she works in a library. Last count we were well over 1000 books.

I love American History, NYC, sushi, Star Wars, gardening, Cape Cod, and Boston pro sports.

I could not live a day without listening to music. If you took my iPod away I’d probably go into withdrawal and start singing to myself. My playlists are filled with Beatles, Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra, U2, Sleater-Kinney, Modest Mouse, White Stripes, Morphine, Bjork, Arctic Monkeys, Built to Spill, Cat Power, Frank Zappa, Pearl Jam, Pixies, Led Zep, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, R.E.M. Tool, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

e-mail me at jmvrankin [at] gmail [dot] com