Too Little, Too Long

I don't know that I have a great way to start this post other than to tell you that over the years the Adobe Suite has become both my closest friend and my most loathed enemy. I don't know why I feel the need to share this with you as I am sure that anyone that reads this would find this post boring and would be unable to relate to it, but I must. I am compelled because I am perplexed.

Adobe and I were introduced in an intense class one cold day in January of 2002. The class pertained to digital photography, something that I was very excited to learn more about. Adobe released her sweet baby, Photoshop, into my shaky,unsure arms and from there we began the get-to-know-you dance. She laid out her basic steps and I clumsily mimicked them in hopes of taking my photography to a new level of artistic grace and beauty... maybe even edginess.

Slowly but surely she began to introduce me to her other children, InDesign and Illustrator. Thus far, Illustrator has proven to be a shy and skittish creature, preferring to keep to itself. InDesign, on the other hand, has taken charge and become very outgoing. She has shown me the ways of professional layout and I am very grateful for everything that she has offered me.

However, all three are obviously born of the same mother and have proven to be tricky and witty. The language they speak is often foreign and at times very confusing. They conceal some of their greatest talents from me and I have to coax them out into the open using every tool I can get my hands on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure if I took some graphic design classes that I would be able to float through these programs as though I had known them from birth. However, I feel discouraged as I have taken many a class pertaining around Adobe Suite and her language of gibberish. At one point, I even had to help the professor as he had forgotten what some of the tools were capable of and how to use them.

I use the tutorials and I learn certain tricks from blogs online, but Adobe and I have been dancing partners for six years now and I feel as though I have just scratched the surface of this mysterious yet familiar beast.

This will be my lifelong goal - maybe this is my Wells Fargo Someday commercial.

Someday... proficiency in Adobe.