Seneca Design & Training: Where Designers Train Designers (and Editors!)
Headquartered in Chicago but working nationwide, Seneca provides hard-working design and editorial staff with customized, on-site or off-site applied training in Adobe InDesign, InCopy, eBook, and tablet publishing — with three years of follow-up support included!
Seneca’s president and creative director, Anne-Marie Concepción, is a long-time Adobe Certified Independent Trainer. She and her associate trainers teach the Mac and Windows versions of InDesign, InCopy, Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Macintosh OS X, Apple and Microsoft software — in other words, the software that she and staff use every day in the real world for real client projects.
If you would like to chat 1-on-1 with Anne-Marie about your training goals you can schedule a free 15-minute consultation here.
As we like to say at Seneca: those who can, teach!
Seneca’s Training Style Reaches Every Student
Seneca’s founder, Anne-Marie Concepción, is a natural teacher. Her style is patient, relaxed, and informal, but always on-target and always with her signature sense of humor. She loves what she does and it shows. Think how much you’ll learn from someone who’s not just an expert user, but an expert teacher!
With your new-found expertise, you’ll find your own creativity unleashed on every project you undertake. Stuck on a problem? No worries: Anne-Marie includes three years of 24/7 follow-up support for every student.
Anne-Marie spends half her worklife using the software, and the other half teaching it. And that’s exactly how she likes it. She draws on her 25+ years of experience with design and publishing to teach in ways that a designer or production staffer immediately understand. Students learn not just how to use a program, but how to use it in combination with other software, and how to make it all come together for complex print, web, and mobile projects. Because Anne-Marie was a teacher in a former life (she has a master’s degree in Education from Northwestern University), she paces her instruction to match each student’s gradual mastery of each new skill, adapting her training to a variety of learning styles and backgrounds.
Students Learn By Doing
Seneca training sessions are activity-based — a careful combination of talking, listening, seeing and doing. That’s the opposite of lecture training (“this button does this, that button does that”), which is sadly all too common. For at least one-third of the training session, students are actually using the software, with a Seneca trainer gently coaching, in exercises customized for skill level and the kinds of projects your staff actually need, using your own files. That means more topics are covered more quickly — and, unlike lecture courses, the lessons learned are retained.
You’ll Receive Unprecedented Follow-up Support
Your staff will not be left on their own when training is complete. You’ll receive three years of follow-up support from Anne-Marie by phone or e-mail. That's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
By hiring Seneca, you’re adding your own personal consultant, available at your beck and call for the next three years. Think of the time and money you’ll save the next time a project is delayed because you or one of your staff members can't figure out how to make the program do what you need — and tech support is either closed or wants to charge you $25.99 to answer a simple question.
Choose Where and When Your Training Takes Place
Typically, we conduct training at your site, using your workstations or conference room, in schedule-friendly half-day sessions for one to a dozen people. We can also train up to three students at a time at Seneca’s studio, or we can host training at a third-party Mac or PC classroom for larger groups that prefer to learn off-site.
Can't afford the travel fees or can’t leave the office? Book an hour or three of live web-based training from Anne-Marie or one of Seneca’s associate trainers. Your staff will be able to see the instructor’s screen, and the instructor will be able to see your staff’s. All you need is a web connection and a phone and you’re good to go!
