Practical design talk for working creatives.
The CreativePro Podcast is a practical design-industry show centered on Adobe tools, production craft, publishing, presentations, accessibility, and AI. Episodes mix shop talk with Creative Pro updates, guest conversations, and close looks at how designers actually get work reviewed, built, and shipped.
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The CreativePro Podcast is built for people whose design work depends on both judgment and software fluency. It treats tools as part of a larger professional practice. InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Adobe Express, PowerPoint, print, digital publishing, presentation design, accessibility, and AI all show up as working materials rather than buzzwords. Recent episodes move from specific craft to broader creative culture without losing the production floor. One conversation returns to Before and After Magazine and its plainspoken lessons about visual communication. Another asks what Photoshop craft still means as AI changes retouching, image editing, and training. The show also has a strong house-view of community. CreativePro Week, the Design and AI Summit, the Presentation Design Conference, membership, articles, tutorials, quick tips, and Creative Pro Magazine are recurring touchpoints, so episodes often feel connected to a wider professional learning network. That context matters. The people speaking are often planning events, editing design content, teaching software, reviewing creative work, or explaining how an agenda comes together. The tone is warm, conversational, and insider-friendly. It can be playful, but it stays focused on making professional design work better. InDesign coverage is especially grounded, with discussion of features like flex containers, layout geometry, object relationships, and obscure settings that become valuable when a designer actually needs them. AI coverage is similarly practical, framed around creativity, visual strategy, content strategy, and what designers need to know to keep working intelligently. The show also makes room for workflow topics that are less flashy but central, including online proofing and creative review. Its best moments come when experience turns into usable perspective. A feature is not just announced; it is placed inside the daily problem of aligning objects, reordering frames, or managing feedback. A conference is not just promoted; its agenda becomes a puzzle of people, sessions, and priorities. The CreativePro Podcast is therefore less a news show than a professional companion for designers keeping pace with changing tools. It rewards listeners who care about craft, production habits, and the communities that help creative careers last.
Made for: Design professionals, production artists, educators, trainers, and creative teams who rely on Adobe tools, presentation software, publishing workflows, and peer learning. It especially suits listeners who want practical context around new features, AI, events, and review processes.
What sets it apart: The show connects software technique to Creative Pro’s wider ecosystem of events, articles, magazines, and community. It is unusually grounded in the day-to-day realities of layout, retouching, proofing, and professional development.
Join the CreativePro team for fun and insightful discussions about our favorite tools and technologies: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, PowerPoint, Acrobat, print, digital publishing, presentation design, accessibility, AI, and more!
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded CC 2019 InDesign review, with faster PDF comments balanced against real production friction.
InDesign Secrets episode 270 finds Anne-Marie Concepcion and David Blatner revisiting the InDesign features Adobe brought in with CC 2019, with an eye toward what became useful in day-to-day work and what still feels unfinished. The sharpest material centers on PDF comments.
A granular InDesign update turns into a warm look at overlooked tools and practical creative confidence.
Episode 318 looks at InDesign as a tool people use every day, but also as a place where small habits can turn into useful discoveries. David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion start with the 19.3 release's import and export preferences, then move into the pre-flight panel and the…
Restoration trade talk, software, stories, and field lessons.
Microsoft BI updates, translated by practitioners.
Indian startup building, without the polish.
Airtable power users, building in public.
Tech banter with excellent derailments.
Microsoft 365 changes, read between the lines.
Anne-Marie Concepcion and David Blatner host InDesign Secrets episode 270.
David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion host InDesign Secrets episode 318, featuring an interview with Khara Plicanic.
Accessibility trainers Colleen Grotzer and Chad Chilius say designers already communicate visually, so adding structure through mapping heading styles to tags takes 'two seconds.' Grotzer rejects the idea that accessibility limits creativity, noting that "no color by itself is inaccessible" and that yellow or orange fail on white but can work on darker backgrounds.
David Blatner and Mike Rankin discuss the acquisition of Before and After Magazine by Creative Pro and its timeless design lessons.
A podcast episode introducing guests Jesus and Lisa, discussing Photoshop and AI in design, and promoting the Design and AI Summit.
David Blatner and Teresa Jackson discuss the process of creating the agenda for the 10th anniversary of CreativePro Week.
Teresa Jackson and Mike Rankin introduce the Creative Pro Podcast and discuss design trends and predictions for 2026.
Teresa Jackson interviews Mike McHugh from PageProof about improving the process of reviewing creative work.
David Blatner, Teresa Jackson, and Mike Rankin assess Canva’s announcement that the Affinity suite will become free after Adobe Max.
David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion review Adobe InDesign 2026, also called InDesign version 21, after participating in its prerelease program.
The CreativePro Podcast features Amy Balliett and Mark Heaps discussing how AI may change creative work, technical careers, marketing, and human connection.
Teresa Jackson and Mike Rankin describe their roles at Creative Pro, including content planning, subject-matter experts, Creative Pro Magazine, the website, and YouTube.
David and Teresa Jackson introduce the Creative Pro Podcast as a broader successor to InDesign Secrets, which ran for 20 years and about 332 episodes.
Recorded on day five of five at CreativePro Week, Episode 332 marks 20 years of the podcast and announces a rename starting with Episode 333 next month.
Anne-Marie Concepcion and David Blatner open episode 331 with bad InDesign advice from the InDesign Secrets Facebook group, such as faxing pages for proofing and coloring all text registration black at 100% of all four inks.
InDesign Secrets episode 330 argues that 70% to 85% of the podcast and InDesign Magazine content from 2004 and 2005 is still relevant, citing the text wrap "ignore" setting and issue seven's 79 tips.
David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion share their personal InDesign efficiency tips in episode 329, opening with Blatner's rule "take a little time now to save a bunch of time in the future." Blatner calls Quick Apply (Command-Return or Control-Enter) the one essential shortcut and also recommends Command-Option-Tilde to jump back to the last used panel field.
Anne-Marie Concepcion and David Blatner discuss new InDesign 19.4 features, a beta release, an interview with Marcus Radich from PageProof, and the obscure feature Adjust Dashes and Gaps.
David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion interview Khara Plicanic about InDesign preflight panel secrets and discuss new features in version 19.3.
An interview with Julie Shaffer, plus news on InDesign updates and secrets of the scripts panel.