AMMAN — Medhat Eid started his career at Ad-Dustour daily in 1992. There he worked as a calligrapher at a time when all newspaper designs were done by hand. As Ad-Dustour started digitizing, Eid was exposed to Adobe programs, which he eagerly learned and he became the head of the advertising design department.
اضافة اعلان
Eid told Jordan News in an interview that he has 51 international certificates from Adobe, something he’s strived hard to achieve.
Moving on from newspapers and advertising, Eid decided to pass on the knowledge and skill he had acquired. He began teaching graphic design courses at Al-Quds College in 2003 and established the college’s graphic design department.
In 2009, Eid founded Inspire Me, an Adobe-authorized training center that offers graphic design courses. The center seeks to equip designers with the knowledge and skills necessary to advance themselves in their field.
Many companies turn to advertising agencies, which costs them a lot, Eid explained. Because the designers aren’t necessarily familiar with the company’s products or vision, it can be difficult to convey to them what is required.
As a result, many companies have turned to in-house design, assembling creative departments and hiring their own graphic designers. This allows them to lower their costs and offers them greater control over their company’s branding.
“At Inspire Me, we train these teams on ... Adobe solutions,” Eid said. “We provide trainees with international certificates from Adobe.”
Eid participates in Adobe conferences in the US. Adobe Max is the largest Adobe conference in the world, and is held in a different state every year. He’s been to three Adobe Max conferences — in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas. There, he was the first Arab trainer assistant to the most known trainers in graphic design, he explained. His status as an “assistant” was not because he was less experienced, but because English was not his native language.
Eid worked hard to expand and support Adobe’s Arabic content, he said, which is why Adobe chose him to be one of five individuals in the world to display their work at Adobe Max conference in a project called “Make a Masterpiece Adobe”.
Furthermore, he was among the top five in the world who launched the Adobe Fix program and among 18 designers that developed Adobe Bridge.
His latest achievement was to be the first Arab and the second person worldwide among Adobe’s top 10 ambassadors. He said that Adobe gives such titles to the most effective individuals in their community based on their activities such as holding conferences, courses, and seminars.
Eid launched the Inspire Me conference in 2010; the largest graphic design conference in the Middle East, he contended. Eid believes this was the primary reason Adobe selected him to be one of its 500 ambassadors.
“Each year in December, Adobe chooses 10 of its most active ambassadors to give them the ‘Top Ten in World’ title based on the activities that we report to the company and take credits according to them. My activities were considerable, as I held courses, seminars, and Inspire Me conferences that aim to display the latest technologies in the graphic design field,” he said. Eid held Inspire Me conferences in Palestine, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia.
He is hoping to bring his regionally recognized Inspire Me conferences to an international audience — to make it the first Arabic graphic design conference to be internationally recognized.
“I want people from around the world to watch and wait for Inspire Me at the same level of excitement they watch conferences (organized by) Apple,” Eid said.
He believes that he helps people create sophisticated content and market themselves to deliver their messages via Adobe programs.
Eid advises young people whose goal it is to become graphic designers to have great passion and creativity. He added that graphic design is not only about using programs and tools; it is a science that is taught and has its principles, and is related to marketing and customer relations. Graphic design is the future major and everyone needs it, he concluded.
Read more Lifestyle
.jpg)
.jpg)
