Graphic Greats: Production Graphics with Wendy Peck at webreference.com | 39

Graphic Greats: Lynda Weinman

Lynda and Bruce.

Lynda and Jamie.

It is hard to be in the Web development world for very long without finding a reference to Lynda.com. If you don't find the Web site, surely you will bump into a book relating to Web design by Lynda Weinman. It's not that Lynda is everywhere —she is just everywhere that Web developers want to go.

With a unique blend of serious learning and humor, respect for the business of Web design and a practical, common sense perspective on the Web, Lynda has helped countless designers increase their knowledge and produce better work.

Contrast and balance was the overriding theme I found in my conversations with Lynda. She has been at the forefront of Web development from the early days of the explosion, writing her first book in 1995, and following with 10 more to date. Yet, when I suggested that she was helping to shape the future of the Web, she resisted that idea, claiming that she simply learned the new technology and made it easy to understand.

Lynda is serious about her career, devoted to teaching and writing, and strongly tied to family. Her highly successful Ojai Training Center began as a solution to too much travel. At the height of her career growth, having lived all her life in Los Angeles, she moved OUT of the city to Ojai, California, a town of 6,000. Ojai is a great place for her daughter Jamie to grow up, but the move was certainly opposite to common patterns for someone in the midst of a high tech world.

But as you talk to Lynda you realize that she is not a star. She really is 100% teacher at heart, albeit a gifted one, with strong opinions on the best way to transfer information to others. One who, luckily for us, absorbs new technology like a sponge and is committed to filtering techno-talk into language and concepts that all can understand.

Make sure you visit Lynda.com and see the exciting new features that have been added, including forums and tutorials.

Let's hear from Lynda ...

Update on the FlashForward 2000 conference in San Francisco ... sold out!

Just a few of the many Web development books Lynda has written since 1995. See Lynda.com for a complete listing.

Lynda: The FlashForward 2000 conference and Flash film festival is the first conference I've ever developed (with partner Stewart McBride of United Digital Artists). It's the world's first Flash conference, and its first venue in San Francisco is almost sold out.

By the time this interview is published, the conference will be in session (March 27 - 29)! The keynote sessions are being webcast by Apple and Real Networks. We plan two more this year -- one in NY and one in Europe later this fall. It's very exciting to get all these Flash developers together from all over the world, and we've got a world-class program to offer them. Lynda.com is in the planning stages on a few other conferences as well, which I won't talk about until they're real.

I've just finished PhotoShop 5.5/ImageReady 2.0 for the Web Hands-On Training (HOT)— a new 500 page book that took me five months to write. It's all tutorial based, and I think it's a great way to teach yourself these tools.

My other book in the HOT series is on Dreamweaver2, and we're updating it right now for Dreamweaver 3. We have a slew of new videos coming out — one on advanced Flash with Josh Ulm, an Advanced PhotoShop video, and we're working on Dreamweaver 3 for an April release. Our first DVD is coming out this month on PhotoShop/ImageReady for the Web.

More from Lynda

Graphic Greats Index

Lynda Weinman Start
Lynda on Lynda
Lynda on Design
Lynda on Technology
Lynda on Web Work
Ojai Training Center