On the second day of this year's ADIM, the Art Director's Invitational Masters Class, participants learned to make kites, sumo wrestle, and calibrate monitors. In other words, a typical day -- when that day is spent with Russell Brown.

Several other experts presented at Thursday's conference. Colin Smith, for example, brought attendees up to speed in Illustrator. While features such as Live Trace and Live Paint, new to Illustrator CS, were impressive, I think the most oohs and ahs were prompted by tricks in the Appearance Palette, which has been around for several iterations but is often neglected. Colin generously spreads his knowledge of Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat freely on his Web site, http://rockwoodheaven.com/colin/.

Here's a photographic taste of day two. Oh, and in case my boss is reading this, I'm working really hard.

Dr. Techno, otherwise known as Russell Brown, made intermittent appearances on the stage.

Attendees donned fat suits to sumo wrestle. Random? Sure. Fun? YES!

At dinner, ADIM attendees were encouraged to wear costumes that fit with this year's superhero theme. From immediately below, Catwoman, Miss Registration (she'll ruin all your print jobs!), a very convincing Wolverine, and another Wolverine menacing SuperBaby.

-- Terri Stone, editor in chief, creativepro.com