On a Friday in early June, the Pica Design team took a road trip to Portland to attend Abstract Maine 2011. The conference was hosted by AIGA Maine and their supporting sponsors. Abstract brought together six heavy hitters from the design community to talk about editorial design and its future (psst…it’s digital): Florian Bachleda of Fast Company, Dirk Barnett of Newsweek, Scott Dadich of Condé Nast, Arem Duplessis of The New York Times Magazines, Luke Hayman of Pentagram and Gael Towey of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

We got an inside look at the process behind putting a Newsweek cover together; staging a photo shoot with Conan Obrien; blow-drying Martha Stewart’s Hens for a photo shoot; and rebranding the New York Magazine with Pentagram. More than that, we got an inside look at where the editorial world is heading and, yes, it has to do with the iPad and the tablet computer. We took a sneak preview at InDesign 5.5 with the good folks from Adobe and saw some of the digital tools they are building into future versions. Exciting stuff, to be sure.

Stepping outside of the daily goings- on around the office and listening to some great talks was both refreshing and inspiring. Overall, we brought home more ideas and inspiration than our brains could carry from some of the top professionals in our industry. The day was topped off by excellent food and conversation in Portland’s Old Port. Many thanks to AIGA Maine for putting together an excellent conference.