Canva

[JGD]

11 hours ago, wiredfractal said:

So no priority for privacy of your users? Knowing Canva, they like tracking what every user does on their platform.

I still remember when you removed the google tracker on the welcome banner page on the app because it has no value for the users. I guess that's going back and much much worst.

I am still not sold out with this pledge. Once you place any trackers on any of your app, I'm completely out of this platform.

You could, in theory, put the app behind a blocker like Lulu. However, it might stop working if it can't call home (by which point, heck, might as well go with Creative Cloud, amirite?).

[lphilpot]

6 hours ago, monzo said:

 I started out as a trainee designer using Letraset, glue and a scalpel (yes, I’m that old).

At least you didn't say "wax"... 😛 In my world, that was for newspaper and quick-print types.  LOL

Letraset, Chartpak, Zip*a*Tone, Amberlith, Rubylith, acetate overlays, PMT cameras (shooting stuff from the VGC catalog) ... ah, the "good" old days. But I did enjoy the "construction" aspects of making presentation mock-ups. I even went as far as making embossing "dies" from matboard so I could emboss the mock-ups.

[Johannes]

On 3/27/2024 at 11:00 PM, Bwood said:

Crisis management teams are busy. I was burned once with Macromedia to Adobe. Burned again AF to Canva. Shame on,e. 

I'd say we are not yet burned again. I lived through the Macromedia-Adobe situation. We are not quite there yet and maybe never will be. It is different. Adobe already had pro apps.

[Chills]

With regard to Canva,I think we need to hit the ground running, keep our eye on the ball, and make sure that we are singing off the same song sheet. At the end of the day it is not a level playing field and the goal posts may move; if they do, someone else may have to pick it up and run with it. We therefore must have a golf bag of options hot-to-trot from the word 'go'. It is your train set but we cannot afford to leave it on the back burner; we've got a lot of irons in the fire, right now.

We will need to un-stick a few potential poo traps but it all depends on the flash-to-bang time and fudge factor allowed. Things may end up slipping to the left and, if they do, we will need to run a tight ship. I don't want to re-invent the wheel but we must get right into the weeds on this one. If push comes to shove, we may have to up stumps and then we'll be in a whole new ball game.

I suggest we test the water with a few warmers in the bank. If we can produce the goods then we are cooking with gas. If not, then we are in a world of hurt. I don't want to die in a ditch over it but we could easily end up in a flat spin if people start getting twitchy. To that end, I want to get round the bazaars and make sure the movers and the shakers are on-side from day one. If you can hit me with your shopping list I can take it to the head honchos and start the ball rolling.

There is light at the end of the tunnel and I think we have backed a winner here. If it gets blown out the water, however, I will be throwing a track. So get your feet into my in-tray and give me chapter and verse as to how you see things panning out. As long as our ducks are in a row I think the ball will stay in play and we can come up smelling of roses.

Before you bomb burst and throw smoke, it is imperative we nail our colours very firmly on the mast and look at the big picture. We've got to march to the beat of the drum. We are on a sticky wicket. we'll need to play with a straight bat and watch out for fast balls.

I've been on permanent send for long enough and I've had my ten pence worth. I don't want to rock the boat or teach anyone to suck eggs. We must keep this firmly in our sight picture or it will fall between the cracks. If the cap fits, wear it, but it may seem like pushing fog up a hill with a sharp stick.

 

 

Sorry... It's been a heavy Easter and I needed to do something silly 🙂

 

[fraisecafe]

On 3/28/2024 at 5:06 PM, fraisecafe said:

I appreciate the clarifications, @Ash, especially re: V3 and beyond; That especially has been very concerning, not knowing how this works beyond V2.

That said, I do have two questions:

1. What independence do you and the Serif staff maintain over the roadmap? What control/say does Canva have?

You've stated that past acquisitions have no bearing on this. At the same time, honestly, we've heard that in the past, too. It would go a long way if you could clarify why you believe that.

Given the potential impacts for designers/creatives/business owners/etc. for all of this, as well as those past examples, while it may not appear to have bearing for you personally, for many of us whose livelihoods rest on purchase decisions such as whether to invest in your ecosystem or another, it certainly does for us. This is our livelihood and we are right to be not only concerned, but cautious, especially given how the initial announcement dropped like a lead balloon. As such, I hope you can see how difficult that idea may be to swallow without further clarity on the above.

2. How does Serif/Affinity intend to ethically deal with AI, Data Collection/Data-mining, and 3rd-Party access to said data (including Canva)?

It may be that you've spoken to this already, and if I have missed that statement, please feel free to point me to it, but I have yet to see anything noted about how AI may be implemented. Bluntly, Canva does not have a good track record with any of these and, as hot topics for the industry that has affected many of us, it seems like a glaring omission to not have clarity on this, too. To my mind, the most ethical way to do this may be difficult to implement:

- Opt-in on a design-by-design basis for our own designs, with consent being required and consent also being able to be revoked.
- Similarly, opt-in consent (with the ability to retract consent in the future) regarding Data/Datamining, as well as clear access to what data has been collected.
- Opt-in consent for 3rd-party data sales on a per-vendor basis, likewise with the ability to retract and delete said data at any point.

Could you please speak to these two items, as well?

Hi @Ash. Hope you had a great long weekend ... I'm sure there's a lot you've got going on with this whole acquisition, but I wanted to follow up before this gets lost in the shuffle as I have seen a lot of Community Members wondering (myself included) and still not seen anything mentioned regarding AI after the acquisition.

Similarly, with concerns being directed at how "things have happened in the past" and your own assertions that "that is irrelevant in this situation" (paraphrasing here), understanding the independence of Serif vs. Canva "oversight" seems to be of importance to help calm some of the remaining nerves. As you can see just a couple posts above mine, there is quite literally @Tia Lapis is bringing this up and, honestly, it's extremely concerning to me, too, how much control you as a business retain over your own operations vs. what control you (on the surface) appear to have given up.

While I'm still not happy with the situation and how this was announced, and I feel a lot could have been handled better post-announcement, I've really appreciated you approaching this here in the forum as openly as you have. As a small business owner who purposely placed all my "eggs are in your basket" for a number of reasons, as much as I'd love the luxury of taking you at your word (especially re: the irrelevance of what has happened in the past, whether Canva-related or others in the industry), and reading the comments of others, having clarity on these two remaining items would really go a long way to helping provide reassurance that it's not as doom/gloom as it has seemed.

As follow-up, then, could you please speak to these two items, as well?

[debraspicher]

The tools we end up using in the grand scheme are not the be all, end all of what sets us apart professionally as designers. Those focusing on which tools were used ("I used these long before these other 4 things came along!") have missed the point entirely.

If an artist is exclusively using Procreate, for example, to make a very decent living, then it doesn't matter in the end whether it is considered "pro" tools to that person. They balk at these discussions because they're often maligned by the elitist crowd as if they're exempt from the industry overall because they use an iPad over Mac/PC, etc. That discussion happened earlier and it is ironic given what gave Affinity its head start.

Affinity benefited a great deal from embracing this crowd, but they risk falling into the same counter-productive rat race as Adobe trying to score points by packing on half-baked features but not refining the programs to keep intact what sets them apart from traditionally industry tools, practically speaking.

One of the major reason programs like Procreate are so popular are because they are snappy, simple, yet highly polished and help produce deliverable productions with great UX. It is very accessible to people who need a workflow that works best with their creativity rather than being hobbled down with overbuilt functionality, needless knobs, dialogs, bugs, etc.

I imagine its also why some people don't upgrade to V2. Just a thought.

[SrPx]

Maybe.. But I suspect that most people that dislike 2.x might be due to a first impression: they found the situation (too many bugs, initially) at the moment of launch, and left, just switched to other platform. Some others lasted a bit more trying with 2.x, by digging for workarounds by themselves and in the forum. And some (if this thread could serve as a sample, then at least a nice percentage) of us went quite farther and kept seeing huge improvements every next release they made in 2.x, fine tuning tons of things. I have more stability now in 2.4 than I ever had in 1.x (even the best version of 1.x), and the functionality I can make use of is quite more complete in 2.4, plus getting better performance. I don't know the stats, though (of how many of those 3 million users are using 2.x or 1.x). There's also another important issue: for a long time I had projects fully made in 1.x. I did not want to risk (even if there were no risks) a back and forth between 1.x and 2.x. But finished those projects, now I only work with the latter.

[jimh12345]

8 hours ago, Chills said:

With regard to Canva,I think we need to hit the ground running, keep our eye on the ball, and make sure that we are singing off the same song sheet. At the end of the day it is not a level playing field and the goal posts may move; if they do, someone else may have to pick it up and run with it. We therefore must have a golf bag of options hot-to-trot from the word 'go'. It is your train set but we cannot afford to leave it on the back burner; we've got a lot of irons in the fire, right now.

We will need to un-stick a few potential poo traps but it all depends on the flash-to-bang time and fudge factor allowed. Things may end up slipping to the left and, if they do, we will need to run a tight ship. I don't want to re-invent the wheel but we must get right into the weeds on this one. If push comes to shove, we may have to up stumps and then we'll be in a whole new ball game.

I suggest we test the water with a few warmers in the bank. If we can produce the goods then we are cooking with gas. If not, then we are in a world of hurt. I don't want to die in a ditch over it but we could easily end up in a flat spin if people start getting twitchy. To that end, I want to get round the bazaars and make sure the movers and the shakers are on-side from day one. If you can hit me with your shopping list I can take it to the head honchos and start the ball rolling.

There is light at the end of the tunnel and I think we have backed a winner here. If it gets blown out the water, however, I will be throwing a track. So get your feet into my in-tray and give me chapter and verse as to how you see things panning out. As long as our ducks are in a row I think the ball will stay in play and we can come up smelling of roses.

Before you bomb burst and throw smoke, it is imperative we nail our colours very firmly on the mast and look at the big picture. We've got to march to the beat of the drum. We are on a sticky wicket. we'll need to play with a straight bat and watch out for fast balls.

I've been on permanent send for long enough and I've had my ten pence worth. I don't want to rock the boat or teach anyone to suck eggs. We must keep this firmly in our sight picture or it will fall between the cracks. If the cap fits, wear it, but it may seem like pushing fog up a hill with a sharp stick.

 

 

Sorry... It's been a heavy Easter and I needed to do something silly 🙂

 

Good God, man, this is pure gold. You ran it up the flagpole and I, for one, salute it.   

[pixelstuff]

54 minutes ago, jimh12345 said:

Good God, man, this is pure gold. You ran it up the flagpole and I, for one, salute it.   

Can you translate what it means in regular language? Aside from a bunch of unrelated idioms strung together, I couldn't figure out what it was trying to say. After reading it twice I decided someone was just playing around with an LLM.

[bici]

i enjoyed reading  TidBITS   take on the issue:

Canva Acquires the Affinity Suite

 

 

 

 

;

[Chills]

5 hours ago, pixelstuff said:

Can you translate what it means in regular language? Aside from a bunch of unrelated idioms strung together, I couldn't figure out what it was trying to say. After reading it twice I decided someone was just playing around with an LLM.

It is a whole load of well known marketing-speak phrases that are pointless.  They are all strung together with no substantive information whatsoever.  I have no idea what LLM is, but this lot were carefully put together manually several decades ago (not by me) as a joke. I first saw it posted on Usenet before www was even born.

It is fun to see how far someone gets reading it before they realize it is a spoof.  To put it is context: start ad the beginning of this thread and work your way though all 48 pages of it.

[Alfred]

17 minutes ago, Chills said:

I have no idea what LLM is

LLM  = Large Language Model

A ‘large language model’ is an AI algorithm that uses neural network techniques to process natural language inputs and predict a sequence of following words, so that it can generate a plausible response.

[Raptosauru5]

I hope I am wrong, but I don't feel good about this.

Canva is not nowhere near to what I would call a "Professional software", compared to Affinity.

If Canva starts pushing their oversimplified design practices and pricing model, it will just become another garbage Figma...

...I hope I am completely wrong and Affinity will become even better then before.

[pixelstuff]

3 hours ago, Raptosauru5 said:

I hope I am wrong, but I don't feel good about this.

Canva is not nowhere near to what I would call a "Professional software", compared to Affinity.

If Canva starts pushing their oversimplified design practices and pricing model, it will just become another garbage Figma...

...I hope I am completely wrong and Affinity will become even better then before.

Let's hope Canva purchased Serif because they wanted something a lot different than what they've currently built, including the Affinity brand name.

[loukash]

3 hours ago, Raptosauru5 said:

Canva is not nowhere near to what I would call a "Professional software", compared to Affinity.

Well, to draw comparison with e.g. Apple, Apple also didn't have any professional audio recording and sequencing software before they bought Emagic some 20 years ago. But that was why they bought Emagic, so that they would have not only the Logic DAW for the pros, but eventually also the free GarageBand – which is directly based on Logic – for everyone. And from what I read a few years ago, reportedly the original Emagic team that now works for Apple is still based in Germany.

[Bit Disappointed]

7 minutes ago, pixelstuff said:

Let's hope Canva purchased Serif because they wanted something a lot different than what they've currently built, including the Affinity brand name.

Hopium

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

36 minutes ago, loukash said:

Well, to draw comparison with e.g. Apple, Apple also didn't have any professional audio recording and sequencing software before they bought Emagic some 20 years ago. But that was why they bought Emagic, so that they would have not only the Logic DAW for the pros, but eventually also the free GarageBand – which is directly based on Logic – for everyone. And from what I read a few years ago, reportedly the original Emagic team that now works for Apple is still based in Germany.

Yeah, Logic Pro id da shit!!

Bought it when they reached version 10 back in 2013 ($200), and now, 11 years later, it’s v10.85 and I haven’t paid a penny for Logics updates since then! Incredible!

[bah is life]

On 3/26/2024 at 10:08 AM, Ash said:

Hi All,

I am thrilled to announce that Affinity is joining the Canva family.

This is a moment of great excitement, anticipation, and profound gratitude for all of you who have been part of our story so far. 

We know that those of you who’ve put your faith in Affinity, some since we launched our very first Mac app, will have questions about what this means for the future of our products. Since the inception of Affinity, our mission has been to empower creatives with tools that unleash their full potential, fostering a community where innovation and artistry flourish. We've worked tirelessly to challenge the status quo, delivering professional-grade creative software that is both accessible and affordable. 

None of that changes today.

In Canva, we’ve found a kindred spirit who can help us take Affinity to new levels. Their extra resources will mean we can deliver much more, much faster. Beyond that, we can forge new horizons for Affinity products, opening up a world of possibilities which previously would never have been achievable. 

Canva’s revolutionary approach to design democratisation and commitment to empowering everyone to create aligns perfectly with our core values and vision. This union is a testament to what can be achieved when two companies that share a common goal of making design accessible and enjoyable for everyone come together. 

I want to express my deepest gratitude to our incredible Affinity team. Your passion, dedication, and relentless pursuit of excellence have been the driving force behind our success so far, and I can’t wait to continue this journey with you all. 

To our loyal users and the creative community, your support and feedback have been invaluable. You’ve inspired us to push boundaries and continuously improve, and we’re excited to embark on this new chapter together. 

The future is bright, and I am incredibly excited to continue our story together and create a world where design is within everyone's reach.

With heartfelt thanks,

Ash

For more information...

• We have included some FAQs at the bottom of the announcement article here.
• A video message from me with some more background is on YouTube here.

 

 

• Additionally we will be setting up a Q&A session about this acquisition in a few weeks time. More info on how to take part in this will be sent on email and posted on this forum in the coming days.

WRONG DIRECTION! Think of the future not trends that will fade. Remain consistent with the current pricing model.

[bbrother]

23 hours ago, Raptosauru5 said:

Canva is not nowhere near to what I would call a "Professional software", compared to Affinity.

If Canva starts pushing their oversimplified design practices and pricing model...

These are my biggest fears.
Because I expect and would like development to move in such a direction that Affinity programs become truly professional tools equipped with mature and high-quality functions, which means, for example:

• top-notch rendering library (no redraw issues, smooth zoom-in-out without flashing render tiles, no delays in rendering / updating thumbnails)
• professional object styles (dedicated dialog, ability to either clear and replace all object settings or replace only specific ones or save defaults)
• Split/ span columns 
• professional spread and page management (multi-page spreads, moving and page reorder)
• foolproof color managment and pdf export
• workflow comparable to a professional tool (without reinventing the wheel, where everything has been working optimally for many years)
• true vector brushes and patterns
• vector symmetry tools
• symbols libraries
• variable font support
• creating cutom glyph sets
• drag-n-drop to rearrange columns and rows in table
• tables across multiple page or inside text frames
• envelope distort (using selected object as a shape for the envelope)
• and more and more...

Otherwise, I can't imagine how Affinity would compete with Adobe, which is what the owners of Canva declare.

 

And for God's sake, stop this type of marketing↓

Quote

We believe Affinity is the highest-quality professional-grade design suite on the market.

With all my sympathy and respect for your programs, it has nothing to do with reality. What's more, such arrogant marketing, unsupported by quality, slowly becomes distasteful and discourages rather than encourages people to buy your products.
You can advertise your product in a more balanced way without treating your current and potential customers like mindless idiots.

Edited April 4 by bbrother
added more function & feature examples

[Rodi]

On 4/1/2024 at 11:21 AM, albertkinng said:

 These printshops still follow the same procedures from the 80s, albeit with better machines, but unfortunately, they often encounter the same demands from designers.

Just last week, I sent a 6 spot color separation PDF as requested, only to receive a call from an intermediary who claimed that all the files were black. It became evident to me that this individual was positioned in a department where they lacked a comprehensive understanding of the workflows and technicalities involved. I simply advised them to forward the files to the print department, reassuring them that those professionals would know how to handle the situation. Although this response was not well-received, the end product turned out to be flawlessly beautiful. Recalling a similar incident from last year, I approached a supposedly experienced Art Director and inquired whether they were familiar with the picas measurements for file accuracy.

To my surprise, they had no idea what I was referring to. It is disheartening to encounter individuals with college degrees who lack even the basic understanding of the graphic design industry. To illustrate this point further, my 15-year-old daughter recently received a Photoshop Batch from a professional user via email. However, she lacks the knowledge and skills to use Photoshop effectively. This highlights the issue we face as true professionals within the industry. We are being negatively impacted by a new generation of "Canva users" who view graphic design as merely "generating images" and moving clipart around.

What we truly need are companies like Affinity that continue to support and cater to us, the professionals who have dedicated our careers to this field. It is disheartening to witness the industry being dumbed down for the sake of the new generation, who are willing to pay a monthly fee for quick and effortless design apps. Our expertise, knowledge, and commitment should not be undervalued or overlooked.

Hi,

Did you send a pre separated file? 6 pdfs per color?

I have some use for that in a certain subfield, but it's been a while since they can be used with modern rips architecture, you lose a way to trap.

Yes on Picas! When I was a camera man and did not need to know about sheet size I used picas forever! My only issue with picas is real picas vs picas on computer are not equal (digital picas are exactly 1/72", whereas regular picas on my Plankcs Typographic ruler is slightly larger 72.3 or so per inch.

I have one thing that kills me in printing. PANTONE Color books are not numerical anymore. Some genius's decided to put them numerically at the index and by hue on the printed page. Well that's just a pain somewhere...

I get files in that have the same issues as in the 1980's, RGB/missing fonts...  just had a canva job yesterday where a maroon red was picked from two different online colors that look similar I am sure, but they converted to cmyk and it was light years different.

I blame schools for hiring poor teachers in graphic arts programs. I would love to teach a class on production values of printing. Type, Color and Bleed. I regularly run into experienced designer who don't bleed out items... I would teach about quality font choices on a budget, PANTONE Color to Process, document size!!

How about a class how not use photoshop as a pagelayout program!!

[albertkinng]

1 hour ago, Rodi said:

Did you send a pre separated file? 6 pdfs per color?

yes.

 

1 hour ago, Rodi said:

I have one thing that kills me in printing. PANTONE Color books are not numerical anymore. Some genius's decided to put them numerically at the index and by hue on the printed page. Well that's just a pain somewhere...

OMG, yes! It drives me insane!

1 hour ago, Rodi said:

I blame schools for hiring poor teachers in graphic arts programs. I would love to teach a class on production values of printing. Type, Color and Bleed. I regularly run into experienced designer who don't bleed out items... I would teach about quality font choices on a budget, PANTONE Color to Process, document size!!

Amen!

1 hour ago, Rodi said:

How about a class how not use photoshop as a pagelayout program!!

They even sell templates online! In PSD!!! really??

[Bit Disappointed]

5 hours ago, bbrother said:

These are my biggest fears.
Because I expect and would like development to move in such a direction that Affinity programs become truly professional tools equipped with mature and high-quality functions, which means, for example:

• top-notch rendering library (no redraw issues, smooth zoom-in-out without flashing render tiles, no delays in rendering / updating thumbnails)
• professional object styles (dedicated dialog, ability to either clear and replace all object settings or replace only specific ones or save defaults)
• Split/ span columns 
• professional spread and page management (multi-page spreads, moving and page reorder)
• foolproof color managment and pdf export
• workflow comparable to a professional tool (without reinventing the wheel, where everything has been working optimally for many years)

Otherwise, I can't imagine how Affinity would compete with Adobe, which is what the owners of Canva declare.

 

And for God's sake, stop this type of marketing↓

With all my sympathy and respect for your programs, it has nothing to do with reality. What's more, such arrogant marketing, unsupported by quality, slowly becomes distasteful and discourages rather than encourages people to buy your products.
You can advertise your product in a more balanced way without treating your current and potential customers like mindless idiots.

Quote

We believe Affinity is the highest-quality professional-grade design suite on the market.

INDEED arrogant sales nonsense that I and others have warned about sounds as if it was written by a bad used car salesman. It's condescending, inaccurate, and boastful drivel that is so damaging to Serif's credibility as a company, they have likely already painted themselves into a corner as far as all professionals are concerned, those who have read it first and then tried the programs. Serif may shudder at the thought of how much they have isolated themselves from professional customers at that level with such words that simply do not hold true.

As I've said, it's not enough with financial resources; it's about the attitude and professionalism at Serif, which needs to go up several levels. Something radical needs to happen before radical results can be expected. Not tweaks.

[debraspicher]

4 hours ago, Bit Disappointed said:

INDEED arrogant sales nonsense that I and others have warned about sounds as if it was written by a bad used car salesman. It's condescending, inaccurate, and boastful drivel that is so damaging to Serif's credibility as a company, they have likely already painted themselves into a corner as far as all professionals are concerned, those who have read it first and then tried the programs. Serif may shudder at the thought of how much they have isolated themselves from professional customers at that level with such words that simply do not hold true.

As I've said, it's not enough with financial resources; it's about the attitude and professionalism at Serif, which needs to go up several levels. Something radical needs to happen before radical results can be expected. Not tweaks.

Yes and I find that particular quote you and @bbrother cited to be both stubborn and insulting when there are years and years of unaddressed efforts by the users of this forum. That's why I refuse to participate in the betas at this point. It's counterintuitive. They have rode off into the sunset after literally cashing out on all our goodwill but still only have vague insinuations production could be higher (relying again on our imaginings of what could be), but then insist "nothing will change". They were acquired, not as a blessing but out of necessity, so clearly a lot needs to change.

[Bit Disappointed]

1 hour ago, debraspicher said:

Yes and I find that particular quote you and @bbrother cited to be both stubborn and insulting when there are years and years of unaddressed efforts by the users of this forum. That's why I refuse to participate in the betas at this point. It's counterintuitive. They have rode off into the sunset after literally cashing out on all our goodwill but still only have vague insinuations production could be higher (relying again on our imaginings of what could be), but then insist "nothing will change". They were acquired, not as a blessing but out of necessity, so clearly a lot needs to change.

Correct, and if I have a thought that should concern all customers, it is that Canva, being a very young company without any special experience or knowledge about how complex the curriculum Adobe Create Suite programs or equivalent covers, has swallowed this sales pitch and has not thoroughly investigated the level of the programs and the condition, and will have a rude awakening when they realize, and realize how difficult it is to move market shares (it's not mechanically about prices for professionals, professionals pay dearly for time and material, and material is so much more and more expensive than software), then we'll see what happens with Affinity.

Companies trying to grow and initially succeeding start to become daring, taking chances that often fall to the ground like a stone or struggle for years before someone pulls the plug. Just look at Google. It's primarily their old core products that survive and deliver.

After reading this thread for about a week now, reading the companies' own words about the acquisition, and having thought about it in peace and quiet, I don't believe much in Canva's project. And with the above quote in mind and the hopeless nonsense about a revolution, I see the project and Serif/Canva on one side of a scale, where reality is placed on the opposite side.

And the professional customers? I can't remember ever seeing Affinity mentioned in relation to professionals, and I've certainly not met anyone in professional circles who knows Affinity when I mention the name.

So roll up your sleeves, Serif and Canva, it's not going to be plug and play.

[mehdy]

Affinity has joined the Canva family! Hear all about the exciting news, plus our four pledges to the community.

Can any one make this more powerful message using marketing techniques?