Tech Guru Assist

[Danny T30TUS]

Hey folks,

1st real post of the year so happy new year. Hopefully we'll get a few runs up here in the Northeast this year.

Been using the car through most of the winter so far, but she's in desperate need of a windscreen and some other bits and pieces. A few weeks and she'll be in the safe hands of CMC.

Had an inch of water in the passenger footwell after all that rain last week, must be something needing sealed up somewhere I guess.

Okay main reason for this post. Has any of the more tech savvy gurus on here ever had any experience using Adobe Illustrator?

Basically me and a friend are trying to set something up to create a little extra cash outwith our normal day jobs.

To do this we need to create some pretty cool infographics and create some other printable advertising materials.

I'm pretty handy with Microsoft PowerPoint, but I've heard illustrator would be ideal for creating the templates then using PowerPoint for editing the content of the infographic.

Anyone know where I could get the full version of the program without having to pay full whack?

Also, anyone know if it's possible to store the program on a portable hard drive instead of a laptop?

Cheers

Danny



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[steve_weegie]

Adobe seem very keen on software leasing at the moment, and you can get Illustrator in their Creative Cloud app pack for £17 a month I think. Probably not too big a deal if you're making money from using it, and certainly better than the major upfront cost of buying it outright.

As for storing the program on external hard disk, you might be in trouble with that - sure you can store it there, but I don't think it will be "portable" between computers.

[robin]

If the illustrator usage is a effectively a one off for your venture you could also just get somebody else to do the art work for you. There are plenty of people out there who do this for a living - I'll bet some of them are even on this forum - but if not I am sure you could find them with a quick google.

As Steve says, you might store the program on a removable drive but (a) it won't work plugged into some other machine and (b) it will still look like the laptop has the program installed, just it won't run when launched.

Cheers,
Robin

[graeme]

For this sort of stuff I use www.99designs.co.uk It's a market place for design of logos/header paper/business cards etc. Put up your design brief and how much you're willing to pay and then see what response you get. The more you pay, the better designers you attract.

Learning to use the tools is one thing... but you can't buy artistic talent

[BigD]

Learning to use the tools is one thing... but you can't buy artistic talent

Or experience.........

[Shug]

Learning to use the tools is one thing... but you can't buy artistic talent

This. In spades.

A half decent designer will take a rough idea and make something that looks professional and polished. If you've got an eye and a flair for design, but no training, it can still work fine if you're au fait with the software independently, but learning new software whilst using it to create something for revenue-earning work tends to lead to it looking half baked.

[Dominic]

What's to say that Danny doesn't have artistic talent?

[graeme]

What's to say that Danny doesn't have artistic talent?

I was talking about me. I've got the tools and a tiny bit of skills using them but no artistic talent, so I can't produce anything.

[BigD]

What's to say that Danny doesn't have artistic talent?

Danny please don't think that's what's coming across, I didn't take it that way.

Another option for you is serif pageplus, I've used serif software in the past and it's much cheaper than illustrator but it's clearly nowhere near as powerful, however may be a good option for starting out/low production numbers. I've used it for newsletter/flyer type documents and it's very straightforward and simple to use. So you can have master pages or a template page that you can easily add content to or change without starting over every time. Uses the same terms (nomenclature) etc as illustrator and will give you a print ready pdf with all the bleed areas that you need to send to print etc etc. I've done this and then sent off to online printers for not much cost. It's just time that it takes.

http://www.serif.com/pageplus/ It's £90 but they often offer deals or addons for not much or free. Bargain hard and they'll do something I'm sure. Also there is a free version that you can trial and see if it's what you need.

On the other hand my other half was a graphic designer and she tears my designs to shreds and not in a nice way.............. Professional pride and all that......... and I have seen some appalling "professional" designs too.

You pays your money you takes your chance.

[Dominic]

What's to say that Danny doesn't have artistic talent?

I was talking about me. I've got the tools and a tiny bit of skills using them but no artistic talent, so I can't produce anything.

[Danny T30TUS]

Cheers folks, will look into the monthly fee for illustrator as a starting point for our templates.

We have backgrounds for our own branded materials.

The trouble is that, it won't be a one off art work required. We will most likely require to revise the art work depending on which prospect we are targeting.

This is not the first time we've done this. Last time we enlisted the help of a graphic design student from Uni and paid her a small fee for her help.



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[pshanks76]

I'm the head of a creative team and we use, as do pretty much every design agency, the Adobe Creative suite of programs for all our work.

Illustrator is great for illustration - logo design, infographics, etc. but pretty terrible at handling type so not very good for brochures, magazines, etc. For that you need to use InDesign.

The two biggest challenges I could see would be creative ability and technical knowledge of the software. The tech knowledge is pretty easy to overcome - there's plenty tutorials online that you can use to learn the software... it's a lot more complex to use that Powerpoint but if you're reasonably savvy you can pick it up. Creative ability is a bit more difficult - I've seen plenty designers who are very proficient in the software but just can't generate the good ideas themselves... good artworkers but not good designers. Coming up with the good ideas is definitely the toughest part!