Seeing is believing

[Sheff]

I am an adjunct professor at UNLV and I teach two classes, Illustration and Concept Rendering, and Design Ideation. In my classroom are kids with Cintiq tablets hooked up to Mac Pro's(the big ones not the new trashcan.)

When they hired me, I told them that I was not an Adobe Illustrator guru. That didn't matter as much as being able to critique the student work. In terms of lecturing and demo, I often times show my process of hopping between Xara Designer Pro and Photoshop. For this I have to bring my laptop to class because all the machines are Mac. I hook up to the projector and switch between my Macbook Air running Xara and the Mac Pro on my desktop.

I had a student who was struggling to do something that would seemingly be easy in Illustrator, manipulating blends along a path. He was struggling with it for 45 minutes. Then he asked if he could try Xara on my laptop to do the same thing. It took him a couple of minutes to achieve what he was looking for after I showed him a couple things.

The look on his face was like a man who was discovering broadband after being on dial-up his whole life. After having the opportunity to TRY XARA he was sold. He was going to buy a student version after playing with it on my laptop for just a few minutes.

Now I warned him the drawback was becoming pretty much an outcast and that using Xara might limit him on jobs in the future.

But I can't help but think how easy it is to 'sell' Xara to someone who has only used Illustrator enough to encounter the frustrations with it.

I can't help but think that if Xara could somehow get on school computers and be available to people then they'd want to use it professionally. That'll never happen because the graphic design departments of most schools are Mac based.

But I don't see the point in showing students how to use Illustrator if I personally avoid using Illustrator as a professional. The students can see my process, my thinking process and techniques without the software getting in the way. I show them how I combine openCanvas, Xara and Photoshop. I show them when I use Flame Painter, Artrage, Corel Painter, and alchemy when necessary.

Personally, I really enjoy using Xara. And I wouldn't mind demoing it to people who have never seen it. In the context of the classroom, I don't care what software students use. Many of them prefer using Paint Tools Sai over Photoshop. Some use iPads to paint. The students who use Illustrator are significantly slower at production that students using other tools.

My experience with that student yesterday leads me to believe that Xara would be really easy to sell to end users. A Mac version would be super easy to sell. If a Mac version of Designer Pro were to be made available to students, specifically having it installed on the school computers, then they'd definitely use it. For every time someone runs into trouble in Illustrator, if they had the ability to just open Xara instead, they would.

I feel like an unpaid Xara evangelist, and I don't mind.

What has been your experience showing other people how you work in Xara? What's their reaction like?

[pauland]

A Mac version would be super easy to sell.

It's got competition on the Mac. Illustrator isn't the only game in town these days, by a long way.

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...ty-for-the-Mac

[Albacore]

Like you Sheff when I was teaching in Scotland and doing Standard Grade & Higher Graphical Communication. I had to have a publishing programme for students for their work. In Scotland after starting using BBC Master's the whole country then went over to Mac's because of their graphical interface but they were far too expensive so it was the turn of the PC's to take over. As the order of the day was to try and get as many students as possible at their own terminal. Now I was the principal teacher of technical and had different uses of computers, like 2D CAD drawing, so we had stayed longer with BBC type Acorn computers but eventually had to go over to PC's and I found Xara by chance. Well my teachers took to it as we were coming from Artworks and so did the pupils doing extremely well in their exams, best results in Scotland, in Standard Grade 4 grades higher than they achieved in Maths and English all from a silly priced programme called Xara. The school bought a site license from Xara for 72 computers in the late 90's for again a silly price of, I think, £400. I even got promotion for 2 years as a national development officer in my subject because of the schools results. This meant I went around Scotland showing teachers how I delivered my subject, advising the education authorities what resources each department needed and I also developed classroom exemplar materials which were distributed throughout Scotland.

Now, I met resistance throughout Scotland using Xara, all because it was too cheap to do a proper job, as most of the schools at that time used AutoCad Lt which rendered objects in a 3D space very simply and it cost an arm and a leg. This meant that departments could only afford a few computers to have the software and created bottlenecks to render drawings. Gone are those days now as schools are given free copies of AutoDesk Inventor by AutoCad and it is a terrific programme to draw and render sketches and to produce precision drawings. This means that there is no mention of Adobe, no PS or AI, all because AutoCad had the facility to foresee if you give a student tools when they are young they will want to continue using that software if they become designers, engineers, architects or create business people who can present their products properly and will pay the proper price to do so. I think that makes business sense by Autocad and will make them money and it will lead to companies that can hire students straight from university who will have the ability without much help to do a days work, be able to use, read and even design things.

[ernie-f]

Hello from Germany,

I'm not a teacher but a single warior in the world wide graphic world. Herin Germany the aducation to a graphic artist is a three years study to become. They learn on PC and Mac's, but only the Adobe Suite. Maybe a little Corel and a scratch of OpenSource software.

I work with many publishing companies and do a lot of covers for their e-books and print books. I still must use Adobe but my main work I do with Xara. Once a time I was aked, how do you did it so fast? You use Illu? If I answere I didn't, he was wondering which other Software will be preferd. After I told him that my main work is createt with Xara Designer that cost a part of Illu, my HP too and all other illustration and art work arround, he was frustrated.

After a few weeks he call me and say, he must stop the work with me. I ask why? The boss say who doesn't work with Adobe is not a professionell. That's it! Not the work but the program You use brings you money. Adobe is a standard in the printing world! And everybody must go with them in comparisom.
The mind of the chiefs is stil narrow. Adobe is the ORACLE and nobody else can bit them, until.

I'm in luck because I don't must have every job, but if I say my main work I do within Xara the job is canceld. So I do my work like I do and put it after I've been ready into Illu and good is.

The image that Xara become with Magix is a most negative. In Germany is Magix also known as a Amiga-Company to sell cheap and not quality products. If You look what they do with the German version of Xara-Designer is no wondering why Xara isn't popular. The wide range to become a professionel design software is not given.

From Germany/Bavaria

Ernie
(Sorry for my bad english, I hope You undestand me)

[Albacore]

Just say you work with PDF's Ernie that's what I used to say. Then I would say, I bring all my work into InDesign for final composition and that's was the truth. Or in some cases when it was required show my printed work and that got their attention and tell what was used. By the way welcome to TG!

[ernie-f]

Hi Albacore, You're right. I do also but some companies require native Illu-files. And here are the things, I can't work with all kind of transparancy and fills in Xara. If I import a Xara PDF into Illu or Indesign not all native fills and transparancies are converted well. I limit my work to path creation and in Illu i use the fills, gardients etc.

Maybe we will get finaly PDF-X4 ex- and import from Xara. Then are maybe most problems gone.

For customers who come to me for their projects I d'nt must use Adobe. Here I'm free to choose which program i will use. But the agencies and publisher will a stupid use of Adobe.
Adobe in Germany is like a octopus. Take it or die!

Servus from Bavaria
Ernie

[pauland]

ernie-f, it's exactly the same for me.

Everyone I work with uses Adobe and expects it back.

[MarcT]

Very enlightening posts about the examples in education Sheff and Albacore, thanks for sharing your experiences.

I have no trouble picturing students finding it more convenient to work with Xara, especially if they had a bit of one to one experience with Illustrator.

What puzzles me is why does people endure such hindering workflows.
I guess peer-pressure and fear of not looking like a "pro" is quite strong.

On another side, the energy it takes to compare the pro and cons of each software and articulate them into an educated comparison must weight in that equation.

The bottom line will always be how much time it takes to do repetitive actions and achieve goals.

Like Ernie, I have to work with clients that demands AI files.

I still find it much quicker to do everything in Xara and then convert the files to AI.
It's not because I don't know how to work with illustrator, it's just much faster this way, even counting conversion time.

Of course I don't use Xara-specific tools while doing those, but it's surprising how much will translate by PDF or even SVG.

Marc

[ernie-f]

Like Ernie, I have to work with clients that demands AI files.

I still find it much quicker to do everything in Xara and then convert the files to AI.
It's not because I don't know how to work with illustrator, it's just much faster this way, even counting conversion time.

Of course I don't use Xara-specific tools while doing those, but it's surprising how much will translate by PDF or even SVG.

Marc

Hi Marc,

in the basic stuff the conversation to AI, PDF and SVG is given. But only an elliptic gardient with three controls and lying over an other object, will be flaten to a bitmap or distroit to a single circular gardient.

When I got a new job so I plan what can I realize in Xara native to get the best compatibility to AI or PDF. And I say You, the planing phase is a time steeler. But how You, the path creation is still the fastest and easiest way in Xara. Serfis DrawPlus is almost equal to Xara's path tools. But the same here, no kompatibility to AI …!

Sometimes can CorelDraw help to convert some files. If there are no complex fills and transparancys is CMX32 a good exchange format. WIthin Corel and output to AI I got the best result. Remeber that Corel is stil one or two versions behind the actual AI-file-technique (there is more then native PDF-X4). And Xara? They allways stuck on the stand of Illy CS2. For me is this pity, for Xara only a shame. The word „professional” in XARA Designer Pro is inappropriate.

I don't wont bash. But I'm a proffesional Graphic Designer and must work for money, not for fun. I like Xara's easiness to draw and create but a professionel work only within Xara is impossible.

From Bavaria
Ernie

[Albacore]

I think there is a bit of Adobe bashing going on here! as AI is now very useable once you taken how many "x" weeks to get the hang of the Pen Tool. Illy is such a large programme no graphic designer I have ever worked with used even half of the tools that were on the menu/tools. The reason of why I started with Xara as that at that time if you edited one line AI took ages to re-draw while Xara just did the work and let you get on. Now times have changed and Illy hardly blinks when asked to re-draw something after moving and it is constantly getting improved tools every 6 months now. The only thing that holds it back in education now is its price. As I stated in the UK AutoCad rules all the machines through its free software and this is far more important to schools than the snobbish approach of design houses as there are far more engineers than Graphic Designers around. Have a shot at AutoCad Inventor as it is a great wee programme that does the job rendering 2D drawn objects into 3D ones. Also in all graphic areas that I have worked in the designers used more than one programme to do their work so you have to learn more than one. I told a lie there I worked in one place that all you were allowed on the h/disc was a Printer Driver and a copy of Illy version 8 and along with that a copy of Acro Pro and this was at the time of CS2. They used those programmes for everything including generating even monthly dates on calendars which I thought was ridiculous and a bottleneck in work flow, quickly left.