i'd love to be a real designer but i cant afford it
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If you depend on the name brand of your software for the quality of the illustrations you create, doesn’t that sort of make the artist a secondary item in the equation?
What Paul had posted had a tongue-in-cheek irony to it, not to be taken literally.
If your machine turns out great artwork, or crap, you can always find the key element between the chair and the keyboard.
“Losing interest in Xara” begs the question, “So where are these disaffected people turning to for their drawing/design program?” To InkScape? I don’t think so; it has some unique features but development of it is slow and it doesn’t do everything Xara does. To CorelDRAW or Illustrator? Perhaps, if one has money to burn, or your client mandates it, and retraining time is no issue. I think the question itself was posed to generate content and controversy on this thread, and it worked!
;)
-g
I've worked at a few agencies on a freelance basis, usually short-term fill-in contracts for people that are ill or on vacation, or there's some job the agency can't do. My speciality is/was Flash. Invariably, every one of those agencies had an assumption that I also knew my way around Photoshop and Illustrator and in every place that I went to everyone used Adobe products. No exceptions.
I get stuff sent to me from Agency clients. The raw assets are always a mixture of Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign files. In the early days I tried using Xara as part of the pipeline - it just didn't work. Xara was fine when I was creating my own content, it's the working in a pipeline that's the issue and working with others.
So, I was entirely serious that if you wish to be taken seriously by the professional design community and work with them, then being familiar with Adobe software is a must.
This is not to say you can't do fantastic design work without Adobe software - of course you can - neither does using Adobe software make you a good designer, but in terms of interacting at a professional level inside the industry it is a must.
Now a ton of folks here don't use anything but Xara software and produce some stunning work and have established successful businesses on the back of Xara. I accept their phenomenal skills and I would say it's the designer/artist that has the skill not the toolset. That's all very good, but if you want to work in or with a design agency, however talented you may be, you'd better get used to the Adobe toolset.
If you walk into an established design agency and say you use Xara, they'll think you're from the backwoods.
Paul, I didn't mean to undermine the reality, applicability, or honesty in what you'd said; it's just than slightly below the surface is a fairly ugly truth that quality output by an artist is synonymous with name-brand software, in this discussion, Adobe products.
My own observation from being in the field is that the person who orders the software for an agency follows orders. And more than once, I've seen those orders trickle down from a department head and even a CEO who will confess that they know nothing about design software, except that Adobe was mentioned to them at a cocktail party, and they have TV ads, so it must be the brand professionals use.
Funny thing is that Adobe does indeed have several unparalleled products: Photoshop, After Effects, they bought "best of breed" institutional-strength applications very shrewdly over the years, and have developed their acquisitions intelligently.
But that doesn't mean that the smartest track for all creative companies has to be reflexively Adobe products; we wouldn't be having this discussion if everyone was bored with Xara and are moving to Illustrator.
It's sad that more than a handful of media companies assume that a standard of software is the best. Remember when Sony had the beta videotape format? Panasonic and Phillips and a few other companies ganged up and promoted the hell out of VHS, the weaker product, and it became the standard.
Paul, I guess in a way I have to agree about the "being taken seriously" aspect of how you choose your software, but considering how Adobe got to the top—a lot of smart programming talent but an awful lot of buzz, too—I hope that if anyone indeed is losing interest in Xara it's for the right career reasons.
-g
I'm sure I could convince any boss that using Xara means money in their pocket and better results. (even counting the time to convert to illustrator if necessary)
Not money for the price of purchase, this becomes quickly phased out by time spent using the software in quite a short while.
Xara get things done with diligence and much less fuss.
I ponder the same thing about sagging pants, there just might be a better way to use this equipment! ;-)
Marc
Paul, I didn't mean to undermine the reality, applicability, or honesty in what you'd said; it's just than slightly below the surface is a fairly ugly truth that quality output by an artist is synonymous with name-brand software, in this discussion, Adobe products.
No, I agree and I did try and differentiate between artistic talent and the tools we use.
Xara is fine, you can do great things with it - as we all know. If you are looking to design as a career or in collaboration with others in the creative industry, it has a big problem because Adobe is the de-facto standard.
It really doesn't matter if you're just a couple of people selling your design or artistic skills directly, Xara can save a lot of money and time.
I basically have to have access to at least three parts of the Adobe creative suite in order to work with creative agencies. It's cheaper for me to subscribe to the Adobe cloud and get access to every Adobe product. I don't have a huge up front outlay, but a monthly commitment. People point out how expensive Adobe is (and also want to pay $20 for a Xara upgrade, when I pay something like $40 a month for use of Adobe products), but it's the cost of doing business. I'm currently working on two projects working with an agency and Adobe allows me to get $4,000 worth of work by paying $40 a month. I couldn't do this work using Xara.
[As a little aside to those people who have scorned the use of tablets - this $4,000 worth of work is for iPad projects].
I'm not saying everyone on TG should be buying Adobe. It's no good bashing Adobe because they are a company with high expenses for development and high paying clientelle. Adobe is currently the oil that makes the creative world move.
If anything people should appreciate just what a bargain Xara software is. Someone in a small outfit with little money can compete with agencies paying thousands of dollars to achieve similar things.
My life is so crushing right now I haven't had time to participate, but on the other hand I'm not as dumb as I used to be so I don't have to ask as many questions of the forum.
I would say by the number of views and number of posts that the question has been answered.
Over the years I have used Xara for illustration, logo design, my stereograms, and more recently, website design. I have never had anybody ask what product I used. And IMHO it does not matter. I also have a BFA degree from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA and never in my professional career did anybody ever ask to see my diploma. The quality of your work you produce and your design skill and creativity that matters.
Unless you work in the industry, in which case as Paul points out, Adobe is the standard and if you are working for a design or advertising company, you will be using Adobe products. That's pretty much a given.
Gary has stated the case very succinctly.
Bob, I wish better times for you. Stick in there.
The thing is I upgrade to each version expecting better results, but it mostly seems like fixes and adding things that should have always been there. If the programers want to get paid make it right the first time and a Mac version at that! I still use CS4 on my Macbook pro and feel no need to upgrade because its done well. Xara seems to think people are made of money and can subscribe annually.