[aklprinter]

I know this gets asked a lot, and I've spent a long time looking for an answer, and haven't found anything current to help me out.

Just getting started in the industry, no previous experience, no graphic design experience, but I'm educated, intelligent, and not afraid to figure something out.

I need to get some design software to get started. I've looked into Adobe Illustrator, but I refuse to get into a monthly commitment. I can't find any older programs to purchase or download that were prior to Adobe refusing to do 1 time purchases.

I've also looked into CorelDraw, but $500 is a hard pill to swallow right out of the gate for something I know nothing about. I'm wondering if the Home and Student edition would work for me, it's only $100.

I'm sure there are a lot of eye rolls happening right now, but, here I am, I've got my equipment, now I need software, and I'm determined. Please help.

Thanks for your time. Oh yeah, I'm a PC user.

 

[Signature Series]

Best served to outsource design work and focus on selling. The sad reality is decent designers are everywhere and due to the competition very cheap.

Wasting your time coming up with a design with no real outlet to sell it is how most startup t-shirt companies fail.

 

[dcbevins]

That urge to make something on your own can be strong. But like Signature Series says, it is the business end of it that is most important for profit. Organizing it all, finding the right people, that is what it takes.

That said, maybe you just really envision yourself doing this. Designers aren't paid much. It's a hard career. Some make it into the spotlight, but they are rare. But, it is a love for what your doing that drives many. So if you want to go there go ahead.

If your dead set, and as much of a CorelDraw fan as I am, I would say go Adobe. Everybody does Adobe. At least go there eventually. But, if you just like going against the grain for the sake of it, I'm a big Corel fan and find it more productive that Adobe.

If it is too much to fork out to start, as I am sure you have read in the forums, there are Inkscape and Gimp. Both these free programs can do it. Inkscape is a fine vector design program. You can learn about nodes and paths and bezier pens and it will transfer, mostly, to Draw or Illustrator later. The biggest problem with these free programs is limited to zero support for cmyk and or spot colors. Sometimes that doesn't matter starting out. Not Cadillacs of design software, but surprisingly capable in a range of things. Perfect to get your feet wet.

In the end, get them all. Many people have multiple design programs installed.

The Home and Student of Draw is ok. It is missing the Visual Basic things, so limited to no support for macro's or plugins.

 

[into the T]

drawplus x8 by serif
they just discontinued updates this year to bring focus on their new affinity for windows (hybrid raster/vector prgoram)
for ~$25 it is very hard to beat, and far less buggy/crashy than inkscape
even affinity is only ~$50 and may be worth a look
both have cmyk capabilities

gimp is really good for raster, and you should have that coupled with gmic
hopefully gimp 3.0 will have a decent vector component
making it more akin to affinity than photoshop
but that could be in 3-5 years, or less, who really knows

you should have inkscape also,
this will allow you to open illustrator and coreldraw files
then re-save as plain svg to open in your serif program

do you want the independence of designing what you want, when you want,
or do you want to email someone and say make me this?

 

[StatementClub]

If you're looking for a great alternative to Adobe Illustrator, look no further than Affinity Designer. Its a fantastic vector program for $50 that's continuously been updated.

I heard that Gimp is nice, but I prefer Affinity Photo.

Inkscape is also nice, but I'm not a huge fan of its interface, however I do love its raster to vector converter.

 

[aklprinter]

Thank you all for your input. I'm starting this as a side business with a partner. We're going to keep everything in-house, and are learning faster than our brains can keep up. But as I said before, we're both intelligent, capable, and both have business degrees. This is hopefully going to be a 2nd stream of income for both of us in the future.

I think I may get a couple of the free programs just to get my feet wet and use to design some simple stuff to practice and learn not just the software/design side, but also learning on all of our equipment.

Thanks again!

 

[into the T]

for free obviously inkscape and gimp,
microsoft expression design is free also
i just downloaded this the other day, but have not had a chance to monkey with it

 

[into the T]

if you are looking at gimp download, the builds from Partha
he has gmic, and other important plugins already installed in the gimp

saves you the hassle of finding and installing them,
plus it is a great ui, see attached image (been test-driving it for awhile now and it is stable)

download the 2.8 (the 2.9 is not the full release yet, so they are still working out the kinks)

he is also fairly active on the flickr gimp users page if you have any questions

 

[Dekzion]

I've been using the Serif suite (photo, page, draw and movie plusses) for a long time now, they all link to one another so designing is a doddle, and as everyone is so worried about vector, just fyi, drawplus handles that.
Personally I couldn't use multi programs for designing, that's why I like Serif, they all work as one. I have apps for things like vignettes and resizing just because it's easier, but when I've looked at things like Gimp (which is brilliant) and some of the manga studio stuff I realise that I would have to learn all over again to get profficient with them, so haven't moved over (or up) I also like to have the design program rigidly sitting in my computer, not somewhere in space where the link can be severed. and I certainly wouldn't be on a 'plan'. If I've paid for it it is mine for ever.