Which Vector Art Packages are the Best?

Could you name some of these vendors/companies? I for one wasnt an attendee to the show so I have no clue who's who.

Thanks

This is a tough question because the best package is the one(s) that have the art you want or think you need. A $50 package w/o and image you want is not worth the $$ but if it is $300 and has what you want/need then that would be the one

Most Vector packs can be ungrouped and customized or combined to get what you want. I would bet that one of the vendors was Digital Art Solutions/Smart Designer group...they have pricey products but the are good but to get the most from them you should be using the right combination of Corel Draw and Smart Designer...to get all...open your wallet WIDE...

I think my main problem is that I don't know what I am going to need, and hate to invest in a lot of art that I never use. I did this with a stock design catalog for embroidery, and have used very few of the designs. (This was before they were readily available individually on the web.)

The companies I talked to at the ISS included Digital Art Solutions, Action Illustrated and Great Dane Graphics.

I really don't want to spend the money that DAS wants for the Corel/Smart Designer setup. Are there any companies that sell the designs individually, as one might need them?

maybe monkey boy

If you don't know what you want...don't buy anything...outsource until you know

Thanks -- that's probably the best solution until I determine what my major market for this will be.

Great dane graphics does sell their designs seperatly on their website, they also have bulk prices for like 5 or 10 or more, and give price breaks depending on the amount of designs that you buy. They cannot however be edited like the ones from digital art solutions as they are psd file types. Digital art solutions graphics are vectors. So also make sure when you buy artwork you are able to edit it the way you want.

I have smart designer and the graphics from digital art solutions, and I also have alot of the graphics from great dane. I have not tried actions designs. I think they are all good depending on what you need That should be the deciding factor on which you purchase. I agree with Charles that the digital art solutions graphics and software is great, but without corel draw they are no where near as easy to work with. Smart designer is built to attach directly and work directly with corel draw.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, that information does help. I haven't had a chance to go through all the flyers and stuff I picked up at the show yet.

I agree that the best format for what I need is vector, so the Great Dane packages probably won't be what I need.

I think I read somewhere that the Corel that DAS sells is not the same as the standalone version -- or am I just dreaming this? I have Corel X3, but am just now muddling through the basics. That's why I thought it might be good to have a source for real artwork that looks good!

Although I come from a graphic design background (offset printing) a lot of this is totally new to me. I never claimed to be an artist, just mainly put things together that others gave me to use, and mostly technical-type stuff at that.

Your corel draw x3 will work fine with the smart designer, that was the way I did it, I already had coreldraw and then bought the smart designer and their templates after. So you can use the corel draw you have with their smart designer program. Corel draw x3 is the same no matter if you buy it from them or already have it, its the same program. There is no difference there. The smart designer program is a program from DAS that connects to your current corel draw program and they work interactivly with each other, as they attack like one program.

The smart designer is really cool and has alot of great effects and tools that just make corel draw better and easier to use with their graphics. DAS graphics can be edited with just corel draw, but not as well or as easy. Hope this explains it more

Awesome! Thank you, I will look into it further.

I just went to the website of Action Illustrated (www.actionillustrated) and found out you can order individual graphics from the website.

do you mean... www.actionartsource.com

Catbox said:

do you mean... www.actionartsource.com

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Yes, I wasn't thinking while I was typing...

Thanks for the correction.

I just bought the sports and mascots 1 and 2 volumes, which was a lot of money. I was told I could use them in illustrator, but when I open them up in Illustrator, I can't seem to redo anything. Do you know what I am doing wrong? Do you have to have corel and smart designer to change thigns?

lgiglio1 said:

I just bought the sports and mascots 1 and 2 volumes, which was a lot of money. I was told I could use them in illustrator, but when I open them up in Illustrator, I can't seem to redo anything. Do you know what I am doing wrong? Do you have to have corel and smart designer to change thigns?

Click to expand...

You do not need anything besides Illustrator to make changes. If you are having a hard time, please call Tech Support. The number can be found on there Website.

We have the Action Illustrated and DAS designs sets. And I have to say that I really like the Action Illustrated designs best. I never really cared a whole lot for the Smart Designer, so I just use both design sets with Corel. They both have a lot of templates and stand alone designs. I tend to start with a template and change things out and make it the way I like it better.

Just adding my $.02 here. I would start with CorelDRAW and add art as you need it like Charles has suggested. The add on program are nice and let you do thing faster, however they don’t do anything you can’t do in Corel yourself, you just need to know how.
Also there are different versions of CorelDRAW, for example you can get an academic version of CorelDRAW but it will not come with the tools needed to interface with the add on programs. If you purchase the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite you should be set. Take the time to learn the program. Also keep in mind the larger percentage of your Customers will bring you art you need to clean up or scan in and not so much pick a clipart from a book. For those Customers you can use sites online to purchase what you need and learn to create the rest.
CW

ArtGuru said:

You do not need anything besides Illustrator to make changes. If you are having a hard time, please call Tech Support. The number can be found on there Website.

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You can get free vectors on openclipart.com

I think the site is wrong. I went there and no free art...