Graphic Design Software - What Should I Know?

A graduating designer who wants to work at R.BIRD asks me what software she should learn. This is how I respond:

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Would you believe that our library of software approaches thousands of applications? Yes, it is true.

It is interesting that you characterize Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop as “simple”! We’ve been using both applications since versions 1.0 and I have never met anyone that I consider to be a master of either. There is a great disparity between academic curriculum and real-world situations.

I do not mean to discourage you, rather, to awaken you to the challenges ahead.

Alright, let me answer your question with something more useable.

If I was to recommend software studies to any student of graphic design, my list would be in order of importance:

Typing - learn how to do it well (and spelling, too). And use more than one finger on each hand.

Font Creation - design and deliver your own digital font. Fontlab.

Word, InDesign, Quark, Pages - It doesn’t really matter, you must master a tool to design useful pages of information. After 30 years of this, I keep coming back to InDesign for its ease of use and great handling of typography. All other times - I am using TextEdit or BBEdit. Understand the grid.

Adobe Illustrator - most universally applicable throughout creative to production workflows. Attempt to master this one.

Adobe Photoshop - complements AI and can mask other technical deficiencies.

Motion - Flash, of course. At least understand how it works. Beyond that: Motion, Final Cut Pro… and the list becomes increasingly intimidating.

Web - Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver (and BBEdit).

3D - to expand your vision. In my own order of preference and accessibility: SketchUp, Modo, Lightwave, Vellum, SolidWorks - with FPrime, Vray and Maxwell for rendering.
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There you have it.

I started my involvement with the convergence of computers and art in 1973. I wrote my own software in Fortran to take in topology coordinates that I measured in the field myself with a transit, converting the data to 3D coordinates and mapped the results to a series of overprinted typewriter characters on paper in such a way that when viewed from across a room… an image of land mass became recognizable and meaningful.

I’ve learned a little about everything and mastered nothing. Guess what? I think that’s a good thing. I see far too many resumés where the applicant claims to be “proficient” in a short list of graphics application software. I don’t believe it. Better to say:

“Familiar with many… Master of none.”

As long as the statement is true, I will select this one for the interview.
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Photo above?: Artist’s CG workstation circa 1983. Artronics’ PC2000 paintbox to be exact - and yours truly at the tablet.

There are 7 comments so far | Post a comment

Stephen | Oct 13, 2005

I’m curious, why Dreamweaver?

From the brief background information you gave about yourself in this post, I’d guess that you’re very much at ease with hand-coding (particularly something as simple as XHTML & CSS), so DW seems like a strange choice.

Every person I’ve ever worked with who can hand-code prefers to avoid tools like DW if at all possible.

amine | Oct 13, 2005

“Familiar with many… Master of none.” on a scale from 1 to 10 how would you rate familiar?
because lately i’ve been seeing companies looking for people with big knowledge of very limited apps, for ex if you MASTER flash and photoshop, you are more likely to find a job for a designer than somebody who knows a little bit of most adobe and macromedia products.

jENG | Oct 13, 2005

Dreamweaver and GoLive is still faster than hand-coding for a lot of things. Find & Replace, complex tables (face it, sometimes you MUST use tables as demanded by the requirements, no matter what WE think about them). I’ve had “code-offs” with handcoders and for getting pages prepped with basic format and styles, Dreamweaver / GoLive / etc. is always faster. Tweaking and working on the code down the road, sure, no biggie.. just do it by hand. But then, personally, I don’t call myself a web “coder”. I’m a web designer. I focus on design. And Dreamweaver and GoLive are great tools for that. I’ve even seen IAs / usability guys use it for “live Wireframe dev” where they’ll build the wireframes right in the meetings. Awesome stuff. I’m starting to do this on a State project I have (where they have meetings preparing for other meetings… LOL) and I’m using Dreamweaver.

Dreamweaverer | Oct 14, 2005

Using Dreamweave does not preclude one from hand-coding. I am a developer, not a designer, and I use Dreamweaver for it’s ability to connect to FTP servers (so I can work live on the server) and it’s syntax highlighting. Search and Replace is obviously important, etc. but it’s the Project Management features that I prefer, I can just open DW six months after a project ends, select the Project Title from the drop down, connect to the server and grab a file I need. It’s a great tool, I’ve never used a single WYSIWYG feature of it, ever.

R. | Oct 26, 2005

My premise was directed to new graduates in the field of design and not to those who might know that, in the long run, Dreamweaver - et al - will lose out to the efficiency of other methods.

Like some who posted here, I can use BBEdit or other editors. Yet, I choose visual environments - like Dreamweaver - as a quick, “down and dirty” method to visualize a concept. Then, I will deal with the details another way… most often, by throwing my proof at a staff member!

David Colpitts | Nov 15, 2005

Hello,Richard. It is David, the old Artronics guy. I looked for your site, and just wanted to say hello. It seems that your world has expanded a lot! How nice. I wish you and yours the very best.

Regards,

David

R.BIRD | Aug 10, 2006

David Colpitts is the salesperson that sold me one of the first of Artronics’ paint systems. Hello, David!

At the same time, he sold a system to my good friend, David Bolinsky