Hi all,

Just finished a graphic design certificate at sessions.edu and I am on the adventure to shift all my tools to open source tools. So I've discovered inkscape and really love it
I just wrote an article on the grahic design open source and tough you might like it here anyhow, that's my introduction to your community

You can read about it here :

http://www.ponnuki.net/2011/07/open-sou ... ic-design/

Looking forward to do more with inkscape !

thanks for this wonderful software !

Welcome to the forum!

A very nice article. Well-rounded and covers many aspects such as Inkscape and Scribus.

I for one would be very happy to have you share some simpler graphic ideas with us. The tools are nice. They're helpful and they're convenient. My guess is they're far more powerful than we can imagine. And an occasional tutorial with a focus on what to do with our tools would be fun.

=D

Welcome damaru, nice article. I read your one for kindle as well , nice job. I think my best gift this year yeah

I think we are still far from using open source tools professionally, on a daily basis. Yes, they are great, but what you do when they ask for .ai or .psd? And what about the prints problems? How many open source designers are well known by the community? Please tell me, because i don't know none of them.
In the future this will probably change, it's changing, but for now, adobe suite it's a must.
I like what you say, though. I'm also trying to learn more, waiting to work with them.

RM. wrote:I think we are still far from using open source tools professionally, on a daily basis.

"we" who? Both Redhat and Novell SUSE Linux designers use open sorce design software prodessionally, web studios use GIMP and Inkscape professionally. There are some/many cases where Inkscape and GIMP are not good enough, sure, but that doesn't mean that some imaginary "we" are far from that.

Ok, probably that 'we' was wrong. Sorry if my english isn't good enough and most of the times i can't explain what i mean.
It would take too time to say what professional design 'for me' is. I don't want to be polemical, so i will stop here.

Sorry if my english isn't good enough and most of the times i can't explain what i mean.

I don't know about that -- you just taught me a knew English work "polemical". And I'm a native English-speaker, lol!

I read the "we" to mean expecting Inkscape to be an industry standard. It is getting closer and closer, every day, and with every new version upgrade. But until any program can use files made with an existing industry standard, I don't think it can compete in every way.

aiming up wind here ...

"industry standard" hummmm, I use pdf when I send my file in for production and they seem to fly reasonably well
No question even 2 years ago doing any kind of ga from open source software, especially Linux based, was left for the ultra geeky types. Now even guys like me can do a few odd jobs get a reasonable result.

Stay tuned, I am!
Pat Jr.

^^

adobe suite is a must.. what graphic design job doesn't require years of experience with adobes products?
Open Source is awesome, it really is, but as a designer I need to use Adobe. I use GIMP and InkScape on my laptop, but I think open source software has a long way to go. The programs aren't as efficient as they should be, and this is why adobe is the industry standard.

Ideally you would check whether the OSS software of choice has all the features you'll need. If it has, you go with it. The problem is some situations can't be predicted and may end up stuck in a "oh...........how do I do this?" situation. Unfortunately OSS software seems to be lacking even in the basic features department e.g.: Inkscape - lack of proper transform tool / skew / perspective viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5136

prokoudine wrote:

RM. wrote:I think we are still far from using open source tools professionally, on a daily basis.

"we" who? Both Redhat and Novell SUSE Linux designers use open sorce design software prodessionally, web studios use GIMP and Inkscape professionally. There are some/many cases where Inkscape and GIMP are not good enough, sure, but that doesn't mean that some imaginary "we" are far from that.

RM's quote is interesting considering a day when my son & I sat in a local restaurant. A couple tables from us a man sat with an open laptop displaying some illustration software. I could see that the man redesigned the restaurant's logo and exterior signage. It was very professional. Then I took note of the software itself. It had a familiar "look" to it. I nudged my son who also uses Inkscape and said: "Look. That man's using Inkscape to design what might become this restaurant's logo."

I think Inkscape doesn't have to be compared with software X or package Y. The question is: can it produce what an artist requires?

BobSongs wrote:I think Inkscape doesn't have to be compared with software X or package Y. The question is: can it produce what an artist requires?:D

I think it's a wee bit more complicated than that. It works nicely when everyone in your team is either using same Inkscape/GIMP/whatever combo as you do or is happy with flattened standard exported data such as PNG or PDF or EPS.

But when you deal with people outside who have workflows built around particular tools, this is where issues start raising their ugly heads. Just few days ago someone told me he needed CDR exporting, because the company he works with demands CDR files for sending designs to a plotter. They just won't accept SVG. Then don't do anything in Corel DRAW they wouldn't be able to do with, say, Inkscape + InkCut. Nevertheless they demand CDR and do everything in Corel DRAW. End of story

Then, of course, there are habits that are a hard thing to break. The whole GIMPshop thing, remember? In my daily life I often stumble upon quite arrogant people who think that we owe it to them to make our software just like Adobe's or Corel's. Personally I think there's enough place for different solutions on the market.

So, as long as we finish and polish all things we intended to do and provide reasonable compatibility with the world outside, we are in the winner's camp. Despite of haters who are gonna hate and whiners who are gonna whine