spooledUP7 said:
I am not saying Corel users cannot be Creative users, nor am I saying Corel users are not creative users (confusing yet?), but "Creatives" DO NOT use Corel for their primary design application, because if they do then they are ignored (unless the position requires it).
That's still sounds a lot like, "real professionals use Adobe Illustrator." And it reminds me of the worn out stereotype, "real professionals use Apple computers." If someone is using
computer graphics software/hardware not approved by the fashion police that worker is seen as not being a legit artist, graphic designer or "creative."
Not every creative work place is the same; the work places don't all run the same hardware, software or operating system. Not every creative worker has the same process either. For instance, you prefer designing in Flexi. Personally I don't have Flexi on my
computer anymore; I don't need it (we do have 3 licenses of it on other production machines hooked directly to vinyl cutters and a routing table).
If someone is hunting for a graphic design staff job at firms likely to have an all-Mac-based work flow then, yes, it would be a good idea for his resume to list proficiency with OSX and Adobe Illustrator, among other bullet points. His chances aren't going to be as good if his resume only lists CorelDRAW and
Windows experience. On the other hand if his portfolio of work is outstanding most firms worth a hoot will look past the
computer fashion nonsense and give the guy a shot. Likewise, any hack can go buy a Mac, load Adobe Illustrator on it and then start passing himself off as a "graphic artist." It's no different from someone with no musical talent blowing $5000 on a Gibson Les Paul and expecting to be Jimmy Page just because he has the same brand of instrument.
Ultimately the thing that should matter most is one's portfolio and work experience. Does the job candidate actually have any creative talent? Does he know how to draw, paint, etc? Does he know the fundamentals of graphic design? Can he produce good quality work in a productive amount of time? Can he learn new tools and adapt to our work flow? Can he get the job done?
The
sign industry has a decent number of legitimate artists, illustrators and graphic designers. In terms of
computer based workflow it is an industry the DOS/
Windows platform has always dominated. Any
sign company that was around 30+ years ago when all the digital tools (vinyl cutters, routing tables, etc) started arriving was very likely to have CorelDRAW in its arsenal of software. Corel didn't have much competition on the PC platform through most of the 1990's. It has always been a pretty decent drawing program, made even better by the oodles of goodies bundled with it. In the 1990's a
sign shop could have been using CASmate, Gerber Graphix Advantage, FlexiSignPro, SignLab or any number of other odd ball tools available then. But most of these shops were also using CorelDRAW. That was a common denominator. It took Adobe until 1997 to release a version of Illustrator that wasn't crap and which had (for the most part) feature parity between its Mac and
Windows variants. By that time CorelDRAW already had a huge lead on the
Windows platform.
IMHO, Adobe has only been able to chip away at the lead CorelDRAW had in the
sign industry via the growth in large format digital printing. Long established
sign shops found a greater need to adopt Adobe Photoshop and other Adobe-branded tools, like Illustrator. Digital LED
signs increased the need for Photoshop (and other tools like After Effects, Premiere) further. Still, CorelDRAW gets used quite a lot for conventional
sign design work.
I imagine there are
sign shops established in more recent years that don't use CorelDRAW at all. If someone started a
sign company in 2005 he would have had a bigger variety of choices to consider. Any
sign company that has been around for more than 25 years is likely to have CorelDRAW running on at least one or more of their design computers.
myront said:
My office had Corel and Adobe (on the shelf) as well as MS Office. No one else is authorized to have the those on a government
computer. Just like we couldn't get authorization for AutoCad as it did not pertain to our job code. MS Office is the only one authorized for every pc no matter what job code you had. The military doesn't train anyone in graphic design anymore. Most think they know enough to get by and they may get by with PPT slides but know nothing about the print industry.
This situation has its pros and cons. We get all kinds of
sign work from posts like Fort Sill, Altus AFB and other places within reasonable driving distance because so many military departments/units can't just home-brew their own
signs. There's only so much you can do with PowerPoint and an office printer. The downside is we get a lot of poor quality assets. The military may not train anyone in graphic design, but that doesn't stop non-designers from trying to design. On top of all the PPT files, we'll get low resolution images intended for large format printing (yuck) and poorly designed unit crests usually in the form of a JPEG. If you're lucky you might get a WMF (
Windows Metafile) with some usable vectors. In the end the
sign design you develop may have to hop through multiple levels of deciders before things get finalized. It can be a pain, but the work helps pay the bills.
