Long gone are the days when a graphic designer's tools were pen, pencil, brush, exacto knife and illustration board. Designers today are at the mercy of their ever-changing software suites. At some point or other, the designer has to decide to upgrade his or her present software or change to another brand. Next, the designer has to know all of the ins and outs of the latest software version. If the program interface changes then the learning curve for the design professional can be very steep and costly. As well, there are usually varying graphic design programs used in specific tasks such as word processing, web page creation, drawing, and photography.
Quark Express has dominated desktop publishing for much of the last ten years. Recently Adobe has made an aggressive attempt to regain its former dominance of the desktop publishing industry. Adobe has already swallowed up Macromedia and much of its other competition, and will pretty much have a monopoly on graphic design software if it squashes Quark.
In 2005 Abode obtained Dreamweaver after it bought Macromedia. Dreamweaver is widely recognized as both the best and most challenging web development applications Within the field of professional Web design, Dreamweaver has little competition. Microsoft offers Front Page, which is still used by non-professionals and a handful of professionals who have been using it for a very long time. Although, Adobe, with the Dreamweaver application, has gained a semi-monopoly in this area also.
In graphic design software for photography there's only one acknowledged leader - Adobe Photoshop. While there are simplified options available for beginners, Photoshop is the industry standard for professionals. Some companies will only produce plug-ins for Photoshop, until Adobe is forced to buy them.
To illustrate, could graphic arts software be used? Because the vast majority of professionals recognize and use Adobe Illustrator, it generally wins across the board against the competition, making Adobe recognized as the leader. Generally, it does not always relate to the easiest program that has the most number of functions. You should look for the greatest overall compatibility. A big competitor, Corel Draw, is known for it's ease of use and many functions, however, the files it uses can't be used with other software programs and therefore can only be used with Corel Draw. That means the program only has limited functionality and so is less popular.
One of the reasons InDesign is gaining so much ground is the ease of use with all of the other graphic design software programs in the Adobe family. It's a rapid, smooth transition between one and the other. Adobe now has all it's programs together as a "Creative Suite" which makes it easy for one-stop shopping.
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Emotional Response. Make an effort to have a look at their paintings how to become a graphic designer and notice the way it affects you. Do you love it? Does it make you need to understand more, purchase more? Do you reply somehow? It's frequently an efficient emotional response that make us wish to act or buy.