What's The Best Graphic Design Stuff For Beginners???

Well Christmas is coming up and I think that would be the perfect time to ask for graphic design stuff (for lack of better words). Okay so I'll give you my background info. I'm a Mac, so I want all my graphic design software and/or hardware to be Mac compatible. Next I'm just starting out, so I want this stuff to be user friendly. And finally keep it all below $250.
I have done plenty of research so don't think that I came here first, I just know that you guys are great with this stuff. Thanks!!!

Tags: beginners, design, for, graphic, mac, program

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by reaper on November 5, 2009 at 9:25pm: hmm....for a mac.....

have you tried photoshop elements?

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop_elem...

retails for $79 on their site for the full version but the above link is a trial; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Glowster on November 6, 2009 at 4:53am: Yes I would recommend Roxio Creator 2010 Special Edition it is loaded with many programs and especially has a great graphics design program that is pretty easy to use. I made a book cover with it and had great success with it. It did what I wanted it to do. This is a great program I use it now instead of adobe. It was $76 at Sam's club.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben Rama on November 6, 2009 at 8:27am: you need photoshop - the full version if your at all serious about visual communication

AI for vector stuff is standard

3d -- cin 4d is gd

all for around 7 k so jsut save; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by fligabob on November 6, 2009 at 9:58am: I'd say GIMP - it's free and easier to use than photoshop - http://www.gimp.org
And for tutorials, go subscribe to http://www.youtube.com/mrgimphelper; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Sol McNally Aka : Dmitri Girl on November 12, 2009 at 12:22pm: I agree with you fligabob; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michael Carey on November 6, 2009 at 10:45am: Better ask Santa.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nicco on November 7, 2009 at 3:20pm: I've been a designer for years now, and i would recommend for you to just go for Photoshop. It may be complicated for you at first but there are tons of tutorials available online. And once you get a hold you'll realize that it isn't that complicated. Plus if you really want to be a designer that's the software knowledge that you will be required to have; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by H on November 10, 2009 at 8:04am: I've been a designer for 20+ years and the bottom line is the industry standard is the Adobe Suite. The sooner you get comfortable with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc. the better. Even though they don't come cheap, IMHO nothing beats 'em.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jeremy Newton on November 10, 2009 at 4:43pm: I have to agree... a lot of people are going to tell you to go with the free stuff like Gimp but if you want to get a leg up on competition at school or for an employer you are going to have to pony up and get the Adobe Creative Suite.
-If you do a lot of illustration work you may want to look into a tablet.
-There are a lot of great books that can teach you about fonts, grid systems, layouts, composition and so forth as well. They are the fundamentals and they are important.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jorge on November 10, 2009 at 5:55pm: I'm in college for visual art & design, and the industry standard is Adobe Creative Suite. I'd suggest you look into these programs unless you wanna be a rookie forever. No free software has the power that Adobe has in theirs.

If you're a student, I highly recommend you look into the student discount, just check with your school or on the Adobe website. I also recommend you get the Academic version of whatever suite you buy, it's the $599 ones, the Student edition is $399. The difference between the two is that the academic edition you can upgrade, the student edition you can't. Read the details and small print about each to know the terms of service.

Good luck!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Dan on November 10, 2009 at 6:30pm: An older version may be quite a bit cheaper too.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mad Max on November 10, 2009 at 6:13pm: For your budget, Adobe Photoshop Elements and a Bamboo or Intuous Graphics Tablet.

Or, save up a hell of a lot and get the full version. If you're a student they do discounts and much cheaper student licences, but you can't sell your work that was made on a student licence if that's your intention.

Look at Design Standard. I believe it comes with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign which are pretty much all you need for graphics work for print and web. Making sites themselves will also require Dreamweaver (or hand coding in a basic text editor) and maybe Flash but I guess it depends on what sort of graphic design you're looking at.

The Adobe stuff really is the industry standard though. Without it you won't get far these days. GIMP is ok for more basic stuff, but if you ever want to do stuff for print then GIMP = useless. It doesn't support CMYK colour which is the four inks used in the standard print process. GIMP is fine for web/digital stuff and can be used to make some impressive stuff, but it just can't compete with Photoshop no matter what people say.

Something else to do is subscribe to a load of design blogs (as in RSS) and do a bunch of tutorials and the like. It's always great to have something to look at even if it's just for inspiration or to maybe do something a different way to achieve the same effect. That's the great thing about creative arts, there's many ways to do the same thing and it's all subjective. One mans art is another mans rubbish!

www.smashingmagazine.com is a BRILLIANT blog, it also has a bunch of links to other sites for things you may find interesting too.; ▶ Reply to This