Which Program for which job?

[jamjar]

Cheers for the compliments John,

I guess what I mean is that we always find Quark pretty inflexible and lacking some of the functionality of InDesign. Most of the agencies, magazines etc we have worked with are moving away from Quark and every designer I've discussed this with (dare I say) "hated it". We only use Quark when we are dealing with legacy files - I think we have been asked to originate in Quark once which was an experience and a half.

As always I guess it's down to personal preference.

Tom

[JohnRoss]

I guess what I mean is that we always find Quark pretty inflexible and lacking some of the functionality of InDesign. Most of the agencies, magazines etc we have worked with are moving away from Quark and every designer I've discussed this with (dare I say) "hated it". We only use Quark when we are dealing with legacy files - I think we have been asked to originate in Quark once which was an experience and a half.

I'm running the risk of being a bore, and if you or anyone else has different preferences to ours, fair enough, as you say, but I had a little 'eureka' moment reading that - a couple of things which I think are relevant to the topic of this thread.

First, that 'originate.' We are never expected to do that, that's what the publisher does. We're supposed to put the publisher's ideas into practice (I'm new at this, and it might be the way our little corner of the editorial design world works, but I had the idea that was what most graphic design was about. If it isn't the author or publisher, it's an agency or a PR genius, or whatever - someone else has the ideas, the designer makes them reality). Anyway, we (or strictly speaking, my wife) find(s) Quark more effective for that purpose.

Secondly, I have the impression lots of offices are being seduced by InDesign and away from Quark, not because it is better, but in the same way they were convinced years ago to abandon WordPerfect in favour of Word. WP was by far the better app, but Word was cheaper, easier for non-experts and, crucially, Word came with the Office suite. Adobe is doing the same with InDesign and the CS series as Microsoft did.

I find myself led to a reflection which might be relevant for someone choosing which software to learn how to use. Is that 'funcionality' of InDesign another way to say 'it does some of the work for me,' in other words, are InDesign users letting the program take over some of the actual design process? If so, I would have thought it was something to be resisted at all costs. Next thing you know, there'll be people considering themselves designers because they know how to use FrameMaker. Or FrontPage. :icon_yucky:

[matobo]

First, that 'originate.' We are never expected to do that, that's what the publisher does. We're supposed to put the publisher's ideas into practice (I'm new at this, and it might be the way our little corner of the editorial design world works, but I had the idea that was what most graphic design was about. If it isn't the author or publisher, it's an agency or a PR genius, or whatever - someone else has the ideas, the designer makes them reality). Anyway, we (or strictly speaking, my wife) find(s) Quark more effective for that purpose. ...

Hi John. Just so that you know... I think the 'originate' mentioned above is used in the context as a 'preparing for outputting to print' term (brilliant English hey?) ;0) It has nothing to do with the initial origination of the idea or concept behind the artwork.

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