Corel or Adobe

[tooler82 182]

The most commonly used question in graphic design. Which one can I convince the government to buy me? They don't like the subscription based products, but that's about what everything is going to. Since there's lots of masters on this forum that have been doing this for many years, which is the better all around for graphic design?

[slice&dice 2,450]

I've never used either in production, just for playing around ---  and the COREL GUI seems more fluid and intuitive.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a graphic artist, and do not play one on TV.

[tooler82 182]

It seems from what I've been reading online is Adobe is superior, but offers no updates. Where as Corel is catching up, and offers updates. Just don't know which to ask them to buy. I've been using FlexiSign, but I need more functions and extras.

[darcshadow 1,626]

Both have trial options, perhaps you can convince them to let you download and install both to evaluate.

[Moody Blue 505]

As a graphic designer I recommend Adobe. Corel is good for signmaking but not as in depth as Adobe for creating logos, print collateral, or just about anything a graphic artist is responsible for. Just the plug in options alone make Illustrator well worth the money. BUT if you are getting it for free (essentially) go ahead and get the Creative Cloud Suite. Will have every piece of Adobe software at your fingertips...photoshop & indesign (both I use daily) as well as fireworks, dreamweaver, muse, flash, premier pro, bridge, many more. Plus 1k+ free to use fonts that aren't available to non Adobe users, free stock images & vectors...too much good stuff to go into detail but well worth the extra penny if that's an option.

[Wildgoose 4,200]

Adobe is the world leader for a reason and it's the most widely accepted. I was under the understanding that the whole reason for going to CC (cloud based) was to eliminate the need for updates as they just happen as part of the cost of ownership. Constant upgrade type of thing. 

[PixelPusher 46]

I've learned on and used Coreldraw since version 4 (now on 17 and soon to be 18 in March). I have tried many times to learn and use Illustrator. I simply hate Illustrator. It's incredibly powerful though but quite cumbersome and complex to learn if you've learned another system. I wish I learned on Illustrator before Coreldraw but now I'm spoiled one way and can't seem to get the hang of the other - and I've put in a lot of work on it via video instruction through Lynda.com and Deke McClelland's pro level instruction videos http://www.deke.com/ (they're all available through Lynda.com)

 

If you wish to learn Illustrator, go to Lynda.com and sign up for a month and go absolutely nuts on the Illustrator courses. Lynda has some Coreldraw courses too but they haven't had much updated love since version X4. If you want to learn Coreldraw then you'll want to buy Coreldraw Unleashed from http://www.coreldrawunleashed.com It's amazing and even I've learned many, many new and useful things after all these years from the videos.

 

80% of the sign industry places I've worked for in my lifetime prefer Coreldraw (Because it's cheap) but the print industry uses Illustrator (because it plays nicely with Photoshop and InDesign for print). Photoshop and Indesign and Illustrator are industry standards. You won't get many jobs without exposure to all three and if you can learn those first and THEN learn Coreldraw, you'll be a Rockstar...

 

Trust me...those are the two fastest and pro-level methods to go from 0-100 MPH as a competent designer that I know of.

 

Now a days with both Corel and Adobe pushing subscription methods, you can easily and cheaply learn BOTH.

 

Illustrator has vastly superior color modeling and 3D capabilities. Coreldraw for ease of use and quickly designing (as well as being the Swiss Army knife of interchangeable file formats). Oh and if you're even more curious, there is something called Coreldraw Technical Suite and it blows away anything Illustrator or plain Coreldraw but it's not cheap and there is no decent instruction that I can find on its 3D technical abilities. If there was, I'd never try to use Illustrator again.

 

You can still buy Coreldraw or Illustrator in stand alone product editions for the latest versions. They do have a cloud component to unlock certain features though. Though Download editions are cheaper, buy Boxed DVD versions - always. You physically have the disc and the extras (often clip art and fonts).

 

Cloud editions of both tools greatly reduce piracy...that's their sole purpose. Oh and Coreldraw can use almost all the same plugins that Illustrator or Photoshop can plus they have something called Macros which will blow your mind when you go explore their power ( http://www.macromonster.com )

[tooler82 182]

Thank you for all your input. I may just see if they can get both, but who knows. I just don't know where to buy the standalone Adobe Collection without CC. They would be better to go for that than a subscription based. Anything we purchase has to go up the chain for approval, and it's a little tough for subscriptions.

[PixelPusher 46]

Thank you for all your input. I may just see if they can get both, but who knows. I just don't know where to buy the standalone Adobe Collection without CC. They would be better to go for that than a subscription based. Anything we purchase has to go up the chain for approval, and it's a little tough for subscriptions.

You're very welcome. My reply is based on my career experience and thousands of dollars of learning from colleges and universities (and two degrees). Learning from Lynda will save you thousands of dollars and hours of your life, but you don't get a certificate or diploma. Your portfolio, resume and website will serve that purpose.

 

Oh and I stopped trying to learn Illustrator after Adobe Creative Suite 6 (the last one I bought). After that they went to Creative Cloud so you may be right in assuming you can't get standalone versions of CC. I seem to think you can but I haven't tried in a while. I know Adobe still had trial downloads that can be converted into fully registered versions with a serial number and activation linked to your account once you pay for them.

 

Here's an old thread on this: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1271363?start=0&tstart=0

 

and specifically http://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-direct-download-links.html

and http://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-2015-direct-download-links.html for 2015 direct links to their trials. Those are not pirate links either, they are Adobe's own links to their trial versions on their servers (which can be bought outright).

[Wildgoose 4,200]

Yeah no more stand alone Adobe unless you just go find a CS5 or CS6 somewhere. I'm still using CS5 without issues. but I do have several cool plug-ins that I like to use.  I don't run the whole suite since I mostly just design for cutting. 

 

Chaos is correct that AI is probably harder to learn but it's surprisingly easy to use ONCE you do learn it. I used to think it was hard but once that little Ahha moment happens and it starts making sense then it's no longer a problem and turns into an advantage. 

 

I look at it like learning to drive a stick shift or maybe a better example is it's like learning how to use a professional level camera. The easy route is to use your iPhone or a point and shoot but the pro's use the real deal.  Ai is or seems complicated due to the sheer magnitude of the program. Lots of functions like hand tracing are two handed affairs where you use a mouse in conjunction with a few keyboard strokes to draw. Once learned it's child's play to hand trace out a design and get true professional clean graphics rather than the auto trace mess that a lot of people are growing used to. You can still do auto traces if you want and there are a whole host of features that will help try and make that a clean trace but I rarely mess with it because I'm too picky. 

[PixelPusher 46]

Inkscape is free and open source by the way if you want to get really up to speed on vector illustrating for no cost (you can use it on low powered systems too). http://www.inkscape.org

 

Udemy has a great intro course (and plenty of other courses) on Inkscape https://www.udemy.com/learn-to-use-inkscape/  and if you go down the free and open source route, don't stop there...try 3D too and for that you should learn Blender 3D from http://blender.org or Sketchup from http://sketchup.com for that (Sketchup Pro is a paid for application though they do have a free version). That can open a whole new can of worms though into 3D printing or really awesome proofing...which is where I'm personally starting to pay attention to using 3D. Showing a customer a 2D proof vs a 3D proof gets them to buy every time especially if you're doing a huge job for lots of dollars.

 

I also learned to use the defunct (Adobe bought and crushed Macromedia) Macromedia Freehand and it's much easier to use than Illustrator was even though they have the same pen drawing styles.

[tooler82 182]

The problem with those is they're not approved to put on this government computer.

[PixelPusher 46]

The problem with those is they're not approved to put on this government computer.

Interesting...but you can use them at home then to practice. It's unfortunate that they won't support the open source stuff. It's not dangerous and in fact they release patches faster than Adobe ever has. And if you have ever heard of Adobe Flash Player or Acrobat (who hasn't) and all the vulnerabilities and exploits, Adobe doesn't exactly scream safe to me...

 

But I get what you're saying. When I worked for a municipal government I couldn't use them either even though I could have saved my team lots of time and effort and cost. Same with Open Office or Libre Office. They had to fork out thousands of dollars every year in maintenance contracts because they were a Microsoft shop. Now they hate Windows 10 Enterprise and are finally looking into Open Source! LOL! Round and round we go...