I almost never do any writing or even talk about more technical things like using design programs. And In fact, this might be my first post in this category. But I thought I should help the designer out there who is still primarily using photoshop to create their designs. I want to explain what each of the programs are actually designed to do in your workflow and why it’s important that you use all of them sometimes and how your designs will be better when you know the difference between the programs.
One trick to figuring out what each program does best is to look at the name of the program. For example, Photoshop is best for… you guessed it, PHOTOS, and Illustrator works best when it is used to create things that need to be illustrated. But there’s a lot more to them than this and I want to share with you guys some easy to remember things to make your workflow as a designer, the most effective.
If you make it to the end of this post, there’s a free resource for you!
Illustrator
Whereas everyone seems to use Photoshop, many [mostly young, but some not so young] designers I have met, are overwhelmed or intimidated by Illustrator so they don’t use it. I find that in my own workflow that I tend to do much more work in Illustrator. I think this is because of a few reasons. One reason is because Illustrator is the best place to create your typography.
Illustrator, is vector based, so you have the ability to manipulatetext to your little heart’s content, and you should!
Illustrator allows for customization of fonts, precise kerning, and intricate detail work to be done on each and every letter if you should so choose. Illustrator not only allows for great typography, but it also gives you high resolution design elements when you use eps or ai files. By nature, Illustrator is a vector based program which basically means that each element is based on a math equation and so no matter how big or small your design element or text, it will maintain it’s clarity. Thiis is my second favorite reason for preferring Illustrator.
Photoshop
I’ll just go ahead and start with this one and say that I believe the reason people gravitate towards this one is because of the availability and cost of Photoshop Elements and the idea that you can do “everything” in this program alone.
While Photoshop is a versatile place to put your design together at times,it should not be your one and only tool, or even your primary tool.
Photoshop is meant for photo manipulation. For example, if you need to adjust lighting levels or color correct a photo, you would use Photoshop. It works well for bringing various photographic elements together. Photoshop is based in a raster format, which means that everything you do here involves pixels, which also means that if you don’t know how to use the program correctly you could easily lose your depth of quality because pixels can be reduced. You should be aware that specially when using type in your designs, that the pixel based environment of Photoshop editing can make lines jagged and fonts appear fuzzy.
InDesign
If everyone uses Photoshop, and many others are basically afraid of Illustrator, I’m sure even fewer people use InDesign. I have a background in magazine publishing and so I know well the magic that lies in the world of this program. InDesign is a pretty amazing piece of software; it allows you a place to bring all of your elements together in a multi-page format situation (usually). Even if you are “only” creating a simple trifold brochure,
InDesign makes everything so easy and cohesive.
It allows you to create text and paragraph styles for headings, and body copy so that you don’t have to go back and forth fixing things. InDesign allows the placement of the images you edited in Photoshop and the vector graphic elements you created in Illustrator.
Do you remember doing science fair projects or research presentations in school? The ones where they make you use that big folding cardboard thing to put on the desk? InDesign is kind of like that, it allows you a place where you can put all of your stuff together seamlessly and be able to edit and manipulate large bodies of text alongside your images and vector graphics.
The key to creating your best design work is to learn how to combine at least two of these three programs.
Adobe created their programs to work together so that you can achieve the most effective designs. Don’t get married to one program. Each one has specific and amazing things to offer; when combined, they can become incredibly powerful weapons for your creations.
And please, for the love of all that is holy…
Don’t use Photoshop or InDesign to create logos
Don’t use Illustrator for laying out large bodies of text
Don’t use Photoshop for lots of text (especially for print projects)
Don’t use InDesign for layer effects
It’s really important that you know the strengths and weaknesses of all these programs so that you are able to create the best way. I hope this post has helped you! Design is a wonderful world. I hope you’ll join me here, because design matters.