Hiya guys,

 

I've been out of the graphic design game for about 8 years now, and i'm keen to ease back into it. In saying that, all I ever used in my previous job was Corel Draw (versions 7-10) and other relatively basic stuff.

 

Ultimately I would like to combine graphics with web design, but to start with I just want something fairly basic to get my teeth in to.

 

I'm aware of how expensive sofware can be, and I am on a minimal budget unfortunately.

 

What design package would you suggest?

 

Any help greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Greg

 

Hey there Greg!

 

You could try GIMP, it's a free alternative to Photoshop which isn't as feature-rich or user-friendly, but it's still a great piece of software.

 

Obviously the Adobe Collection is considered the best but it's also very expensive.

 

If you need a free text/code editor, try Sublime Text 2.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Alluziion, will give it a go.

 

Anyone know if Corel Draw is any good these days?

 

Any other recommendations welcome

As Alluziion said GIMP is a free equivalent of Photoshop (or raster graphic editor).

And Inkscape is a free equivalent for Illustrator or Corel Draw (vector editor)

Here is a link for you http://inkscape.org/

remember you can try adobe stuff for free for 30 days.

 

what you decide on depends a little bit on what you're planning to do: if you're freelancing then open source is fine - if ti goes well some some of the adobe apps would be a good investment. if you're practicing to get a job then i would imagine you would need industry standard apps (i.e. adobe) on your cv and for your portfolio OR a potential boss who has an open enough mind for you to show a good open source driven portfolio and see the potential of adapting to what they use in the work place. you could have a look at even buying fireworks (can't remember the pricing compared to photoshop) but don't bother if you're going to do print work too

Thanks guys for your help, i'm downloading Inkscape as I typre

 

For now I simply want to get back into messing around with line art and building some designs up, and hope to add them to websites at a later date...