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Josh
Student
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I want to become a graphic designer and would like to know what design softwares you find yourself using? Is it mainly the adobe products, illustrator, and photoshop? Or do you find yourself using other softwares if so which?
#graphic-design #design
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3 answers
Doc Frick
Career Coach and Mentor
1590
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California, CA
Updated
Doc’s Answer
Josh if you’re serious about pursuing graphic design professionally, Adobe Creative Suite contains much of the standard software you’ll use as a graphic designer—including Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. Sure, these applications might take a little extra time to learn, but if they help you land a job, it’ll be worth your investment. You can start with a 30-day free trial and then pay on a monthly basis after your trial ends. Plus if you decide to go all in and study graphic design, Adobe offers all students a 60% discount on their Creative Suite software.
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP – Adobe Photoshop is arguably the most popular graphic design software and is used by millions of artists around the world. Whether you are looking to create banners, posters, websites, or logos, this best graphic design software can do it all for you. From small edits to sophisticated designs, Adobe Photoshop has tools for every level. If you are someone who works with illustrative designs, you can even draw or paint anything you like. Along with image editing, you can create naturalistic artwork and composition in this software. You can define the size of your canvas, isolate elements from backgrounds, create custom brushes, work in 3D, do much more.
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR – Adobe Illustrator is a design software that is centered around vector design. You can create artwork, icons, posters, etc. and the designs created in Adobe Illustrator can be used in business cards or billboards and from smartphones to 8k screens. You can use this software to draw, mix, and refine designs to create something spectacular. To draw, you can use the shaper tool and create vector shapes. Geometric shapes can be added to other outlines and can be moved, reshaped, and scaled. Even the fonts in the software can be manipulated according to your needs by adjusting their weight, slant, or width.
ADOBE INDESIGN – Another software by Adobe that can be used to create designs is the Adobe InDesign. This graphic design software is used primarily in the publishing industry because you can design magazines, info sheets, books, posters, interactive PDFs, brochures, etc. with it. With the ‘adjust layout’ option that InDesign provides, you can change the text of your document, and the graphic will adjust accordingly. The properties panel has been redesigned to give you more intuitive control over the tools and the Creative Cloud Libraries can help you share text, colors, and graphics with other members.
Hope this helpful Josh.
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP – Adobe Photoshop is arguably the most popular graphic design software and is used by millions of artists around the world. Whether you are looking to create banners, posters, websites, or logos, this best graphic design software can do it all for you. From small edits to sophisticated designs, Adobe Photoshop has tools for every level. If you are someone who works with illustrative designs, you can even draw or paint anything you like. Along with image editing, you can create naturalistic artwork and composition in this software. You can define the size of your canvas, isolate elements from backgrounds, create custom brushes, work in 3D, do much more.
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR – Adobe Illustrator is a design software that is centered around vector design. You can create artwork, icons, posters, etc. and the designs created in Adobe Illustrator can be used in business cards or billboards and from smartphones to 8k screens. You can use this software to draw, mix, and refine designs to create something spectacular. To draw, you can use the shaper tool and create vector shapes. Geometric shapes can be added to other outlines and can be moved, reshaped, and scaled. Even the fonts in the software can be manipulated according to your needs by adjusting their weight, slant, or width.
ADOBE INDESIGN – Another software by Adobe that can be used to create designs is the Adobe InDesign. This graphic design software is used primarily in the publishing industry because you can design magazines, info sheets, books, posters, interactive PDFs, brochures, etc. with it. With the ‘adjust layout’ option that InDesign provides, you can change the text of your document, and the graphic will adjust accordingly. The properties panel has been redesigned to give you more intuitive control over the tools and the Creative Cloud Libraries can help you share text, colors, and graphics with other members.
Hope this helpful Josh.
Thank You Dexter. Design perfection is not achieved when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Doc Frick
Thank You Jessica. Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.
Doc Frick
Great, detailed response regarding Adobe. I would only add that becoming well-versed in Adobe will only help with other tools as many are based on these foundational programs. For UI/UX design specifically, I am seeing Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch most frequently. Figma offers a free version and functions similar to Sketch and XD if you'd like to test this out. However, I strongly recommend looking into the Adobe Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign especially) for pursuing a professional career in design.
Melissa D
Thank You Melissa. You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
Doc Frick
Dexter Arver
Senior Manager, Web Applications
232
Answers
San Jose, California
Updated
Dexter’s Answer
Hi Josh,
I agree with everything that John said. Because the Adobe products are the industry standard, it's definitely worth your time to learn them. Try to look for student discounts and what not.
In my experience, all the designers I have known have had some proficiency with Adobe, as it's the default choice for most design teams. However, depending on your job/tasks, there are other software that could be used. Though, I recommend learning the Adobe suite, then branching out to your specific expertise.
As for other software that I've seen used, I know folks that love using Sketch (MacOS), GIMP, and Procreate (iPad) to do their work.
I hope this helps!
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Dexter
I agree with everything that John said. Because the Adobe products are the industry standard, it's definitely worth your time to learn them. Try to look for student discounts and what not.
In my experience, all the designers I have known have had some proficiency with Adobe, as it's the default choice for most design teams. However, depending on your job/tasks, there are other software that could be used. Though, I recommend learning the Adobe suite, then branching out to your specific expertise.
As for other software that I've seen used, I know folks that love using Sketch (MacOS), GIMP, and Procreate (iPad) to do their work.
I hope this helps!
--
Dexter
Natalie Cellini
Graphic Designer
30
Answers
Havertown, Pennsylvania
Updated
Natalie’s Answer
Hey Josh,
I'm in college for graphic design right now and we've pretty much exclusively used Adobe programs for all of our assignments. Adobe is definitely the industry standard, which makes sense because the programs give you a huge variety of tools and options to create exactly what you want to. There is other software out there that graphic designers use and my professors have talked about some of those a little bit. I would think it probably does help to know how to use multiple programs that aren't just Adobe. But for the most part it seems that Adobe programs are where most graphic designers create their work.
I'm in college for graphic design right now and we've pretty much exclusively used Adobe programs for all of our assignments. Adobe is definitely the industry standard, which makes sense because the programs give you a huge variety of tools and options to create exactly what you want to. There is other software out there that graphic designers use and my professors have talked about some of those a little bit. I would think it probably does help to know how to use multiple programs that aren't just Adobe. But for the most part it seems that Adobe programs are where most graphic designers create their work.