Stuff for "Creatives" and whatnot.. - The Bear and Badger

dynamiteReady

pantyfire wrote:

This had been on the cards for me as soon as soon as i saw 'build your own site' adverts a few years back. It's only a matter of time before it knocks out the lower end of the graphic industry, with logo builder sites etc... You'll always need the human element tho, whether it's designing the actual looks and templates the software will use or as basic as just needing a human to select the images. The thing that i have to get through clients heads all the time, and this applies to the grid linked above, is that 80% of the hard work of graphic design can be taken away with nice photography. If the client doesn't have nice photos then you ain't gonna get shiz like the grid homepage and example video. End of.

Pretty sure that graphic designers and illustrators will be the last to go, if we're discussing automation.

This sentiment (the value of human involvement) has been an issue of contention since photography became a common technology. And the effect of that was the creation more (gah!) creative industry jobs...

That said, that need for more jobs probably went hand in hand with other, less important shit... Like the rest of industrial revolution, birth rates and shit...

poprock

And so web designers and front-end coders have hit the point us print geeks did when desktop publishing arrived.

It’s not the end of the world/industry. Just an evolution.

Jaco

poprock wrote:

And so web designers and front-end coders have hit the point us print geeks did when desktop publishing arrived. It’s not the end of the world/industry. Just an evolution.

True. I'm a print-specialist, and I've actually found I'm more in demand now as very few designers have specialist print knowledge these days. The difference is, I think people (in general, not us design sorts) care less about digital design than print design. Print has become / is becoming a luxury so needs the touch of a human designer. Digital design is very much simply serving a purpose for most people. Thus, minimal grid-based designs that can be generated with algorithms are probably 'good enough' for the vast majority of websites.

It's a strange new world we're entering...

poprock

Jaco wrote:

It's a strange new world we're entering...

We’re in the in-between bit, I think. In time, the tools for ‘making’ websites etc will improve to the point where they no longer sit on such a basic grid and designers can make them really sing (whilst laypeople use them to build basic, standard-looking sites).

I mean, a flexible grid doesn’t hinder good print design. It enables it.

(Sidenote: The only reason we’re stuck with minimal design intervention on web templates at the moment is that layouts need to adapt well to all sorts of different screen sizes. It’s a different way of thinking about layout – flexible rather than fixed. Designers are getting better at that, and we haven’t yet had a whole generation for whom it’s intrinsic knowledge. We’ll get there.)

Jaco

Aye, I'm sure we will. I certainly can't wait for the time when we get some really interesting design in the web-world. The whole flat/grid/minimal/big images aesthetic that so many sites have been rocking these last few years is wearing very thin. We need a real revolution in digital design, in the way print layout design really got kicked up the arse in the 60s.

AJ

I think half the reason these dynamic templating things are taking off is because so much digital design is so shit that people are used to it. The amount of stuff we get through from clients that's obviously been put together by a half-arsed print designer with no real idea at digital is amazing. I mean, there's a fucking good reason it'll cost them more to have us design it and I imagine we could prove it with metrics, given the chance, but they just don't care.

poprock

Print designers think web designers are clueless. Web designers think print designers are clueless.

This is counter-productive. A good designer can work in any medium, because a good designer does their research, understands the medium, and takes technical advice from experts in the field.

The problem is that a lot of people are lazy fuckers, so you get the ‘half-arsed’ input you’ve described.

Jaco

You can't replace experience either. I've been a print designer for 20 years, and there are some things you only come across every few years. So until you've had that level of experience in either medium it's difficult to be great in all areas (I would personally argue it's impossible as the mindsets are different, but that's another discussion).

I do worry that many young designers I've come across have no interest in design for print, thinking it's a 'dead' medium, despite the fact that print consumption is actually growing. There's a good chance the accumulated skills and knowledge of a generation of print designers could be lost...

EDIT: @AJ You think print designers are half-arsed? If I had a quid for every time I received 'print-ready' files from digital designers that are set up in RGB, at 150dpi, in Photoshop, with no bleed and crazy ink weights, I'd be a kabillionaire.

poprock

Heh, aye. ‘Print is dead’ … try telling that to the people designing the packaging for EVERY CONSUMER PRODUCT IN THE WORLD.

AJ

No, I think the designers that we've been getting designs from are half-arsed. Like pop said, you need to know the medium and they're just applying print design techniques to digital, much like the digital designers doing shitty print stuff that you describe. I imagine video has the same problem of designers thinking they can do one medium just because they know another.

Jaco

Yup! And if you really want to impress a client what do you send them? Some lovely print. Probably in a nicely designed box...

EDIT: @AJ. Very true. I know in the early days of web design I produced some stuff that I would now regard as... er... 'below par'.

poprock

‘Design with interactive layout systems’
Basically the design-by-AI thing you guys were talking about earlier in the thread.

There are people considering that this sort of ‘assistance’ might make designing on a touchscreen easier.

Personally, I’d ask why the fuck they want to design on a touchscreen in the first place. Wrong tool for the job, as evidenced by them needing machine assistance to do so.

cockbeard

poprock wrote:

Personally, I’d ask why the fuck they want to design on a touchscreen in the first place. Wrong tool for the job, as evidenced by them needing machine assistance to do so

I might be being stupid here, I know nothing about design/animation/computer art bar an afternoon on Moviemaker in 1993, but if a Wacom is a good thing to design on, then surely a Wacom with a screen is equally as good, if not better as the screen can display context sensitive rulers and brushes for selection

poprock

You don’t use a chubby finger to draw on a Wacom.

Finger painting ain’t a precise input method.

[Deleted User]

Iirc Wacom tabs have pressure sensitivity that makes the surface superior to touch screens on your average phone or tablet.

You can get Wacom screens that have this level of sensitivity.

Although once over that learning curve of operating a Wacom tablet on the desk while looking at a screen most people aren't that fussed about touching the actual screen.

cockbeard

Aaahh, that makes a lot more sense, cheers gents. Finger painting very useful analogy. I imagined stylii

If they can do the pressure thing with a surface material that is transparent and a usable refractive index, then it can surely only be a good thing. Allows extra information as well as the option to work away from the desktop, albeit with a restricted toolset/capabilities

[Deleted User]

I'm not sure how the Surface range fair up against the Wacom screens. They seem to advertise doing the same thing but whether or not that is true I don't know.

cockbeard

Had a play on the ofice one, and it's definitely got a lot of grunt under the hood. Really good form factor in my opinion. Last year I had a very shiny dell laptop with a touchscreen, and the Surface isn't as quick as that, but it is more portable. Definitely a viable option for doing semi serious work on the commute

caveat: Not an artist, it might well struggle pushing large photoshop files around

[Deleted User]

The stats on the beasty integrated gpu version are pretty good.
I was eyeing one up for a potential purchase next year to replace my creeky mac book pro.

cockbeard

Having RDP and VS in a slim portable machine like that is very tempting. Any other full size tablets have been pointless for me, as there's nothing I can't do on my phone. I did enjoy using a chromebook when at Google, but no power or flexibility. Google sheets and forms is very good all thing stold, but you can't really do proper work with them, surface seems a really viable alternative

[Deleted User]

The Surface Pro 2 had Wacom innards and was best for stylus input. After that they switched and, while still good, my understanding is that the newer surfaces are a step-down from a design perspective.

three1ne

Im a video editor. Currently working on a 'this is what your office is gonna look like when it's done' vid. It's priceless. Had an edit in the final stages, mixture of video and cgi (from the architect). Only for all the cgi artwork to change.

We're working for an agency who is handling the client. This agency hasn't a clue. We had place holder low res images in on first edit which they thought were perfectly fine. Despite being blurry. And with no post effects/motion applied. Images repeated. Again perfectly fine.
We actually had to explain what resolution was when asking for hi res files. I shit you not...

Received photoshop files from the architect which were a mess.
I find most peoples use of photoshop appalling. Layers and groups are in such a mess. I've actually never seen an impressive/easy to figure out photoshop file.

Sorry, this is a rambling rant. Just pissed off.

[Deleted User]

Welcome to my world.
If you think a messy Photoshop file is bad you should see a messy 3ds Max file.

"Why is this file containing just a cup and saucer 45million polygons? Oh I see, you hid an entire Shopping Centre and didn't group, layer or attach anything."

[Deleted User]

Worst thing for you is that middle man. If you could speak to the architects it would likely be much simpler.

poprock

Liveinadive wrote:

Welcome to my world. If you think a messy Photoshop file is bad you should see a messy 3ds Max file. "Why is this file containing just a cup and saucer 45million polygons? Oh I see, you hid an entire Shopping Centre and didn't group, layer or attach anything."

I have to pull apart BIM files now. “Oh, you want the dimensions of that wall? Here’s the ENTIRE BUILDING DEVELOPMENT DOWN TO THE LAST SCREW FIXING. Find the wall yourself and measure it.” *poprock starts downloading a 200GB file*

[Deleted User]

Hahaha.
I get that with fixtures that have been designed in CAD. I just need it to look like the thing, I don't need all the screws and fixings so have to down res it a bit.
Time to down res is usually a tenth of the time it takes to get the thing open in Max without crashes.

Had it with dmg files as well where I just want the footprint of a building but get full HVAC and wiring diagrams.

poprock

I appreciate the usefulness of having models built from well-defined products and each product having attached data … mass, weight, material, price, lead time, SKU, etc … and that you can then extract drawings from that model. But fuck me, guys … that builds into one hell of a file size across a development the size of a major sporting venue or museum. All I need is for you to tell me the measurements of a wall so I can draw you a pretty picture to put on it.

cockbeard

hahaha

I feel guilty for getting upset when people send me screen shots in word or powerpoint documents now

afgavinstan

Asked in the Xmas gift recs thread but maybe here will work. My lady designs clothing for her own wee brand/business, and I know she done some CAD stuff at uni, but nowadays only has a super slow laptop, and a sketch pad for ideas which then turn into designs eventually. She's complained recently of having a bit of a creators block, so I went and got a laptop on black Friday. Now thinking about getting her the Wacom Intuos Draw tablet or the intuos Art one. I know the only difference between the four in the Intuos range is the supplied software, but also the Draw only reacts to the pen, not your fingers like the other three do. Just wanted some opinions. Wanted to make it easy for her to create, is all.

Jaco

Never met a creative that uses finger touch on wacom tablets, Gav. Pen FTW.

Guys, just to reassure you, I'm a designer and my Pshop layering/grouping etiquette is immaculate. Nothing worse than a messy PSD. "Layer 137 copy 7" aaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!

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