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Design

Vendor agnostic Vector and Raster Editors Courses

So, I was going through the Web Design track until I got to the Photoshop and Illustrator badges. Since I use Sketch and Pixelmator on my Mac, I thought they would have some "general advices" regarding vector and raster editors that would help me, but they are way too Photoshop and Illustrator specific, quizzes included, to be of any help.

I would suggest changing these to a more vendor agnostic approach. You can still use Photoshop and Illustrator as examples, but instead of having quizzes requiring you to memorize names and placement of tools, talk about how a specific tool should work, in Photoshop, Illustrator and others too.

Instead of focusing on which menu or shortcut you use to add a point to a path, show us what you can do by adding a point to a path. Instead of requiring us to memorize the specific filter in Photoshop, show us what we can do by using a similar filter in an image.

I know some things will be extremely specific, but I have no problem following along other courses when they use Photoshop and Illustrator but have this more general approach.

No problem in having this courses in a "Tools" courses, for example. I just think that, considering that today we have a great number of alternatives in several platforms to choose for our vetor and raster editing, this would make much more sense.

Alex Robertson-Brown
Alex Robertson-Brown
Courses Plus Student 8,956 Points

I completely agree with this, although I do use photoshop & Illustrator pretty much everyday, there are so many great alternatives. Relying on people have an Adobe Creative Cloud membership is a pretty big barrier to entry, especially if your money is tight. Could even include some free open source options like GIMP or Inkscape, that way everyone can learn the fundamentals despite their income.

Chuck Powers
Chuck Powers
13,155 Points

Have to agree wholeheartedly with what everyone on this page is saying. You have completely proprietary tools that you can't get around--can't escape. I understand the design and design tools needed to create web pages, but these two badges slowed me down from what I really needed and led to a lot of frustration taking very specific quizzes on something I was only interested in generalizing. The videos are well done, professional, and would be great if that's what I was looking for. They're very detailed. Some of the best I've seen. I just think you should be able to opt out of anything proprietary if so inclined. They belong in a "tools for design", "supplemental information/ additional resources" kind of bin.

Don't want to be negative. Love the site so far. Hope this helps.

4 Answers

Peter Makowski
Peter Makowski
11,244 Points

Totally agree, I felt that Photoshop and Illustrator courses are far too much tool-oriented. I don't mind learning specific apps, it's just that tools change and the general idea of vector graphics and image processing will be always pretty much the same...

Matteo Mainardi
Matteo Mainardi
7,372 Points

same as above. remove them from the track or tweak them to give us the real solid foundation to work with images

Charlie O'Shea
Charlie O'Shea
18,737 Points

Completely agree, would rather see a completely separate 'Design' track and leave these expensive programs out of the Web Design track. Also would love to see more generic program courses. I'm considering getting Sketch 3 for my mac, but there's no way I'm going to go and get Photoshop or Illustrator, and I'm sure most students on here starting out are in the same boat.

Please either do an interchangeable course for the affordable Sketch program, or just make some general vector/design courses

Charlie, you should buy Sketch 3. It is absolutely great. I love it. As I said, the Pixelmator + Sketch team is perfect for web design work and costs about $ 100. Totally worth it.

Charlie O'Shea
Charlie O'Shea
18,737 Points

Thanks Hugo. I have the Sketch 3 trial on my computer now and I was just following on the Mobile Game Design course which uses Illustrator at points. It might be that I just haven't found my way around Sketch yet but nearly all of the features they used in Illustrator weren't in it. I admire simplicity but it seems a bit too stripped back if I'm honest.

I've just had a look at Pixelmator which looks great but I also noticed a relatively new app on the App store (UK) called Affinity Designer which has some amazing reviews so far (65 - 5*; 2 - 4*) with some saying it replaced Illustrator and 'blew Sketch and Pixelmator out of the water'. The interface and feature lists looks very impressive, and it's even cheaper than Sketch 3 at £28 (introductory promotion - £35 normally) https://affinity.serif.com

Do you have any experience with Affinity, or would you care to give your opinion?

I have seen the Affinity banner in the App Store, but I'm just getting good at Sketch. You can try the Mobile App Design for iOS here in Treehouse with Sarah Parmenter. She uses Sketch to develop the app interface. It is a great course by itself and it is perfect if you want to use Sketch for UI design.

I'll try Affinity Designer later but I think I'll wait it gain some traction to see what the fuss is about.

Charlie O'Shea
Charlie O'Shea
18,737 Points

Ahh great, that course was one of the next ones on my list so hopefully I can get a grounding in Sketch from that. Thanks for your help

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

I don't work for Treehouse but here are my thoughts.

If you are a freelancer doing it all on your own you can use any tools you like however if working as part of a team then chances are good you will be expected work with files in Photoshop (and probably Illustrator).

The goal of the Web Design track is to assist students in getting hired as a Web Designer and Photoshop and Illustrator are included in the track because of the frequency those specific names appear on job descriptions learning those specific tools is an asset to someone who is new to the field.

Chuck Powers
Chuck Powers
13,155 Points

Reasonable points, James. My only response is that may not apply in all cases. It doesn't in mine, for example, as I took on the track for the technical side and general concepts. But, I'd add that learning how to create something professional in photoshop or illustrator is not the same as creating a professional AND original piece of art. Take the spaceman example in the video. I can reproduce Mat Helme's artwork quite adequately. I can even copy the techniques, but I can't produce something similar on my own. I don't have that talent--wish I did. Mat's better with color than I am, and he's more creative and has more talent (and possibly training in graphic design).

Talented people often fail to appreciate their own talent, and tend to generalize the talent to others without justification "if they just work hard enough at it". Some of you creative folks should appreciate your talent. You have a gift I simply don't have regardless of the tools provided. It's actually a pretty interesting cognitive process sitting down to create something after an "inspiring" stimulus like the videos provide only to realize while you know how to go about producing something in the software, you have no idea what to produce or even how to get the result creatively. You don't even really know what it should look like. Everyone can sing, but what is the actual range of singing talent? I've heard some atrocious singing, I sing adequately, and of course we've all heard truly great artists. Will giving bad singers lessons in music production software make them into good or even adequate singers?

So, I guess the question for the track is should someone be able to focus on the technical side of web design and maybe creating at the concept level without being force fed something they're literally incapable of reproducing?

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

So, I guess the question for the track is should someone be able to focus on the technical side of web design and maybe creating at the concept level without being force fed something they're literally incapable of reproducing?

The term web design has undergone a bit of a transition in the past decade. Some positions call for the creation of image assets than others.

You should play to your strengths, apart from logo / icon creation there is a lot you can do. There is advanced CSS skills, JavaScript, User Experience Design work, traditional design fundamentals combine them together to be the best maker of web pages that you can be.

I think there is a good argument for and an equally good argument against having an Illustrator course in a web design track.

One thing to consider is what differentiates the Web Design track from Frontend Development track apart from its creation of artistic assets.

Chuck Powers
Chuck Powers
13,155 Points

I don't see why we can't have the best of both ideas and just have illustrator/photoshop be available as additional resources--along with other things that could be useful. If I had more artistic talent, I'd have loved those badges. My problem is not being able to opt out of something that didn't move me toward my goal. It's not the end of the world that I had to take them, but they're the longest badges in the track. I felt like it took me forever to complete them, and it was only delaying my education. By the way, contrast the many 15-20 minutes videos with the 1-3 minute videos in the logo badges. It's a really dense presentation--awesome for people who are talented designers.

Finally, Adobe products are so overly expensive. That alone leads me to open source.

Chuck Powers
Chuck Powers
13,155 Points

I just want to stress I'm not critical of the treehouse product. My aim is not to tear down, but to provide some positive feedback that might help in overall product delivery. I actually think treehouse is a great resource, and the photoshop/ illustrator badges are very much worth the time of anyone good enough to use them. I even like the software, though I've never liked any of Adobe's price points. Open forums often get SO negative, positive messages are overwhelmed. So, I just wanted to keep my comments on track. Luckily, this thread hasn't turned into a bash thread yet. :)