Forum discussions – November 2006

October was a busy month in the forums and November looks like it may be much the same. The design forums get everything from student project enquiries to, employment advice, to how much to charge for a design project.

As ever, you can use these selected discussions as an entry point to the forum. Or you can go directly to the latest forum topics.

• Setting up color management systems – setting up Color Management System profiles for monitor, printer and scanner.
• Career Advice – getting experience from other designers.
• Adobe Alternatives – other graphics applications.
• Is this client micromanaging? – small request from the client that could be interpreted as something larger.
• Initial Consultation – how designers structure their initial client consultations.
• Problems printing from Illustrator – pages with color pictures take hours to print.
• How Much To Charge For Magazine Design? – how much to charge to design a magazine.
• Cutting a background out in InDesign? – using InDesign to cut out an image.
• CMS for Windows - calibrating a Windows PC monitor.
• Graphic design business topics – curious about what I should know about.
• Web design training schools in London – learning web design in the UK capital.
• Fanning Text out in Illustrator – Is it possible?
• Design business targeting – changing a design firm's business direction.
• What is 2 color printing? – questions about printing inks and press-ready artwork.
• MacBook Core 2 Duo – student designer changing over from PC wondering whether it is worth spending more on a faster portable.
• Microsoft Vista for graphic designers – what does the new version of Windows have to offer designers?
• Price of web design – software and cost of designing a web site.
• Value of a graphic designer – how much are we worth?
• Going from company designer to freelance designer – from employee to self employed. To take advantage of offer from previous employer, or make a fresh start?
• Konica Minolta C500 – obtaining color accuracy and sharp graphic reproduction. Is it the printer or the Fiery RIP that is the problem?
• Do you specialize? – specializing in specific industry sectors, or not.
• Planning to go to Art University to study Visual Communication – information systems graduate wanting to study graphics.
• Next step in design career – expanding your career options.
• How to write a quote for a job – advice on charging for a new freelancer.
• Degree or not degree? – is it necessary to get a higher education qualification to become a graphic designer?
• Finding un-joined nodes in Illustrator CS 11 – a designer wonders how to locate gaps in unjoined paths in Adobe Illustrator.
• Design Competitions – are they a good thing, or do they devalue the industry?
• New to Graphic Design – newly qualified broadcast designer looks to moving into graphic design and management.
• Qualifications on business cards – should the initials after your name be a part of the self promotion process, or are they just pompous posturing?
• Adobe Illustrator swatch problem – the Illustrator 10 swatch library is giving this designer problems.
• Importing XML into Adobe InDesign – importing XML data into InDesign for creating catalogs. Is it possible?
• iMac for video editing – is it powerful enough, or should video designers invest in a more powerful MacPro?
• Object copying – importing Adobe Illustrator graphics into Pagemaker.
• Illustrator or CorelDraw – which is best? As ever, it's a matter of preference. Or is it?
• Process Color to Spot Color – it's easy the other way around, but how do you convert CMYK images into Pantones, especially without a swatch?
• A3 colour printer recommendations – PostScript proofing device advice for freelance graphic designer.
• Need a printer – desktop printer for home business.
• Linked images in Illustrator – problem with arbitrarily resize and placed files.
• Research into graphic design – what do creative people do and how is the design workflow managed?