Be A Design Cast 4 : Macromedia Memorial
by Nate Voss, (10 comments)
Welcome to the Be A Design Cast for the week of December 27th, 2000 and 5. On the Design Cast this week, we bid farewell to Macromedia as they are officially taken over by Adobe Systems. Tom takes a dive into the Dew, and the Holiday Design Review continues.
How sad is it that right before the holidays we have to bid farewell to Macromedia? Tragic, in my mind, that’s for sure. We’re sending this Design Cast almost-live from the headquarters of Eleven19 (that’s Donovan’s design studio) with the help of the Polyfro Mobile Recording Studio. We dive head first into the Adobe/Macromedia merger, then Tom takes a spin in the land of Mountain Dew’s competitor/imitator brands.
The three of us split out the Holiday Design Review for good measure. I have to be honest, Starbucks is in the lead at present, but just before Christmas I spotted a latecomer with some seriously strong package design that could pull the foam out of their latte. Look for the final reader/listener poll in a few weeks. By the way: Adrian, we’re going to need a poll.
On behalf of the Design Cast and Crew, happy holidays. We hope the cards you sent out were screenprinted or something else cool only we would look for.
Comments (10)
Nate Voss said:
We’ve been planning on a “comment of the week” or “viewer mail” segment since before we launched the Design Cast, its just that we’ve only recently spurred on the discussion to a point where we feel we have enough to go off of. Me? I’d have preferred Kevin Steele’s Cast-Bashing of my ignorance of Adrian Frutiger, which I have since rectified by reading everything I can on the man. But Tom does the mail, and woe be the man who steps between Tom and Taco Bell.
And if you want to see mad, just wait until Mr. Kadavy (pronounced “Cah-duh-vee,” not “ka-DAY-vee”) hears this one.
Posted on December 26, 2005
Donovan Beery said:
For the best holiday design work, I am now leaning towards the Borders in-store signage. Just fantastic use of letterforms and snowflakes working together.
We’re still working on the show format, being just four shows in, and we’d appreciate some feedback on the overall format of the show from some of our listeners. What segments of the show do you like? What segments would you like re-thought?
Posted on December 27, 2005
p.berkbigler said:
Just a question about our friend Ron in the ad / image - maybe my ears heard wrong during the episode, but isn’t that actually just a hand-tinted / color retouched B/W photo of Ron at the desk vs. a painting?
I’m not seeing detail in the image on-line, but it looks like your photographer friends MAY have actually been the ones called in to generate the ad…I’m still totally enamored with the romanticized vision of calling up the commercial art department and having some meticulous illustrator paint up a version of Ronald Reagan at the desk tossing out Chesterfield boxes to all his faves on the Christmas list.
Posted on December 27, 2005
Bennett said:
Tom, Maybe this idea would be too much of a strain on the old pocket book, but it would be great to see all of the knock-off Mountain Dew cans. It could be a post all by itself. Then you could even make a judgment call as to wether the taste had any relation to the quality of the design. Just a thought.
Posted on December 28, 2005
Kyle said:
Surge was a good knock-off for a while. But as stated, it was discontinued. I liked it’s green color.
Was Mellow Yellow really created as a Mt. Dew imitation? As a kid, I always thought it had been around longer (probably because they didn’t change the can design every month). Anyway, that’s the best lemon-lime I’ve tasted.
Posted on December 28, 2005
kadavy said:
My name has been mispronounced numerous times before and it isn’t likely to bother me a great deal. The height being during the more famous period in the life of figure skater Karen Kadavy. They pronounced her the same way. Some people are also in the habit of saying Cuh-DAA-vee (the AA being the “a” sound in “apple”).
As for my status as a “self-proclaimed typography expert,” you got me there, but I do know at least someone out there qualifies me as a “design expert”.
Posted on December 28, 2005
MikeAnderson said:
Just because you guys can’t use Illustrator, that doesn’t mean it sucks. Seriously, I used to be in pre-press and Freehand is considerably more problematic in press work than Illustrator. Eps is the printing standard for vector and hybrid graphics, and Illustrator is the native tool for eps(pdf). Sorry guys, but Freehand needs to go bye-bye, just like pagemaker, golive, and that bastard piece of crap livemotion. Oh yeah, Starbucks blows… really… walmart.
Posted on December 28, 2005
Nate Voss said:
I’ve been in Illustrator for a year and a half now, and it is such a double-edged sword. It has the capabilities to do almost anything, literally. Think of almost anything, and there is a way in Illustrator to do it. It has so much potential, but it is a usability nightmare. This is the perspective of a person who has learned the software in the past 18 months—not someone who’s used it since its inception—and it is flat-out hard. It’s the most difficult software I’ve used since Quark. And the shame of it is that Adobe understands usability; take Photoshop and InDesign as its two biggest examples. They run like a dream. And all I want to say is that if Adobe’s going to monopolize the vector-art software programs (sorry, CorelDraw), then at least throw your tried-and-true supporters a bone. Make it easier on the end user. That’s us, by the way.
Posted on December 29, 2005
Bennett said:
Nate and I have had this debate several times (here and here), but I think comparing Illustrator to Quark is way off base. Sure Illustrator can be tough for a new-comer (which I don’t remember having that much trouble), but it is an excellent program that pays respect to its “tried and true supporters”. If anything, that might be its biggest downfall. It keeps many of its random features consistent for the longtime user, instead of completely streamlining it along with Photoshop and InDesign. Quark on the other hand, disregarded its customer base, insulted them and didn’t come out with a decent update for years. Adobe has consistent and useful updates while respecting their longtime customers. Either way you look at it, Illustrator and Freehand would not be the programs they are, without trying to outdo the other. I won’t miss Freehand and hopefully the product won’t suffer because of the lack of competition.
Posted on December 29, 2005
MikeAnderson said:
Good points both, and as someone who learned Illustrator first, in version 4.1, I agree that it is not always the easiest to figure out. However, I also come from the PC side and the big leap in 7 so impressed me and then 8(great for sign-making, what I was doing when it came out) was such a leap, I laughed at the Corel junkies and frankly, Freehand was a Mac thing. I just didn’t understand. My only issue with Illustrator at this point is that it is getting away from good vector math, and substituting with pixel effects… that is very confusing for my students and makes it difficult to explain “the right tool for the Job.”
Posted on December 29, 2005