Using design programs for Mac – Artboard vs Vector Designer

graphic design software for Mac

Many computer users, and in particular Mac users, will often find themselves in a situation where they would like to use graphic design software for Mac. You may find that you want to use the design software for Mac in the circumstances, where you need to make a web design or a logo design. This is the moment in time when you’re going to be looking for design programs for Mac. At this stage you will have to decide whether you want to do the design in a bitmap format, this is sometimes known as raster, or whether you want to use a graphics design software which is a vector-based. For the graphics professionals, the first port of call might well be to use the Creative Suite from Adobe to supply themselves with PhotoShop for the bitmap graphic design for Mac and also for Illustrator for the vector design software Mac. The only problem with this is that for the ordinary user the cost of buying these applications is prohibitive. This is where you might look for a PhotoShop alternative for the Mac such as Pixelmator and also the same applies with looking for an alternative to Illustrator. Luckily for us there are applications out there that we can use as logo design software for Mac, to use for whatever type of image creation we have in mind.

Artboard versus Vector Designer for graphic design Mac

I have only recently come across Artboard and at first look it does seem a good competitor to Vector Designer, because the application does do an awful lot of things within its interface. Artboard has a very full toolbox with the usual selector tool, tools to create various shapes and for putting text into your design. The application has the usual thing you get within a vector application where you can combine shapes into one, or use one shape as a cookie cutter to chop bits out of another shape. With Artboard you get the ability to set the size of your page and also to use a number of templates that are available. Of course there are tools there for creating various types of line including the bezier lines that you would expect to find in a vector design program for Mac.

Artboard is great for graphic design Mac, but quirky

I found when using the application to create text on a path, that the application had a slightly quirky interface. This could be another way of saying that within this vector graphic design Mac application, is a little less than intuitive, on the other hand one could say that it was bloody awkward to use. Have a look at the video that I made about putting text onto a path using Artboard and you will see exactly what I mean by quirky. Vector Designer has a much better way of allowing a user to put text so that it flows along a path, whether that path is a shape such as an ellipse or a circle, or if it was a bezier line.

While Artboard was endowed with more tools and capabilities than Vector Designer, I did find myself struggling with some of the concepts of use. When you are creating more than one object there is a sort of grouping or link between those objects. When you change the style of the object such as the fill or the thickness or colour of an outline, then the attributes are applied to all of those grouped objects at the same time. It is possible that you could get used to this funny Artboard graphic design software for Mac and it’s weird ways, but for a user of other design software for Mac it may seem a little strange for quite some time.

Logo design software for Mac

My own personal preference for creating logo designs using graphic designer Mac applications would be to use ArtText 2. This application is good for logos for web design for Mac users, making it very easy to make a stunning looking logos quickly and efficiently. It is quite possible to use either Artboard or the Vector Designer apps to create your logos, as there are plenty of tools in either of these graphic design Mac applications for you to be able to do a good creative job. One of the reasons why you might use a vector design program for Mac to create your logo, would be that once you have created the logo you can resize it, either bigger or smaller and still have the best quality due to the lack of jaggies in a vector design. You will always have perfectly sharp edges and still have the ability to use bitmap images as fills or use gradients so that the look of the logo is not too flat and boring.

Choosing between these two design programs for Mac

In this review of ArtBoard, the Mac graphics design software and comparison with the review of Vector Designer there are pros and cons for both applications. Artboard might well be endowed with better facilities, tools and so on, but is harder to use due to the strangeness of the interface. Then in comparison when looking at Vector Designer which is incredibly simple in comparison, it can often leave you wishing that it did more and was more capable. Taking these two situations with regards these graphic design Mac applications, it may well be the case that you would want to use both of them, at different times for different jobs. Then again you might prefer just to keep your eyes open for other vector design applications, there are some out there such as Inkscape, iDraw and a bunch of others that will perhaps appease your needs for web design for Mac or graphic design software Mac and keep your money from the clutches of Adobe. If you are working professionally as a graphic designer on a daily basis, then you may in the end have no choice, but to stump up the cash and buy Creative Suite. It kind of depends on what it is that you want to do with your graphics design software and as a last resort you could even run CorelDraw within Parallels or other virtualisation software. I will be doing a review of the application iDraw shortly, so subscribe to the RSS feed for Mac20Q to make sure that you don’t miss upcoming articles about other design programs for Mac