Graphic Design teacher help

[The Giraffe]

Whatever you end up with do the kids a favor.

Delete Papyrus, Comic Sans and Copperplate Goth from the font folders.

 

[TammieH]

Whatever you end up with do the kids a favor.

Delete Papyrus, Comic Sans and Copperplate Goth from the font folders.

OMG thank you for including Copperplate!!

 

[Techman]

were lucky to get 2 years out of PC's on a three year cycle while

Here we go again,,, Another uninformed bash from the MAC fans.. This aove statement is true if and only if that school bought the cheapest units in town. As is they usually order to the lowest bidder.. Buying off the shelf cheap crap home brand E-machines always has a consequence.

However, in the real world commercial machines last years. In fact M$ is dropping all support for XP in a few months while win7 is being phased out a a few more months,,, And is changing win 9 so much that OLD machines will not work in any capacity. Why? because the old PC's still are in use by a large portion of the commercially installed computers. WIN 8 is such a bust simply because so many PC's with XP and win 7 are perceived to be fully viable and still in operation.

With that said...
As for a graphics program as mentioned above there are so many directions this course can go including artsy fartsy lessons in lay out, type faces, and color long before a computer is needed.

 

[VL]

Save your money and don't purchase any software. Only buy the computers. Instead of Adobe Illustrator use Inkscape.org this is an open source vector drawing program. And download gimp.org this is an open source raster program like Photoshop. Yea they are not Adobe but they work the same and cost nothing.

 

[player]

Save your money and don't purchase any software. Only buy the computers. Instead of Adobe Illustrator use Inkscape.org this is an open source vector drawing program. And download gimp.org this is an open source raster program like Photoshop. Yea they are not Adobe but they work the same and cost nothing.

They are saying Adobe CS2 is free now from Adobe.

 

[Techman]

They are saying Adobe CS2 is free now from Adobe.

and run perfect on an XP machine of which many can be found in many closets.. get them donated..

 

[phototec]

Have a REVERSE garage sale at the school one Saturday, open to everyone in town to bring in their OLD XP computers they don't use or want anymore. Then have all the student's go through them and pick out the best computers to keep for the class.

You can harvest all the RAM and hard drives from the computers your NOT keeping, and use these to upgrade the computers you select to keep (the more RAM the better for a graphic work station).

Sell all the others to a recycling center to raise a little more money for software etc.

Then download the FREE CS2 design software from Adobe, and you set to go......as mentioned above, it's more important to teach Design Basics, more important they learning the software. Design goes way beyond software and there is a lot of theory behind it.

Just look at all the crappy designs people are making today, they purchase a computer and software and call themselves a designer, and they really know nothing about graphic design and how to use SHAPE, TEXTURES, COLOR, and SPACE effectively.

See bad example below:

 

[visual800]

I would try to get some relatively new i5 or i7 computers and some Adobe educational licenses. Newer PCs will let your students run design software efficiently. Maybe a local vendor will have a used trade in printer cutter for loan or on the cheap...

Great suggestion this is what I would do.

 

[genericname]

Save your money and don't purchase any software. Only buy the computers. Instead of Adobe Illustrator use Inkscape.org this is an open source vector drawing program. And download gimp.org this is an open source raster program like Photoshop. Yea they are not Adobe but they work the same and cost nothing.

That's all well and good if each and every one of the students is planning on opening their own shop, but they will never get jobs at graphic design studios without extensive training in Adobe's software. Budget or no, a graphic design program that doesn't teach Adobe is a joke, and nobody will take it seriously.

With the number of folks (local, domestic & foreign) that approach me daily it seems there is an over supply which means no jobs to be found or low pay....Just asking for the teacher's opinion on this....

That's every job that isn't a trade right now. This market is awful, and I really worry about the kids coming out of school right now. Things don't look good for them.

 

[rjssigns]

Here we go again,,, Another uninformed bash from the MAC fans.. This aove statement is true if and only if that school bought the cheapest units in town. As is they usually order to the lowest bidder.. Buying off the shelf cheap crap home brand E-machines always has a consequence.

However, in the real world commercial machines last years. In fact M$ is dropping all support for XP in a few months while win7 is being phased out a a few more months,,, And is changing win 9 so much that OLD machines will not work in any capacity. Why? because the old PC's still are in use by a large portion of the commercially installed computers. WIN 8 is such a bust simply because so many PC's with XP and win 7 are perceived to be fully viable and still in operation.

With that said...
As for a graphics program as mentioned above there are so many directions this course can go including artsy fartsy lessons in lay out, type faces, and color long before a computer is needed.

Another PC fanboy got his knickers in a twist. Where did I bash? You did right off the bat. Besides implying that I'm an idiot. Nice going. God forbid something works better and longer with no issues. I was just relaying facts.

You act as if I have no clue which is far from the truth.
As a student I was asked to sit in the graphic communications board. Being involved/invested in my programs paid off for myself and those to follow.

In this instance PC's were no longer economically feasible. And not just one or two like you own, but hundreds throughout the school.


If you would like I can get you hooked up with some of the parties involved. 2 of them have Ph.D's in economics. I'm sure you could do better...

 

[Marlene]

At that level there is a lot you can teach about graphic design without even touching a computer. A bunch of schools assume teaching graphic design is all about training people how to use software, but the basics and the theory of design is at best touched on, and at worst ignored all together. Things like contrast, space, color theory, etc. I'm not saying computers are useless in a graphic design class, they aren't, it's a tool that needs to be taught, but it is just a tool, IMHO, tools tend to be useless if people don't understand the basics. I feel like our industry would be much better off if people spent more time learning the fundamentals of design first, and since these kids are young, it's really the best time for them to start learning those valuable skills.​

this is the best advice so far.

 

[The Vector Doctor]

Here we go again,,, Another uninformed bash from the MAC fans.. This aove statement is true if and only if that school bought the cheapest units in town. As is they usually order to the lowest bidder.. Buying off the shelf cheap crap home brand E-machines always has a consequence.

However, in the real world commercial machines last years. In fact M$ is dropping all support for XP in a few months while win7 is being phased out a a few more months,,, And is changing win 9 so much that OLD machines will not work in any capacity. Why? because the old PC's still are in use by a large portion of the commercially installed computers. WIN 8 is such a bust simply because so many PC's with XP and win 7 are perceived to be fully viable and still in operation.

With that said...
As for a graphics program as mentioned above there are so many directions this course can go including artsy fartsy lessons in lay out, type faces, and color long before a computer is needed.

I think you are ok with win7 for a while... 2020
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle

I cannot imagine they would drop support for win7 so quickly. They upset so many with win8 that by making machines obsolete with win9 would be even worse for MS. Desktops are losing favor for tablets and laptops and OSX and Google are eating into sales a bit.