This article originally appeared in the May issue of
info+, the newsletter of the ISTC, and is reproduced here by kind permission of the ISTC.
Helping you choose the right creative application
By Kathryn Valdal Fourie, MISTC
Changes in communication trends and the job market are pushing a growing number of technical authors to become more involved in page layout and design, reports Ed Wills director of operations at Mekon Creatives. This means that more technical writers and designers are taking creative application courses to remain competitive in the work place.
“In today’s world of communications, copywriters, technical writers and even traditional print designers need to design for the online experience.” The web experience is growing even richer from a media perspective; it is becoming increasingly standard to have print options, documents for download, online video and online presentations with audio scripts. “This is why 60% of the students now taking our web courses come from traditional print media backgrounds. Many of these previously print-only designers are taking Adobe Dreamweaver and Flash courses to move into web design, as well as to gain web skills such as writing for the web and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO),” reports Ed.
Designers and writers often know that they need to gain more software skills and become more adept in the programs they use every day. Yet, they are constantly bombarded by course and software advertisements, which can make choosing the right course difficult.
Mekon gives us the low-down on some of the key creative application packages in the market to help you choose the most appropriate one for your needs. These are:
- Adobe InDesign: application for page layout and design
- Adobe FrameMaker: powerful application for authoring longer documents, including manuals and technical documents
- Adobe Illustrator: a vector-based drawing application, useful for a broad range of projects, such as creating logos, clothes design and cartography
- Adobe Photoshop: a graphics editing application for commercial bitmap and image manipulation, graphical layout and web image manipulation
- QuarkXPress: application for page layout and design
So if you are interested in getting into layout, which application would be the better choice – Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress which are direct competitors? Mekon Creatives tells us a bit about the two applications’ history and strengths to help you make the right decision.
QuarkXPress has been around for 21 years, whereas Adobe InDesign has only been on the market for about nine. “In the past, Adobe PageMaker competed with QuarkXPress, and Quark was the market leader,” explains Carol Edwards, creative print design application specialist and Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor at Mekon Creatives. But since “Adobe bundled InDesign with Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat in its Creative Suite, InDesign has become a strong player – the application is now running neck and neck with QuarkXPress in terms of training requirements,” she says.
“While QuarkXPress is more expensive to purchase than InDesign, InDesign comes in a variety of suites, ranging from the all encompassing Master Collection, which integrates the ex Macromedia products and covers all design disciplines including print and web design, motion graphics and video editing to the Design Standard and Design Premium Suites. Overall, the various suites cost more but contain more applications,” explains Carol. For this reason, Adobe’s Creative Suites appeal to a broad range of designers, including independent ones.
“QuarkXPress is still an industry standard with a strong loyal user base and can work very well with products such as Photoshop and Illustrator, but we are experiencing a high demand for InDesign training courses from QuarkXPress users,” comments Ed. This is partly due to the job market demanding designers versed in both packages. “Ten years ago, job ads asked for QuarkXPress, but now they are asking for both: Quark and InDesign.”
So if you are looking to add a new application to your repertoire of skills, how long will it really take you to master an application? If you are a newbie to an application, taking the plunge and getting started with it can be daunting. But Carol says that it is possible to “absorb the key features of an application within as little as one to three days. In a short course, we impart enough skills so that users can feel confident with the interface and familiar enough with the main features to produce any type of document.”
“Even users who have been working with an application regularly often learn short cuts, tips and tricks on training days which enable them to become more efficient at their jobs. The best way to learn the features of an application is to refer to sample projects in the training,” explains Carol. “Using clients own projects during the course makes the learning experience more relevant, which aids the transfer of skills.”
Most students leave a couple of weeks between an introductory, intermediate and advanced course. This gives them enough time to practice the tips and skills they learnt in the training course. “But how long you need between courses depends on how often you will be using the application. If you use it in your job everyday then you might feel ready to move to a higher level more quickly. If you don’t use the application daily at work, we recommend that you do practical exercises at home. You can then expect that achieving proficiency will take a little longer,” she adds.
So learning a new application will take some effort, but will adding a new creative package to your CV really give you the edge in the job market? “We have found that companies are looking for writers and designers with a mix of cross-media skills and this is often hard to find. Businesses want to staff up with trained people but are often concerned about the risk of staff churn. This coupled with high recruitment agency fees of around 25% can make some companies hesitant to hire, especially when it is in the agency’s best interest, but not the client’s, to negotiate a higher salary for a candidate,” explains Ed.
“Traditionally, our business has focused on creative application training courses, and we have consistently been approached by businesses wanting to train up their new recruits in various applications,” he says. To address the concerns of industry, Mekon Creatives started a new recruitment arm 10 months ago. “We put prospective employers into contact with designers who have a strong portfolio of work and then put them through three Mekon Creatives courses. We work on a fixed-fee approach as opposed to traditional recruitment agencies who charge a percentage of successful candidates’ salary, and the training element is included in this fee. We believe this puts us firmly on the client’s side and produces a fantastic return on the recruitment budget investment.”
It’s not only the employers who benefit. Successful Mekon Creatives trained candidates who stay with the client company for more than 24 months get a 10% discount on Mekon Creatives courses for life. “This is a win-win situation for both the companies who approach us and the designers enhancing their skill sets through our courses. The bottom line is that competitive businesses are always looking for experienced staff with the skills to match, so if you enhance your skills you have got a much stronger chance of getting the job you want."
