Graphics?
 

Hey, I was just wondering what other teams use to create their graphics and websites. Cyber Blue has a new logo, and our website was awesome this year. However, next year, the PR team (which I'm on) and website team are combining into one Communications team, and I just wanted a little info from you guys who know lots about this stuff. I have Macromedia at my house, and I'm pretty familiar with Fireworks, Flash, and Dreamweaver.

Back to my point, what programs does your team use?

Re: Graphics?
 

We've used Adobe Photoshop and ImageReady quite a bit for our team graphics. We've also used Microsoft Publisher(?) to make posters and such that we then print out on our large format printer. Our biggest problem is finding the files after they're made as people tend to save them to their school accounts.

Flash can be good for websites (very interactive and graphically pleasing) but keep in mind that some peoples computers might not be able to run Flash. ;)

Re: Graphics?
 

i use fireworks 8 and photoshop cs2 for all of my graphics. mostly fireworks beacuse i have more experience with it.

...forest

Re: Graphics?
 

I use Fireworks for all of my graphics work.

Re: Graphics?
 

I'm unsure of the creation of the team logo (see my avatar), but this year the only graphics work we didn't farm out--that would be the graphics on the robot--were done in PowerPoint. Why? It's the easiest to print to where we got ours done.

That said, I tend to find myself using Photoshop a lot down there, Illustrator if it needs to be vectorized. (I'm fast learning that on Mac OS X, the .eps FIRST logos turn out better than their .jpg counterparts!) In a pinch, I use Seashore (Mac OS X-native GIMP).

Re: Graphics?
 

The GIMP and IrfanView for graphics. Both are nice, free programs and together they can do most of what you need for a website. (Vector graphics is pretty much the only major thing you can't do with that pair) On Windows machines I use Notepad for the actual creation of the website, and on Mac I use TextWrangler.

Re: Graphics?
 

photoshop elements and dreamweaver for the web site. ya...thats about it.

Re: Graphics?
 

There are 2 of us on the graphics team, on my macbook we have been using Photoshop/GIMP for all of the image editing, and Dreamweaver for web design (graphics team is also web team.) Over the summer I will be investing in the adobe web premier package for use at school/for the robotics team.

Re: Graphics?
 

I do much of my graphics work in Macromedia Fireworks MX for web applications and Illustrator (if I'm working on my Mac) for print applications, and any photo editing in Photoshop CS2. Here's a few of the sites I've designed, with almost all of the graphics work done in Fireworks MX:

http://www.team228.org/ (I designed the everything (graphics and PHP/MySQL database-driven backend) from scratch.)
http://www.platths.com/ (I designed only the graphics, not the ASP backend.)
http://www.connvex.org/ (I designed the everything from scratch.)

I avoid Flash [as part of the main design/navigation/framework] of any website like the plague. Not only will it cause a lot of problems with things like search engines and text readers for blind people, but it usually wastes more bandwidth than it's worth. Good uses of Flash might be embedded Flash video players, or an interactive presentation about your team on a dedicated page. Bad uses of Flash include links/navigation and "useless" animation fluff.

(Useless animation just distracts people from the content of your website, which is far more important than bright and flashy websites.)

Re: Graphics?
 

We NEVER use Photoshop for graphics... mainly it's not supposed to be used for graphics. We use Illustrator for all of our graphics. What's nice about Illustrator is it creates vector artwork, which is artwork that can be blown up to any size without distortion. Another thing that is nice about vector artwork is that it can be used to control laser cutters, vinyl cutters and a load of other devices. We can make a set of decals for our robot in Illustrator, give them to the printshop we use and within a couple of hours have three or four sets ready to go. We can also layout a design on a piece of plastic, give it to that same printshop and have them engrave the design right on the plastic from the Illustrator file.

As for web design, just about every student on our team knows Dreamweaver by the end of the first semester of their freshman year. Naturally, the students are going to use what is familiar to them so Dreamweaver is our web design software of choice.

Re: Graphics?
 

My favotrite graphics program is Laughingbird Software's Logo creator.
It's what I use to design the X-Cats buttons, robot signage and such and I used it to design all those logo designs for Mission Mayhem. I even used it to design my sig. My favorite feature is the ability to place graphics in letters.
I also use photoshop and Summit Soft's logo design studio.

Re: Graphics?
 

I Only Use Photoshop CS2/3 and Dreamweaver CS3. I Have a Fiery Hatred for Fireworks!:mad:

I Have so Much More Expirence With Photoshop and Photoshop Has Just So Much Power to Go Around!

Im Doing the Website in Photoshop then Splicing it into Dreamweaver....

Re: Graphics?
 

I only design the header graphics and gradients in CS2. I manually code pretty much our entire site in Notepad++. The only exception was the image map we did for our cadd site since I didn't want to manually enter all those pixels.

Re: Graphics?
 

I just got a new laptop (an HP Pavilion dv9207us Notebook) and got Coreldraw Graphic Suite3, Ulead DVd Movie factory, Sony Cinescore, Adobe
Creative Suite with Photoshop, Illistrator and Indesign. But the absolutly coolest thing I got was a Wacom Graphire4 4x5 Graphics Tablet which allows me to use a pen tool so I can actually scetch my ideas down instead of using a mouse which is like drawing with a brick!
I call it MUSE (Multi Use Scheme Engine)

Re: Graphics?
 

A tablet PC is even better than a Graphics Tablet.

Re: Graphics?
 

Yeah but I don't have $3400 :eek: to spend on a laptop.
The graphics tablet was only $250.

Re: Graphics?
 

also there are lcd screen that have high quality touch screens in them that are like $2000 i think. those are cool. its kinda a cross between a tablet pc and a tablet that sits on your desk.

...forest

Re: Graphics?
 

Not all tablets are that expensive. $1100, $1000 if you wait for a sale, for a Gateway cx210.

Re: Graphics?
 

Ya ive been to the Wacom Headquarters and used a Clique (the 20" Tablet Monitor) Im Getting a Tablet PC For My Graphic Design Job This Summer, and there also very handy for use during school, teachers think there a notebook @ a few feet away!

Re: Graphics?
 

Most of 973's things are done in Photoshop. Others are done in Inkscape.

I like Inkscape, it's free and I can play with the calligraphy part and make pretty letters. It's also pretty useful.

Re: Graphics?
 

Photoshop CS2 for graphics, period. fireworks never worked for me. Dreamweaver, though, has its benefits for the graphical front end classes for our website, but for everything else I use notepad++. our website is class driven, so mostly we just interface with a selected skin file and never have to worry about the page displaying correctly- it just does.

it also means we can change the skin entirely on the fly... a major plus if we need a special edition website or something.
our website never had a major calling for flash, so we don't use it much.

Re: Graphics?
 

Like Zyik, most of my graphics work is done in Inkscape. For raster editing, paint.net is my choice, simply because I'm dumb and its simple user interface appeals to me.

In any case, it's not the software, it's the artist. Pick a software family you feel comfortable with, and expand on that.

Re: Graphics?
 

I'm partial to Adobe software just because that's what I had access to in high school and kind of taught myself how to use it with the help of tutorials. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are two very powerful software pieces, but you'll still find businesses using older versions of Freehand, Fireworks, and beyond. It's a safe bet though that if you know how to use Adobe, you'll be covered pretty well and can transition to another software package if need be with little difficulty.

Re: Graphics?
 

I know that this is an old thread and stuff, but honestly, if you use Dreamweaver you don't learn as much about using something like Notepad or a simple, no help editor. I've learned more about tweaking, cross-browser compatibility, error-fixing and more just by writing the code by hand.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 is what I've done my work in. In general that's perfect for website designing (GIMP is nice too). Illustrator should be used for logos, imagery, and similar media and not so much for a website.

Team 245's website (My work done by hand-coding and Photoshop) is linked in my signature.

Re: Graphics?
 

i use dreamweaver just because of the auto complete. i never use the design mode and using just the code mode is like using notepad but it cuts my time spent typing in half sometimes. also i like their color coding as well. but i agree dreamweaver is not the greatest for wysiwyg editing.

...forest immel
team 885 & 2730 webmaster

Re: Graphics?
 

you should try notepad++, i also love writing programs/ect. in notepad, and notepad++ has syntax support for just about every language immaginable, its open source light weight and comeswith alot of cool features

Re: Graphics?
 

I agree, Notepad++ is great. All of the features are helpful, none get in your way; the language support is great; and it pretty usable while still having stuff like regular expression support. The only pieces of software I prefer are TextWrangler (for the FTP features) and vim (universal, usable in the command line, plethora of features... not too user friendly though).

Re: Graphics?
 

Inkscape would be an excellent package even if you had to pay for it

Re: Graphics?
 

i use notepad++ at school for writing all kinds of code (DOS batchfiles, Config files, HTML, PHP, CSS - the works) but i still like dreamweaver's built in ftp at times its very handy when trying to get CSS to work right and your going back and forth. but yes notepad++ is great and i love both

Re: Graphics?
 

As far as a FTP + CSS, HTML, PHP, Javascript.. ect.. Webcipher 2 is a lightweight, free version of Dreamweaver.

http://webcipher.org/ - Site Down at the Moment.:confused:

Re: Graphics?
 

thanks ill give it a shot :)

Re: Graphics?
 

It does have features like adding tables without typing it like Dreamweaver, but I tend not to use them because occasionally they're wrong and go under the radar.:eek:

Re: Graphics?
 

Vim rocks, once you learn how to use it. I find it to be incredibly powerful and efficient. I use it for everything from messing around with a little bit of HTML to writing C code for the robot to composing English papers (using latex to make it look pretty).

Austin Schuh

Re: Graphics?
 

Images: GIMP (Gnu Image Management Program), comes with Linux, works on Mac and Windows, free off of Sourceforge.net

Webcode: UltraEdit-32 Professional Text/Hex Editor, just Google it. 30-day free trial, there are web tutorials all over the place on how to crack the expiration on older versions.

More Webcode: EditPad Pro/ EditPad Lite (the U3 flash drive version), basically Notepad on crack. Very helpful for taking notes; tab-separated file windows, undockable, has a bunch of nifty and useful scripts for text editing, and the coolest thing of all: A little green earth-shaped icon that opens the current text file as HTML or javascript in your default browser. Very helpful.

Re: Graphics?
 

Yup, I'm gonna have to approve of that combo.
OK, this just amused me. There's somebody else in FIRST who knows how to use vim and LaTeX? Although, I've been doing some papers that needed extensive figures and graphics in LyX. Microsoft Word output just looks bad. Look at those f-i collisions!

Re: Graphics?
 

it's good to see someone using UE pro! i love Ultra Edit, and the gimp, but (cheapo alert) don't have the money to buy photoshop or illustrator to edit vector graphics. I use inkscape for most Vectors, but some of my team's sponsors give them to us in .eps, and i don't know any free programs that open .eps files..

any ideas?

thanks

Re: Graphics?
 

I use Illustrator for 397's new graphics. Interactive-wise I would only use Flash if I needed a quick little application. From a programmers view Flash is actually nice, we don't need to worry about writing the code to make the UI and a lot of the nasty UI stuff is taken care of. I use it a lot for testing algorithms. I would never use it as a navigational portion of the site because some people don't allow Flash files to open.

On the topic of Photoshop, I use it on my photos. Mostly touching up the photos and adjusting white balance. For photographs you won't find much better things (at least not in the Adobe family) but it lacks in the proper drawing tools to be good at logo creation.

Obviously they are expensive, the alternatives of GIMP and Inkscape seem quite useable to me. I don't use them because I learned Photoshop and Illustrator in school.

I don't do too much web development for robotics but I use Dreamweaver just for highlighting and code completion. And also because I had to learn it in school.

Does it seem like these companies would keep giving you different things in .eps format or is it sort of a one time problem? If it is only going to happen once I would just go download a trial version of Illustrator and convert them to something you can read. Otherwise, on my Macbook Pro I was able to open it one I created using Preview. Otherwise, try Inkscape, I haven't used it but it sounds like it can open .eps files.

If all else fails, talk to the company to get the file in a different format.

Re: Graphics?
 

The majority of the graphics on our website were done either in Flash, Photoshop CS3, or some mix of the two. Our site was hand-coded by some former students, and most of our new pages or revamped pages are edited in Notepad2.

Re: Graphics?
 

I'm quite happy with this year's side panels, which were done up in Adobe Illustrator. It took me a few hours to do (mostly as I was relearning Illustrator while I worked), but the results are great. (And redoable, if our team undertakes any lending again this season.)