With the release of Adobe Creative Suite 2 I started thinking about how easy it is to create a website now a day. Though some talent is required, it’s relatively easy to follow a quick tutorial and come out with something spectacular looking. Soooo, I decided to take a look back at some popular coding and design programs. Well, basically I just took a look at the leading companies.
Macromedia Work Suite – though Macromedia programs may not be the most user friendly programs on earth, they have provided designers with an easy way to make pages. Flash has become extremely popular, and Dreamweaver still remains the standard program for people to lazy to hand code. You know who you are. Anyway, Macromedia Work Suite, though extremely high priced, contains some great programs. If it weren’t for the usability issues, I might use this on a regular basis. In fact, I do use Freehand sometimes.
Adobe Lineup – you can’t talk about web design without hearing the word “Adobe” somewhere in the conversation. Though most people use Adobe programs for graphic work, the Adobe Lineup is good for a lot of things, and now that they have acquired Macromedia I’m sure we can expect more great things to come. Photoshop is the undoubtedly the best graphic design program out there, and programs like GoLive! and Illustrator aren’t bad either. Overall, this is my go-to program for all types of web design, and I would recommend these programs to anybody. Unfortunately, Adobe has been the target of many cracks, meaning they don’t get even half the money they should be getting for downloads.
Jasc – Jasc has been good to me throughout the years. It was my starting program when I decided to get serious with design, and I still use it quite often today for some touch-ups and sample designs. I recieved Paint Shop Pro 8 as a supplemental program to my school course, and have loved using it since then. Though it may not have as many cool features as Adobe products it works just as well and is a great alternative if you don’t have enough money for larger programs.
Corel – what can I say? Photopaint is awesome and can do almost everything Photoshop can. Though it isn’t a solid graphics program like Photoshop or PSP it can throw together some pretty wicked page layouts. Even Pixel2Life version 2 was designed using it. And the best part, it’s only runs for around $179. I suggest using this over Paint Shop Pro. And yes, Corel is also the maker of WordPerfect, Paint Shop Pro, and they even used to produce Bryce, one of the leading 3D design programs.
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