Design Programs

[joe]

Greetings Router Heads

Over the years I've fond of a couple of programs that have served me well but if I were to start all over it would be Corel Draw. I've been using Flexi Sign, backed up with Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator, and Corel. If I was to start from scratch I'd save my money and buy one of the older versions of Corel on Ebay or Amazon. Somewhere in the $200. bag. Yep it a bargain and powerful too.

There are a couple of reasons. It comes with a full bank of professional fonts and a huge clip art portfolio. But most of all it's the easiest program on the market to learn. There are a host of free training video's and www.lynda.com (http://www.lynda.com) has professional training at $25 a month if you want to go that way. You Tube is a good place to see how it works and get free training.

Corel will also import and export more file types than any porgram on the market. At one time their scanning wasn't very good but today it's the best I've found. Everyting in this field is in flux. But for now it's a baragin. A visit to www.letterheadfonts.com (http://www.letterheadfonts.com) will show what can be done with professional design software.

None of the router programs, no matter how much you pay, are in this design league however you will need one of these for a tool path. If Corel ever decides to go in that direction, buckle the seat belts.

Joe Crumley
www.normansignco.com (http://www.normansignco.com)

[dakers]

I agree with Joe. I love corel draw 15 and really love it . we have 3 designers. i use corel 15 only, they use adobe illustrator. they want me to learn illustrator because it is harder for me to give them files they can use without jumping through a few hoops. they also use corel but they think illustrator is faster and easier.
I usually give them pdf files and it took awhile to dial in the export settings as we do alot of vehicle wraps and digital printing also

i have attached two recent corel designs showing what corel can do when used for sign design. this is not so much for routing but maybe could represent how it could look. Alot of the designs we do are digitally printed.

[dakers]

Here is another corel draw sketch just finished for sign and for business cards, letter heads, vehicle graphics, office door graphics, etc.

[dakers]

I think more importantly corel gave us the ability to make presentations like the attachment. do photo of building then add the signage, logos, info , etc.

these types of presentations took time but sold many jobs even at a higher price than competitors.
today it is more about "value engineering" so we often quote three tier pricing (good better best)

I have at least 1000 of these types of presentations, will look to see if there are any for carved signs.

[dakers]

will post a few more corel designs.
if you do start with corel learn how to use layers. that will be important later

[dakers]

a few more

[dakers]

here are a few more,
may post more later. have to get work done but corel can be a great sales tool. I think what joe said about lydia is great info.
i never used anything but self taught the hard way which was not very easy and took about a year to be able to do some designs like this.
corel is very deep. you can google any problems and use the help section that is included.

i would go with corel 15 . i started with corel 4 but i really like 15 which has more export features that are more compatible with adobe.

[curtiss]

Most any cad program will have several hundred features to learn. I think the key might be to have someone "show you in person" the first 30 or 40 you need to know.

Using a program where you can get some quick assistance might be the most important.

[joewino]

Great work. Thanks for sharing.

Like Joe, I think lynda.com is an excellent learning tool. For $25 a month you can access thousands of tutorials on just about any software you can think of....over and over.

[joe]

Dick,

Thanks for posting all those fine pictures. My reason for opening up this discussion was to introduce the Newbee's to design programs. I often see people trying to accomplish artwork with the wrong equipment.

Corel not only seems to be the easiest and cheapest but it's also very powerful. That's not to take anything away from Illustrator. I personally feel it's a more refined product but way too difficult to operate for part a time use. It's expensive too. I couldn't recommend it for the newbee.

I through the X5 version was more compatable with Illustrator. I know these two software giants have been in a constant battle for years. I see X5 has a Ai export filter. Does that not work? Why doesn't Illustrator have a CDR filter? That would make it easy.

Joe

[tuck]

For years I have used SignLab5 for both design and tool paths, but it can't even come close to the type of artwork Dick has posted for presentation purposes. Not only that, but recently for some reason, I lost all of my hundreds of fonts and it won't reinstall them no matter what I try. I'm stuck with Arial only, and there's not much I can do with that. I'm in a jam.

Joe, is this the version of Corel you are posting about?

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-COREL-DRAW-GRAPHICS-SUITE-X5-CORELDRAW-FULL-VERSION-/160576044606?_trksid=p5197.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D5%26po%3D LVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D8717592265209987321

That looks like a bargain for $200.00, but can it export as DXF? The ad says it will do EPS, but sometimes that works in SignLab (for tool paths) and sometimes it don't, I don't know why. It all gives me a headache after a while.:confused:

I wish there was a reasonably priced program that did it all. If there is one, I don't know about it.

[joe]

Greetings Mark,

I pulled that price of $200 out of the air. After looking at the offering on Ebay I have no idea how cheeeeep the program goes for. It looks to me it can be had for less than $100. I looked at Corel's website to see th X5 has 1000 fonts. YouTube has some good operating video's.

Hope you get fixed up soon. Let me know if I can help.

Joe Crumley
www.normansignco.com (http://www.normansignco.com)

[danhamm]

Mark, I am a long time corel user and also used signlab 5 for many years,
corel works a lot like sign lab I don't think it would take you long to pick it up..just a note on sign lab, did you change or update windows to vista or win 7..? when I went to a 64bit operating system my signlab wouldn't work anymore..

[dakers]

for printing on a large format printer some of the files i do in corel have shadows, gradient fills, outlines, vectors and bitmaps all in the same file. it seems to export and import better when i export as a pdf but the settings have to perfect for them to get all info correctly. they open the pdf in adobe illustrator cs5 and Onyx print software

to give them files they can open in Gerber i export the files as ai files or export as corel 10 files.

to give Jerry router files for shop bot i export as dwg or dxf file.

i always test the files i export by reopening them and then going to wire frame mode in corel to make sure everything looks good. sometimes the export filter cut the letters in half and i have to weld them together and resave them.

there is so much more for me to learn about Corel.
I spend too much time on some designs. i did the Kiko classic car example for the best customer i have ever had. i spent about 100 hours dialing it in and narrowing it down.

the others can take from 3 hours to a day depending on how many revisions. or options i always tell them that design is a evolutionary process starting at point A and ending when they are satisfied and they have to participate in the process and may not like what they see at first but to hang in there until it is dialed in to their satisfaction ( more than mine)


for us here it would be simpler if i learned Illustrator but i love corel so much i do not want to.

if you work alone i would use corel, if you work as a team i would have eveyone use corel. We just have all these other programs to edit files we get from customers.

later today or tomorrow i will post some price guidelines for design that may or may not work

[tuck]

Mark, I am a long time corel user and also used signlab 5 for many years,
corel works a lot like sign lab I don't think it would take you long to pick it up..just a note on sign lab, did you change or update windows to vista or win 7..? when I went to a 64bit operating system my signlab wouldn't work anymore..

Naa, I'm still using XP for my OS. I can't figure out what happened. What are you using for tool paths now?

[danhamm]

Vetric's products vcarve pro, cut3d.. love how easy they are to use.

I have the distinction of being there first customer way back when..
a few months ago I emailed them wondering if I could upgrade from the original software, Tony just sent me the upgrades free of charge and told me that I was the first paying order..
I thought that was real darn nice, not many businesses do that..!!!

[tuck]

Well I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I realized today that I have Corel Draw X3 and have had it for several years!:o I bought it on ebay, paid about $90.00 for it, got it, installed it, played around a little with it and forgot all about it! Talk about a "senior moment"! lol

Some research on the web tells me that X5 ain't worth the upgrade cost (that's what a lot of reviews said), so I guess I need to get busy and learn X3!!!

[danhamm]

Mark, if you want any "quick" start help, maybe we could connect on one of the messaging. skype or msn yahoo..??

[tuck]

Oh I 'preciate that Dan, but I think I can get there. Some good tutorials on their site and plenty of instruction on YouTube. I'll figure it out. ;)