While our website is currently in need of a lot of TLC – and a lot of pictures – we’ve made a few decisions that will hopefully stand us in good stead moving forward. How’s that for a strange start. I’ve never felt comfortable with long-winded introductions, but I digress and make it longer.
Our design is currently very rough. One of the tools that is helping it to get better is the Adobe suite. We’ve shared some of our design decisions. We like things to look a little rough around the edges, and we’re not in the least nervous about pushing out dramatic changes (okay, they make us a little nervous). So long as our decisions are based on our value set – starting with Community, Artistry and Transparency – we’re feeling pretty good about where we’re headed.
But this is starting to ramble. We’ve tried a lot of the great freeware that’s out there. We have used Gimp and Inkscape extensively (great tools!) as well as the online giant pixlr.com. We’ve plumbed google’s font repository at length and yet we keep coming back to Adobe. There’s a certain comfort in knowing that we can sketch something up on an ipad using fresco, then export it to illustrator for touch-ups; that we can pull in a group of photos to photoshop or lightroom; that we can put together a quick film in Premier or Spark; Record audio for a podcast in Audition… and it’s all going to work and be properly maintained.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the free programs are phenomenal and also very powerful, we’re just running into a time/energy crunch, and it no longer makes sense to pour the hours into them. Who knows what the future will hold. Will we stick with Adobe going forward? Maybe. Will we extend our license to share the wealth? Also a maybe. For now, we’re buying in/paying our way forward.
