[Macworld]

Post your comments for Turn to Path Styler Pro for logos, title graphics here

[Grapho]

This looks interesting.

[Adammiller]

Interesting, but none of these pre-made effects shown should ever be used to design a logo for any with a target market over 10 years old. A general rule of thumb is to design your logo with one or two colors because any good logo should be a good logo in grey scale as well as in color. Logos shouldn't have textures, especially textures that could be matched by anyone owning this program. Your client might not be too happy when they find out how much their multiple color print jobs are going to cost them each and every time they run out of business cards. As a design tool for print and web... maybe but still you should keep in mind that good design comes from training and experience... not a plug.

[JeffM]

{quote}Your client might not be too happy when they find out how much their multiple color print jobs are going to cost them each and every time they run out of business cards.{quote}
Good design/bad design off to the side for the moment, the cost of decent (Decent to good to a trained eye, good to great to a layman's eye; assuming the file isn't drek. Garbage in, garbage out lives on.) full color reproduction isn't the speedbump it used to be. A slew of places, from local quick printers to online places like VistaPrint, are offering decent quality full color output of one type or another at pricing that rivals what one or two color printing used to go for.

And everybody's doing it too. Where I work we have clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies pumping material out like there's no tomorrow. For better or worse, from a design perspective, the tariff for full color printing has made it available to a lot more people these days.

[Adammiller]

Really? So you work for a company who does work for both startups and fortune 500 companys. Most likely not. Last time I checked, most fortune five hundreds dont get their buisness cards and stationary from online quick prints. Its obvious that there is a huge quality difference between a high quality print job and a quantitly over quality online deal. Ever hear on a color scheme? But if you are the kind of designer who would send their cleints to a online printer, then maybe the diamond plated, camo, and crocadile skin textures are right up your ally. That's fine too. There always has to be someone who wants to do it quick and cheap because there will always be a client who is looking for something along those lines.

[James_Dempsey]

I think it's important to note that while the headline states logos and titles, the plugin can obviously be used for much more than that.
Download the demo and give it a try. I think you'll be surprised at how much you can do with it.

[JeffM]

{quote}Really? So you work for a company who does work for both startups and fortune 500 companys. Most likely not. Last time I checked, most fortune five hundreds dont get their buisness cards and stationary from online quick prints.{quote}
Going off halfcocked and implying that I'm lying isn't going to make the changes that are being seen in the printing industry go away. If you read my post again, you'll see that I never said that I work for an online printer. I do, however work for a very large quick printer in a major city, and yes, our clients do include everything from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

We do tons of collateral ranging from stationery to investor reports to sales materials. Heard of a color scheme? Of course. We even get pages from corporate design bibles; accompanied half the time with requests to break at least one of the included guidelines. You warn them of what they're doing; sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't. You move on.

A lot of the work is still offset, but the percentage that's done through some version of digital output is growing everyday and is already starting to nudge the fifty percent threshold. Some of it I wouldn't line a litterbox with, but a lot of freelance and in-house corporate designers are learning to work with the limitations and produce a decent result.

Years ago the creation side of things was revolutionized when the tools to create became more affordable. Now the output side of things is starting to go through a similar change; more options available to more people for less. Presses aren't going to disappear from the shop floor anytime soon, but they do have competition now that just wasn't there before.

[Adammiller]

I didn't say that you worked for online printer. You said that you worked for a company who does work for both fortune 500 and startups. If you work for a printer, then say you work for a printer because of corse a printer is going to do work all over the spectrum but a design agency isn't. Most startups are only willing to pay 1/4 the price for design work compared to a fortune 500 so it would be tuff to find a agency who does work for both. There is a big difference between a piece printed digitally and a piece that just came off the press. No matter what you say and no matter how well a designer knows digital limitations, there is a difference. Leave printing aside and read my first post again. I was talking about design and specifically good design vs the examples shown. When I used the example stating that your clients might not be happy when they learn the price of their full color print job, I was assuming that anyone interested in this article was interested in getting work professionally printed. Despite who you work for and what techniques they use, if the designer and printer both did their job and produced a piece the way they should, the consumer will pick up the work and know that its quality. The client may have paid for it but it will be worth it when they hear about how so and so liked the way their card feels or they liked the way its designed and it will be even more worth it for the printer and designer when the same person wants their stuff designed and printed because you can be sure that they coming to you as well. You right about the fact that presses will be around for a while. Mainly because like I said before, their will always be people who know the result of good design who are willing to pay a little more upfront and their will always be people who don't have the budget to go to press.

[Grapho]

We also have a digital press. The work we produce is short runs, full color and yes, we do work for startups and fortune 500 companies. The printing panorama is rapidly changing.

Print on demand, variable data printing, printing in exotic substrates, you name it, it's now possible. Offset is only feasible with large runs, but with new workflow in place, the old print and distribute is no longer as cost effective as the new distribute and print. In other words, it used to be better to have a large run printed then shipped to all it's final destinations, where they were locally distributed. Now you distribute the material digitally to all the local markets where the job is locally produced and distributed.

So I will side with you on this argument. Not everything that is considered good design has to be printed in a 40" press.

[rscillia]

Enough already with the printing cost issue!!!
One of its "features" is that "Path Styler Pro also preserves spot colors and creates beautiful images shaded with a single spot color and black in Illustrator CS3."
So... equally good for 2-color OR process color printing.
Get over yourselves!!

[Graphos]

Have you used this feature?

I am curious because I could not set up a spot color file with the Illustrator plugin. I am sure it can be done, but the feature is less then intuitive.

I have been able to create some pretty fancy spot color separations in Photoshop using the Channel mixer feature, but it is still pretty cumbersome. If this is possible through Path Styler Pro, I am with you 100%

Are you limited to one spot color and black?

[Adammiller]

Illustrator can do that without a $100 plug in. Learn the tools you have before you buy more.

[rscillia]

http://Illustrator c...e you buy more.

yup!

[Grapho]

This plugin does not add new capabilities, it simply streamlines them, saving you time. So you pay 100 to save time. Just like you pay money to use a Houston toll road to save time. I see value in saving time.