Unit35/P1andM1

P1 and M1

Computer

The new IMacs with computer and thin screen all in one are great giving you a nice large screen (19″ or 24″) without taking up to much space .At least 2GB memory, the more the better if you are using Photoshop a lot and any 3D packages.

Keyboard

In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style device, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Following the decline of punch cards and paper tape, interaction via teleprompter-style keyboards became the main input device for computers.

Digital camera

A camera that takes video or still photographs by recording images on an electronic image sensor. Most cameras sold today are digital, and digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from PDAs and mobile phones (called camera phones) to vehicles.

Image projector

 An optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen. Most projectors creates an image by shining a light through a small transparent image, but some newer types of projectors can project the image directly, by using lasers. A virtual retinal display, or retinal projector, is a projector that projects an image directly on the retina instead of using an external projection screen.

Mouse

In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons.

The mouse sometimes features other elements, such as "wheels", which allow the user to perform various system-dependent operations, or extra buttons or features that can add more control or dimensional input. The mouse's motion typically translates into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows for fine control of a graphical user interface.

Printer

An A3+ Inkjet printer is ideal for printing out any visuals required, possibly postscript colour management software – I proof (gave me loads of problems) or Print Fab, try out the demos of these before you buy them. Lots of people using an Epson Stylus R1800 but was having problems with colour casts and have now swapped to a Canon iX4000. You can also get round a non-postscript inkjet printer by creating a PDF first and then printing that, though the colours may need some tweaking.

Fonts and Font Management

Mac system software now comes with built in Font book for managing fonts or you could look at a third party font management system such as Suitcase

Several fonts will come with your Mac and software packages. More can be bought from many sources such as linotype and Faces. Free fonts are also available from many sites such as Dafont, though I wouldn’t generally use these for main body copy as they don’t always have a full character set or good kerning.

Software

Adobe Creative Suite can give you all the packages you would need for most design for print jobs – Photoshop for image manipulation, Illustrator for vector work, Logo design etc, InDesign for page layout, Acrobat for creating print ready PDFs.

Lots of people prefer Quark Xpress for page layout over InDesign but many designers are now swapping/have swapped over to InDesign. As a package Creative Suite works out far more cost effective than having to buy Quark Xpress plus Photoshop and Illustrator.

Also for pulling in supplied Word/Excel files into layouts does the Open Source (free) Office Suite Neooffice which is use regularly and saves have to pay for Microsoft Office.

If you are going to do some web design work the standard packages are Dreamweaver and Flash, which you could buy along with the other Adobe software in a bundle if you need them. If you intend hand coding there are lots of free text editors out there – Note Pad, Crimson Edit etc.

Scanner

most images these days are supplied digitally so a fairly basic scanner is usually fine. Mostly is use mine for scanning in sketches of logos etc. All in one black and white laser, copier, and scanner.

Backing Up

An external USB fire wire hard drive or some free online storage space if ideal for backing up your work.

Other things to consider

Virus/firewall software and Mac Maintenance software.

What about free open source design software?

There are some open source packages that you could use, though personally Them and don’t know of anyone who uses then professionally. If you are going to be working for other design agencies you really need to be using the professional packages so that you can pass documents between each other. If however you are going to be designing directly for clients and no-one else needs to be able to edit your files I guess Open Source Options would be possible to use as long as you could output them to print ready PDF.    

    A special method of distributing and installing software(or software upgrades) to a computer. For example, on a Macintosh computer, a package usually means "software." It's specifically a directory, presented as a single file, that contains all the information the Mac OS X Installer application needs to install your software. That includes the software itself, as well as files that are used only during the installation process. In a Windows environment it is sometimes called an installation package or update package