« »

Design Software Usage Survey

Share

A few months ago I became curious about other designer’s design software usage. Reason being because of the debates I had been a part of at the time about upgrading or not upgrading to Adobe CS4. I’m one of those who decided to stay with CS3 because I didn’t see a worthy reason of paying the price to upgrade to CS4 when it really didn’t have many features that seemed worth it to me. Sure, I could get it by other means, but I don’t even think it is worth all that trouble.

Anyways, I wanted to know if I was part of the majority or the minority when it came to my thinking on design software usage. So I decided to ask my fellow designers on Twitter what design software they use. With some help from Sheri Strykowski (writer_sheri), Gerrel Saunders (gaksdesigns) and Dwyndal (Dwyndal) I gathered 79 responses on the matter. Below are the results:

  • Adobe CS4: 44
  • Adobe CS3: 26
  • Adobe CS2: 7
  • Other:
    • Adobe CS: 1
    • Corel 14: 1

As you can see Adobe CS4 was by far the most used proving that I am part of the minority and most are willing to pay the the money for the latest (or at least that is what we are going to go with). Personally, like I said earlier, I don’t see anything in CS4 that makes me go, “Wow! I have to update!” That being said, I will be upgrading to CS5 when the time comes, because already you can tell that it will be well worth it. Lets just hope that Adobe realizes that they need to lower the price of their software when CS5 does come out.

But, enough of what I think, below are some thoughts shared by others on Twitter:

 

Feel free to share your thoughts and what design software you use in the comments section. I look forward to reading them.

This entry was written by Mathew Ballard , posted on Wednesday January 13 2010at 11:01 pm , filed under art, design and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink . Post a comment below or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
  • dwyndal
    Great post my friend, was eager to read the numbers. I see that many are on CS4 and like you i felt it wasn't worth the move. I was actually surprised to see Quark off the list completely. Granted i never used it, but most jobs i see claim you must know it to work around here (well news papers, i always wanted to dabble in it) Thanks for the inclusion of our conversation, glad to have followed this with you.

    Cheers!
    ~Dwyndal
  • Thanks for doing this survey, Mathew. Good info. I invested in CS4 because I just started learning design so I saved up for the Adobe Web Premium Suite. I have a feeling a lot more designers out there use older versions - maybe they just didn't have a chance to participate in the survey. Just guessing ...
  • I am loving cs 4 right now I am able to edit my css without leaving the web file I am working on and preview it does a great job of rendering thing if something is wrong i can tell right in Dreamweaver
blog comments powered by Disqus
« »