How to convince someone to use REAL publishing software, like InDesign or QuarkXPress

[iPhoneJB]

Hello,
I need to convince someone to use REAL publishing software like InDesign of QuarkXPress. Right now, we are using this: http://www.ecomsystems.com/Products.aspx

It is absolutely TERRIBLE! It makes our business like it looks the same person designs everything for our entire industry. Also, you have to have Silverlight to view the publication on the internet, due to a contract, which ends up causing 80% of our visitors to our website not being able to view the publication. In our industry, everyone uses this "eComSystems AdStudio" Flash application. Imagine that, using Flash to design publications! We need to switch to real publishing software ASAP. They brainwashed everyone at my company into thinking it is they best and only application you can use. They also make you pay ridiculous rates per year make you get into long contracts. This eComSystems company wants you to think you basically need a PhD to design with InDesign or QuarkXPress. Personally, I know pretty well how to use InDesign, and I know how well our company will benefit from switching to a real publishing application.

I need all of the help I can get, so if you have any suggestions, please post below.

 

[RainForRent]

People like that are hard to argue with. "But the interwebz TOLD ME that it's hard to use InDesign!". Nevermind the fact that they can easily get an employee (you or a new hire) to use that software to create professional work. This is the same argument that is received about that neighbor kid who has a pirated copy of Photoshop. That doesn't make him a designer. Explain to them as best you can that professionals use professional tools. If they don't respond to that, you may need to consider new employment with someone who appreciates what your skillset can do for them.

 

[MisterMe]

...

It is absolutely TERRIBLE! It makes our business like it looks the same person designs everything for our entire industry. ...

What do you know that everyone else in your entire industry does not know? Implicit in your argument is a contradiction. If everyone uses this software that you hate so much, then everyone who matters already has SilverLight installed so that they can view it. How then is SilverLight an issue?

Look. It is easy to sympathize with you. It is also easy to criticize your supervisors. However, few of us work in your industry. That means that few of us have a clue why your industry does the things it does the way that it does them.

Clearly this is an issue that is larger than your employer. How integrated is its workflow with those of its suppliers, competitors, partners, and customers? What are the costs associated with changing? What are the benefits?

 

[ezekielrage_99]

Cost Benefit Analysis and SWOT Diagram will always work, if management can see the benefits outweighing the cost and with added productivity they will buy whatever you want unless they have an IQ below room temperature.

 

[chaosbunny]

... unless they have an IQ below room temperature.

Sadly, that can be said about more managers than one would believe.

 

[opeter]

Sadly, that can be said about more managers than one would believe.

Not, if you show them "the right numbers".

Some of them only understands cost numbers. If that's all you need, I would think twice and make a calculation for them. Your time is wort X dollars, with software A, you need that much of you time to make the job done, with software B, you'll do the same thing X time faster ...

 

[ezekielrage_99]

Not, if you show them "the right numbers".

Some of them only understands cost numbers. If that's all you need, I would think twice and make a calculation for them. Your time is wort X dollars, with software A, you need that much of you time to make the job done, with software B, you'll do the same thing X time faster ...

I always go by the law of 3. For every $1 invested to gain $3 back, it covers development and gives room for expansion.

Trust me when I say the first time you do this it will be hard but once the company sees the development and results they will give you what you need in the future (well if they are switched on).

 

[efxgraphx]

Cost Benefit Analysis and SWOT Diagram will always work, if management can see the benefits outweighing the cost and with added productivity they will buy whatever you want unless they have an IQ below room temperature.

I could not agree more... it MUST be a cost thing or they get stuck and cant do what they want with their current program(s) of choice. When it finally bites them in the #$% you will see change.

This happened to me on upgrades all the time until something cost my previous employer big money then he allowed upgrades at will for the graphics dept.

Wish there was an easier way.... we could spam the owner for you? lol....... OR you could do something that you can ONLY do in Indesign and present it to him/her.....

 

[iPhoneJB]

Wow, thanks for all of your help. Here's my plan. Buy Adobe InDesign out of my own pocket (I will use it for personal use too) (I have Indesign CS, but it does not work too well, I can buy the upgrade to CS4), show them how much BETTER (like 4000% better) it can design publications. They will then realize how bad their current publications are and they will have no choice but to use InDesign. It will end up paying in itself by attracting more customers, because most of our visitors to our website are from large companies who do not have Silverlight installed on their computers to view our publications.

 

[notjustjay]

OK, never mind then.

 

[LeviG]

What do you know that everyone else in your entire industry does not know? Implicit in your argument is a contradiction. If everyone uses this software that you hate so much, then everyone who matters already has SilverLight installed so that they can view it. How then is SilverLight an issue?

Look. It is easy to sympathize with you. It is also easy to criticize your supervisors. However, few of us work in your industry. That means that few of us have a clue why your industry does the things it does the way that it does them.

Clearly this is an issue that is larger than your employer. How integrated is its workflow with those of its suppliers, competitors, partners, and customers? What are the costs associated with changing? What are the benefits?

Got to agree with this view. Theres usually a reason why a large company is using a 'specialist' type software over quark/indesign etc.

I suspect the reason for the use of the software is that it can integrate with the software behind the scenes which deals with prices/stocks etc, something that indesign/quark can't do (atleast as far as I know).

 

[ezekielrage_99]

Got to agree with this view. Theres usually a reason why a large company is using a 'specialist' type software over quark/indesign etc.

I suspect the reason for the use of the software is that it can integrate with the software behind the scenes which deals with prices/stocks etc, something that indesign/quark can't do (atleast as far as I know).

Although I agree with the point there's more than one way to skin a cat. I've been dealing with broadcast weather systems for the last few years although they do one thing well they generally don't support generally standard codecs well, it's a mix of the limitation of the systems vs. the manufacturer. For instance I have one system that will only support CMYK TIFF for broadcast.

If you can prove there's a better more cost effective way to do things industry and companies wont change, they are autistic from that sense.

I have overhauled several systems which has in term made the systems a little more broadcast friendly and because of this we have increased productivity 10 fold and created some wonderful new products in the process

Until you can prove without a doubt there's better and cheaper ways and more to the point your way is better people wont change. I would also recommend trying to find out the real reason why your industry is doing things the way they are doing it, it might be trivial or it might be a deal breaker.

 

[opeter]

At least they've got... something.

I volunteer with a charity (a summer camp) where home-grown stuff is the norm. We have literally ZERO budget to hire out to a graphic design firm, so we often have to do it ourselves. That's not a problem in itself -- lots of people have access to Photoshop, I love using Pages and Keynote.

Ah, so the pirated version? Or do you mean, they buy the Photoshop Elements. Some of them do, that's right, but most of them don't buy any licenses at all.

Come on, Photoshop would not have so much marketshare, if the people wouldn't piraticize it... I simply don't understand this type of thinking. I don't have the money for a let's say BMW, will i steal it?

It's the fact that just having access to good software means squat if you don't have an eye for aesthetics. And for some reason nobody does. You know, the "I used Comic Sans because it looks so cool!" guys. When we're competing against much bigger fish like YMCA and Scout camps. The ones who DO have budgets for design.

Even more fun are the guys who don't even use pro or semi-pro tools, but think they can get by with GIMP and such. (Not that a good designer can't. But not having an eye for it AND not having the tools to do it just makes the handicap that much more severe.)

Off course they can... Before 10-15 years ago, many people did fantastic designs even without a computer in my region. Don't underestimate handmade work.

And the second thing is: GIMP is much more powerfull than Photoshop 5 was... (OK, CMYK module is not 100% ready yet, also Duotone is missing but that's not the point) so, think of it, like you have very powerfull tools at you hand with a combination of cheap PC + a Linux distro or even Windows with installed GIMP / Scribus combo.

The software is just a tool. Nothing more. If you don't have an eye (as you already wrote) for design, no hi-tech software will save you.

iPhoneJB, I'm using a similar approach. When people design things I ask them to pass them my way for a once-over. I usually try my hand in Photoshop or Pages and do a "I made some changes to clean it up a bit, what do you think?" and usually (hopefully) my version looks FAR cleaner. The downside is that soon you are given all of the work since you do such a good job at it...

Not that I'm ragging on our volunteers (lest they find this post!) Everyone's great at some things, and not so great at others. The problem with working in a volunteer organization is that the "best person for the job" might still be far off from ideal, simply because of lack of resources.

I simply can't agree with that. You have to improvise. That's the way of life. You don't have so much resources as the "other guy"?

Try to use the tools/things, whatever you have and try to put the max. out of them.

 

[LeviG]

Although I agree with the point there's more than one way to skin a cat. I've been dealing with broadcast weather systems for the last few years although they do one thing well they generally don't support generally standard codecs well, it's a mix of the limitation of the systems vs. the manufacturer. For instance I have one system that will only support CMYK TIFF for broadcast.

If you can prove there's a better more cost effective way to do things industry and companies wont change, they are autistic from that sense.

I have overhauled several systems which has in term made the systems a little more broadcast friendly and because of this we have increased productivity 10 fold and created some wonderful new products in the process

Until you can prove without a doubt there's better and cheaper ways and more to the point your way is better people wont change. I would also recommend trying to find out the real reason why your industry is doing things the way they are doing it, it might be trivial or it might be a deal breaker.

I wasn't saying that it was the best option for design and that there aren't any other options available or even that it isn't worth a try but I still feel theres a reason why they're using it still.

Now admittedly we don't know too much about the company (I'm thinking bigger department store) involved but it might not be cost effective to change software if only one person can use indesign/quark and all other staff members who do this work have to be retrained or replaced. Maybe the reason that this software is used is due to the investment in training that's already been done and all the current staff can use it easily.

Another consideration is the cost/subscription - if its already paid up (or allocated/signed up for) until the end of next financial year (or longer) then it would be a wasted expense to buy new software.

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

Wow, thanks for all of your help. Here's my plan. Buy Adobe InDesign out of my own pocket (I will use it for personal use too) (I have Indesign CS, but it does not work too well, I can buy the upgrade to CS4), show them how much BETTER (like 4000% better) it can design publications. They will then realize how bad their current publications are and they will have no choice but to use InDesign. It will end up paying in itself by attracting more customers, because most of our visitors to our website are from large companies who do not have Silverlight installed on their computers to view our publications.

I'm not sure why you would want to spend your own money to "convince" your bosses that InDesign is better. That seems like a pretty expensive gamble since the product you are pitching against seems to be the standard for your industry.

If you are dead set on proving to them that ID better suits your needs, why not download a trial version to your work computer and show them. That way you don't have to spend any money, so you aren't likely to be as bitter if/when they turn you down.

 

[notjustjay]

Ah, so the pirated version? Or do you mean, they buy the Photoshop Elements. Some of them do, that's right, but most of them don't buy any licenses at all.

I wasn't advocating piracy! But you're right, lots of people do pirate it. I don't -- I bought Elements.

I guess what I'm saying is that professional quality tools are that much more accessible to everyone now. Whether you actually buy it, or steal it, the fact is that you and I have access to the same tools. That does two things: For someone with a reasonable amount of skill and an eye for design, it enables them to put together very good looking work that years ago was either impossible or cost prohibitive.

But someone with no experience and no eye for design can also pick up the same tool and get a false impression of "hey, look at me, I'm a professional designer now!"

THAT's my issue.

Forget the rest.

 

[MisterMe]

... I don't know if you saw it, but it was jaw-dropping bad artwork done with GIMP. ...

Sit down because I have news for you. If the person who created that jaw-dropping bad artwork has use Photoshop instead of the GIMP, the artwork would have still been jaw-dropping bad.

Tools are not substitutes for talent. However, talent is not necessary to do a "good enough" job. One of the things that you will learn when you grow up is that the world is filled with people who do "good enough" jobs. If you don't like it, then grit your teeth, avert your eyes, and move on. Do your own job to the best of your ability. Help others when they ask your for it. Offer help if you see that it is needed. If your offer is declined, then move on. There are only 24 hours in a day.

 

[notjustjay]

If you don't like it, then grit your teeth, avert your eyes, and move on. Do your own job to the best of your ability. Help others when they ask your for it. Offer help if you see that it is needed. If your offer is declined, then move on.

Agreed. I do all that. But I don't have to like it.

Anyway, forget it. I'm taking the thread off topic, and apparently fighting a losing battle, because I want our little company to "be all we can be" and I strongly feel that we're not getting there this way. This thread is titled "how to convince someone to use real publishing software" but that's not really my issue.

 

[uueuueuue]

EXACTLY.

I am not advocating giving better tools to bad people to get better work. I am advocating giving the jobs to good people with good tools.



If not talent, then training. Ideally both. "None of the above" results in disaster.



Cute.



"Good enough" is a subjective term. Maybe you're right, maybe my standards are too high. But I set my standards based on what I see when I look around me. If everyone else including our competitors are doing a "great" job, then I don't like that we're only getting someone's idea of "good enough".

Look at websites that poke fun at oblivious mediocrity, like Cake Wrecks, or Your Logo Makes Me Barf. Are you saying you'd be happy with those results? Then why should I be?

Let's make it more personal. You and I are starting a catering business together. Tomorrow's the grand opening. Here's the logo I came up with, and a cake I baked for our display window. Hey, I did my very very best, and I think it looks great. Ready for me to take on more design projects? Or maybe we should think about hiring someone else?



Agreed. I do all that. But I don't have to like it.

Anyway, forget it. I'm taking the thread off topic, and apparently fighting a losing battle, because I want our little company to "be all we can be" and I strongly feel that we're not getting there this way. This thread is titled "how to convince someone to use real publishing software" but that's not really my issue.

You are being pedantic. But thank you for finally admitting that "iTouch" is a nickname and not an official product name, which is exactly what I've been saying for a while now. You can call your iPod touch whatever the heck you want, but the official name is still iPod touch.

I used to drive a Chevy. Everyone knows what a Chevy is, it is a generally accepted nickname, but all the official GMC literature refers to Chevrolet, because that is what it is officially called. That goes with the same this with the Nintendo DS(DS; DEE ES), and the PlayStation Portable(PSP; PEE ES PEE), and I(notjustjay) will also Enclosed is a wonderful picture of me in the present and the future.