I’ve had clip art on my mind a lot lately. There have even been a few others posting questions wondering if anyone uses the clip art Corel supplies. I’m sure the usage of clip art is something that is quite different for each user. For the sake of the question I’m asking, let’s assume that you do use clip art. What I am trying to understand is what makes a clip art package most valuable to you. After reading through some of the attributes I list below, post a comment and let me know what is important to you.
There is no doubt that price plays a part in any equation. Obviously a lower price is a good thing for users. The question here is whether you weigh the value of the art supplied against the price charged.
Last week I talked about excess nodes in clip art. Do you find artwork with a reasonable number of nodes to be higher quality and thus more valuable? If two collections were identical in the artwork other than node count, would you pay more for the optimized collection?
Do you expect the colors in clip art to be perfect or do you want something where you can easily change the colors? Should it be in RGB, CMYK or spot colors? If you had CDR files that used color styles and other CorelDRAW-specific features to make color changes easier, would you pay more for it?
I’m sure the exact images included are important, but are there other aspects of clip art that make a collection more valuable to you? Let me know your thoughts as I’m really curious to find out what art you want!
Hi Foster,
I love clipart, but frankly I seldom use the collections I have because it is so easy to find little-used artwork on Microsoft’s free clipart site (a hidden treasure).
I would love to use a service such as iStockPhoto, but it is too expensive for my amatuer needs.
What I would love to see is a searchable clipart download service that didn’t charge a lot for one item. I doubt I would buy another clipart collection because they always seem to lack the exact image I’m looking for.
Because I don’t do professional work, the finer points, such as node complexity, is secondary. However, replaceable colors and Corel-specific features would make it more likely that I would buy a single clipart file.
–Pepperink (Calif Central Coast)
Foster,
I upgraded to Xara Web Designer 7 Premium the day before your review was sent out. It is incredible!
I now can design a layout without worrying about tables and “containers” and all that rot (which I never really understood anyway).
You can see the difference at my website, http://www.Foxenwood.com. The Home Page is Xara, the other pages are Dreamweaver CS4.
I paid a lot of money for Dreamweaver and not a lot of money for Xara Web Designer. Version 7 is exactly what I was waiting for.
Now for the first time I look forward to working on my website!
Good work, Foster!
–Pepper (Calif. Central Coast)