Someone I know is proficient with illustrator, but is hard up and only has a Samsung tablet, an old iPad or a knackered 2009 Macbook pro which needs a battery and hard drive apparently.

She reckons she has ‘customers’ who’d like little bits of design work like logos etc as on-the-side projects for a little cash, but it’s catch 22 cos she can’t afford to fix or replace the computer. How good is tablet based design software?

I know it’s a bit of a vague question so humour me. Trying to help out.

No idea about Android tablets. Maybe a goer if you can plug a mouse in, would be an exercise in frustration just using touch controls though.

Old iPad I would say no, v limited what you can do with just touch control. Newer (Pro) ones where you can use the Pencil are a lot better, there’s actually some very decent software now (including Adobe)

MBP should be fixable v cheaply though. I have a 2008 which still gets used every day. Just run it off the mains cable instead of battery & stick a new HDD in for her, they are cheap enough

Illustrator Draw is free for iPad; Procreate is relatively cheap, even moreso is Autodesk. Also look at iFontMaker. Illustrator CS6 (will work fine on an 09 Pro) can be had for nothing for the MacBook if she knows somebody who might know somebody. You might know somebody? Don’t think I’d like a tablet to be my only tool, but i could definitely get by for a bit.

Apparently the issue is choosing image sizes, DPI, colour profiles and file formats…

Was just about to mention that I would like to see what type of file formats it could export firstly before I would even look at in app functionality, can it do cmyk/rgb(there are others), pdf, eps, jpeg, tiff, psd, gif, png, ai, indd etc etc. Does it have transparency support, can it do spot colours and vectors etc etc etc etc.

I’ve never used any art packages on a tablet, tbh I’d imagine they’d be less than functional. I’d be highly skeptical, but I’ve no real experience with tablets.

You could easily get away with a PC and, ahem, some hooky Adobe software. I hear cs6 is what you are after. 😆 not sure if the latest versions of cc have been cracked.

Mind you she could just subscribe like a normal designer! 😆

get away with a PC

whisper that and stand back mind you, expect a lot of resistance! 😆

Define ‘graphic design’
A poster for the local rugby club dinner run out on a home printer? Of supplying artwork with a big print run on specified stock etc?
Only one of those is doable on a tablet.

With money being tight, I’d plump for the macbook and buy a hardrive btw(unless you have a decent pc you can give her a loan of), they don’t cost much(SSD if she can stretch) and she doesn’t really need a massive one, stick CS4/5 on it possibly, not sure how processor/ram/graphics card hungry the later versions get on older machines. Might not even need to buy a battery if it’s plugged in all the time (Not sure about that on macbooks), would be a bugger if accidentally unplugged though. She’ll want to hook it up to a larger monitor most likely though(actually screen size would completely rule out tablets for me now I think about, without even looking at functionality), and a decent keyboard and mouse..

A poster for the local rugby club dinner run out on a home printer? Of supplying artwork with a big print run on specified stock etc?

Probably more the former but she said that choosing DPI and colour space was a problem so I think it’s intended for print purposes.

I suggested she fix the Mac too for £50 for a new ssd but she claims a mac ‘tech’ friend has told her it’s not worth it. No idea why. I’d be able to do more but she’s not in this country.

Tonnes of very cheap ex NHS and business PC’s available on Ebay.
I was in a warehouse full of the stuff earlier. Picked up £3k’s worth of digitising tablet for £35..
Also recently got a 43″ monitor for £25..

it’s not worth it. No idea why.

It’s worth it for 50 quid if she is willing to pair old hardware with old software. Pairing old hardware with new software is what isn’t worth it. It’s probably not that old that things like browsers will start to give problems, might be mind you, that’ll be dependent of which flavour of os x you put on it, investigate that, probably won’t be the latest version you can put on it anyway. But I guess you could just run some sort of windows os (7) and browser in Parallels (macs VM software) if that becomes a real issue. Is old hardware/software going to be blazing fast, no. Will it be functional, yes.

Sketch ideas and convert those ideas to something digital doesn’t require the latest computer or software, just the belief that they are good. After all, did no-one have ideas before the advent of computers? I hate the assumption that you need a machine to do a creative task.

The MacBook will work fine when on mains even with a dud battery (I have one here!). USB hard disks are very cheap. Non-apple Solid state drives are not too expensive and make a huge difference to performance – you need to know your way around old MacBooks to spec it right though.

a mac ‘tech’ friend has told her it’s not worth it. No idea why

ah, because 90% of mac tech people want the latest greatest, and it’s not his money so rather than get something working to get the cash flow going he’s saying what he would do…

johndoh – Member
Sketch ideas and convert those ideas to something digital doesn’t require the latest computer or software, just the belief that they are good. After all, did no-one have ideas before the advent of computers? I hate the assumption that you need a machine to do a creative task.

It’s not really just about being creative though, she’ll be expected to supply certain types of file and the like. Depends on who is the customer mind you, some people would be happy with a hi res jpeg, others won’t.

hate the assumption that you need a machine to do a creative task.

You can design with a pencil and a piece of paper, not much good for setting type though.

TheDTs – Member

Tonnes of very cheap ex NHS and business PC’s available on Ebay.
I was in a warehouse full of the stuff earlier. Picked up £3k’s worth of digitising tablet for £35..
Also recently got a 43″ monitor for £25..

Where was that, is it open to the public?