Greetings!! I am an aspiring graphics designer. I’ve been attending classes for the same. Once I am done with it I am planning to buy a copy of Illustrator CS4. But before I do that I just want to know whether it will be wise to invest in illustrator http://www.checkoutsoftware.com/adobe/adobe-illustrator-cs4-win_p4811 or should I go for Adobe CS4 design premium http://www.checkoutsoftware.com/adobe/adobe-creative-suite-cs4-design-premium-win_p4843 as it also includes illustrator and many other latest tools which are useful for a professional graphics designer. Guys please guide me.
I'd got for the Design Premium package - I did and I haven't regretted it for a moment. What I will do though, is post a few free alternatives to each of the programs, so you have some options. Personally, I bought Creative suite Design Premium and I still use these programs daily - they're free, why not. Illustrator: http://www.inkscape.org Photoshop: http://www.gimp.org inDesign: http://www.scribus.net Dreamweaver: look for Aptana, Eclipse, Notepad++ Flash: there is none, flash is the only good flash app And some others just for fun: Office: http://www.openoffice.org Web Browser: http://www.firefox.com 3d modeller: http://www.blender3d.org Sound Editor: http://audacity.sf.net Check out even more here: http://opensourcewindows.org
It would be nice to master the whole ADOBE Suite, then you can play around with it and you'll be shocked in what you can actually make out of these soft wares.