Artist and graphic designer

Hi all

Im am going to college next year and I would like graphic tablet and a laptop. I have a desktop but I want something that I can take to school and use it there. I don't want anything more than £650. So I was thinking of the wacom intuos pro medium but I don't know what laptop would be the best. The laptop then would have to be for like maximum of £400. Could push to like £450. I would use software like photoshop, illustrator and some other drawing software probably.

Do any of you have any suggestions?

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Reply 1

KLouSmart

I did graphic design and illustration at college last year, I use a Macbook Pro. MacBook/Apple Macs are generally standard for unis/colleges and professionals to use. If you don't want to get a Mac as they are expensive, get a laptop with a decent processor and really good memory. I'd also invest in an external hard drive to keep finished files. As for a graphics tablet, I just use a cheap one from Amazon as I tend to use my mouse a lot more than my pen and tablet, however, Wacom intous ctl-480 is the make that where I was, use. They are great, compact, very responsive, settings are great to customise it for your own needs. The bonus is it's approx £60-70. It's plug and play too and I can confirm it works with a Mac. It doesn't have the interactive screen sadly, for one with the interactive screen you will be anywhere from £300 plus, depending on the make and model. But for college you shouldn't need anything more than without the screen. I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, gimme a shout :smile:

Reply 2

Bolterixus

The wacom intuos pro medium is £250 and it seems like its pretty good. Do you have any laptops which u could recommend other than macs as they are not in my price range. Also are there like student discounts or something like that anywhere, maybe in apple?

Reply 3

KLouSmart

Original post by Bolterixus

I recommend you sign up for UniDays, it offers discounts for Apple, Asos, New Look and heaps more.
For a laptop I found a page with the top 6 best laptops for Graphic design/illustration stuff.
http://teradatariver.com/1054/best-laptops-for-graphic-design/

I meant to say about photoshop et all, I have the full Adobe CC and I highly recommend it. Adobe usually do student deals where you get X% off. I think I got mine for £160 for the full collection. There are other apps that I've heard are great for drawing and digital painting, but it would depend entirely on what you want to do. I use Illustrator a lot, but I find that it misses some of the options for brushes that Photoshope has in regards to using a tablet and pen. So I've been looking at ArtRage which fixes the problems I've had, but is a little pricey when I've already paid for Adobe. :smile:

Reply 4

Bolterixus

How does Unidays work then?

For all of the adobe programs for a student its £16 a month, for just photoshop its £9 a month. I havent seen an offer for like one time payment.

Reply 5

KLouSmart

Original post by Bolterixus

How does Unidays work then?

For all of the adobe programs for a student its £16 a month, for just photoshop its £9 a month. I havent seen an offer for like one time payment.

For unidays, you put in your student email address once you get it, then confirm that you attend that school etc, and they will send you information about deals and where unidays works. I haven't been on in a while, so I'm not sure what has changed.

As for Adobe on this link, there should be an option to change it from prepaid to anual :smile:

https://creative.adobe.com/plans?plan=edu&store_code=gb&promoid=KTRPG

Reply 6

Bolterixus

I see. Unidays then sounds pretty good. I could possibly afford a macbook pro then :wink:

It might be a better idea to buy a cheaper wacom indeed. Would u say that there is a huge difference between like the intuos pro and the intuos draw. I know there is like 1024 pressure sensivity difference. Would it affect me a lot?

Reply 7

KLouSmart

Original post by Bolterixus

I see. Unidays then sounds pretty good. I could possibly afford a macbook pro then :wink:

Unidays is worth signing up for!

As for the tablet, you won't need anything super expensive. Like I said I really like the one I mentioned as the settings are really great to customise. I haven't used the intuos draw, however with the settings in Photoshop and Illustrator, you can set up brushes with different pressures with the pen, so I doubt it would make too much of a difference. For other software, I'm really not too sure.
Macbooks are great for design, rubbish for gaming! :P

Reply 8

username612415

Original post by KLouSmart

For a laptop I found a page with the top 6 best laptops for Graphic design/illustration stuff.
http://teradatariver.com/1054/best-laptops-for-graphic-design/

Just for the benefit of the OP or anyone else who follows that link looking for advice, it's a crappy article.

Advice like "simply recollect that the most critical thing in a decent portable PC is RAM." is completely wrong and will lead to poor purchasing decisions, the "best in this field" graphics card they list is a desktop GPU that's a generation behind the curve and they list another high end desktop GPU as the recommendation to look for in a budget laptop, and they give virtually zero helpful information on processors such as distinguishing between the different generations, low clock and regular clock or the dual and quad core variants that modern Core series chips come in- simply saying "Get a Core i5" is not remotely helpful if someone ends up with a low power variant from three years ago.

The advice given in the specific laptops is pretty all over the place too- he tells people they'd regret buying a 13" laptop then recommend mostly 13" laptops, he talks about how graphic designers will prefer the MacBook Air over the Pro despite this being completely the opposite case (he also says these are the only models, forgetting that the MacBook was brought back last year), and he talks about the importance of screen resolution in one laptop despite the Air's res being piss-pour by modern standards for premium laptops and design-focussed laptops. I could probably keep picking but I'm just about to leave British waters and lose WiFi, and it feels a bit mean.

I would certainly not make a purchasing decision based on that guide.

Reply 9

KLouSmart

Thanks for correcting, I'm not great when it comes to hardware. I have a Pro and love it, as for the article I just googled it. I just figured it would be a starting point for a student going to college. I could completely understand paying a lot of money for a high spec laptop, however finding one without going overbudget could be difficult, not impossible though.
I agree not to use that specific article to buy one, but I posted it as a guide for what sort of laptops to look for. :smile:

e.g. makes, not models :smile:

Reply 10

Bolterixus

I had looked at apple and the only mac that I could afford is the macbook air 13inch at a push. What do u think of like Dell inspiron. Also about the Asus zenbooks like UX300 series or the K501?

Reply 11

KLouSmart

Original post by Bolterixus

I had looked at apple and the only mac that I could afford is the macbook air 13inch at a push. What do u think of like Dell inspiron. Also about the Asus zenbooks like UX300 series or the K501?

I personally don't like Dell, and I'm not too sure about Asus. I've had this Mac for near three years, I got it second hand from my cousin, it's the first Mac I've used, but honestly it's the best thing I've done. Mine is the 2013 Pro 13" and it runs really well. Asus and HP are good brands of laptops, I wouldn't ask the likes of PC World as they will have quotas they have to meet, or I'd imagine they would have quotas to meet, I could be wrong. The best bet would be to start a second thread maybe under technology or computers and see what people say about laptop brands for PC's.
If I was looking at a PC I would look at the processor, memory, storage and battery life. Those are the basics of what to look for. :smile:

Reply 12

Bolterixus

I have been looking through the difference intuos and just wondering if the intuos art medium would be fine to use with a 27" screen? Also would the small intuos pro work well with it? Or would it now work too well.

Reply 13

KLouSmart

Original post by Bolterixus

I have used the small £60 tablet attached to a 27" monitor and it's fine. It takes time to get used to using a small tablet to conrtol what is happening on a large screen, but once you get the hang of it, you'll love it. Just looking at the art medium, it shouldn't be much different to the smaller one, except you have a larger work area to draw, which may be beneficial for detailing if you are doing realistic drawings or detailed animations etc.

Reply 14

Bolterixus

As on some websites it says that you should get like intuos pro when you have a screen which is 27" or larger, but I just dont have that budget. What do you think would be better to get the, intuos art medium or intuos pro small?

Reply 15

KLouSmart

Original post by Bolterixus

Can I ask what course it is you are doing, Graphic Design? I'd be basing my guess off the amount of artistic classes you have, for example, I did Interactive media, so only had 2 classes that required the tablet, and we only needed them 7 weeks after term started. If your course would be similar in content, I would recommend the smaller one. Easy to carry with your laptop and not too pricey.
If you have a lot of content then I would probably get the medium one so you have a decent draw space for your creations. Some will argue that it doesn't matter, but I think it does, but that is a personal opinion.
The tablet I have (the cheap one from Amazon) is about A4 size, it's lightweight and responsive, but has a good wee feature where I can slide a sketch underneath the interactive pen space if I'm drawing freehand or don't have access to a scanner, which I really like. After using two of different sizes and makes, I haven't notice much of a difference in the quality of my work, but I'm not a professional, just a student lol.
If it helps two of the guys that are in my class bought their own small tablets after using the college ones, one does film/animation and the other uses illustrator/photoshop.

Reply 16

Bolterixus

I heard that the screen that you use affects it so I was wondering how much it affects it. Well I would use it for the product design course. But I mainly want to buy it for my own use. As I want to practice as I will have to use such device if I want to become an architect in the future.

Reply 17

KLouSmart

Original post by Bolterixus

I have to say I've never noticed a difference, maybe it's my eyesight haha.
If I were you, I'd go for the slightly bigger one, if you want to do architecture in the future, a small tablet is great for graphic design but if you want to be an architect I'd say the bigger one will benefit you more.

Reply 18

Bolterixus

So intuos Art medium would be the choice for me? Rather than the intuos pro small.

Reply 19

KLouSmart

Original post by Bolterixus

So intuos Art medium would be the choice for me? Rather than the intuos pro small.

I would say so for what you want to do with it.
Like I said way back at the beginning of this thread, I wouldn't get anything super expensive. £130 on Amazon isn't too bad, as far as tablets go, that's quite cheap. Considering some can go over the £1000 mark.