Design Summary
Due to the stink that has surrounded both Adobe and Microsoft for their questionable business decisions regarding the use of AI tools, and questionable wording in their terms and conditions I have decided to take the opportunity to check out the world of free and open source software or “FOSS”. I started with downloading Linux distro Ubuntu Studio as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. Within this Linux distro there was a wide variety of apps to choose from when it came to choosing alternatives for the adobe programs. Below is the sharpen prompt I pulled for this project, thankfully since that is accessed online, the OS and programs I use didn’t matter. I chose to do sketches with my XP pen tablet like I have for other design challenges I have done to keep it as similar to my normal process as possible (I will explain why this matters more in the process section.
Sharpen Prompt
The Process
The process for this project was an interesting one to say the least. To start I had to make sure my tablet would work properly with Linux. Thankfully the XP pen tablet I have has Linux drivers available on their website. It was a little trickier to get it to play well with Linux, but that is due to my unfamiliarity with the operating system, I did get it working however and was finally able to get started on the sketching phase of the project. Usually when I’m at the sketching phase I just use Microsoft Whiteboard as it works well for what I need from it. Unfortunately that is not available on Linux, so I had to use an alternative. For this I decided to use a program called Krita which is also available on Mac and Windows. Krita is a FOSS painting application, so it was a great choice to use for hand writing notes with my pen tablet. The process of sketching and ideation were fairly straightforward, I wanted to write down some attributes for this gym in the UK and get going from there. I settled on the name Big Ben Gainz as the UK is heavy with tradition, but nothing is safe from word play. The sketches were all about drawing faster than I could think. The key to keep in mind here was to try and finish the whole design in under an hour. Something I have tried to do with all my design challenges, but something I really tried to hit here since it came attached to the prompt (that feature is new and I love it). Unfortunately it took me much longer than that as I was still learning the FOSS alternatives to the Adobe suite of products. Moving on from the sketches, I decided to use Inkscape as the FOSS alternative to Illustrator here.
Ideation
Sketches
Final
Keeping my green nature with these new programs in mind I gave myself a crash course in all things Inkscape and got to work creating the front and back designs for the Big Ben Gainz business card. Going with the strong bold letters to signify the strength that one can expect to achieve when they are a member of Big Ben Gainz was the first step to making this design come to life. Next was choosing a color scheme, gold was to signify the connection to royalty that the UK still carries with it to this day. As for the hands of the clock, that is an homage to the real Big Ben of course, a potential idea to push this further is having each staff member have a different position for their hands of the clock, as it is always time for fitness. As far as the designs go I was happy to finish what I needed in under an hour realtime, it took me much much longer than that to use GIMP to create the mockup for the business cards. Usually when using PhotoShop these mockup files are very plug and play when it comes to mocking up your own designs. Trying to get Gimp and Linux in general to play with mockup files I found for free online was tricky, but thankfully after fiddling around with Gimp itself and some google searches I was able to get a mockup put together that looked nice enough to share here. My conclusion I came away with after all this was that if there’s a will, there’s a way when it comes to using FOSS programs. And with the recent decisions coming from Adobe and Microsoft, I wouldn’t be surprised if going forward FOSS programs continue to get more support and widespread adoption. I was happy to take part in the experiment. I will continue to visit Linux and FOSS programs in the future.
