Expression Design
My latest learning task, one of many, has been to get aquainted with the Microsoft Expression suite of tools - Design and Blend. I've tasked myself with a little project which I hope will introduce me to a taster. Nothing fancy, just some basic animation to start with. The first step for this was to create a map so I decided to bite the bullet and use Expression Design to build it. Learning a new tool is always a tad frustrating - you have enough general experience of design apps to get so far, but trying to discover how to produce an effect you could do in seconds in your preferred tool can seem to take a painful age!
To be honest, creating a basic map was pretty straightforward. Having experience with Microsoft products such as Publisher plus standard professional illustration software such as PhotoShop and Illustrator gets you through the majority of actions quite easily. Many of the terms and commands are similar. I did compromise on a few things and worked round these rather than perform the task in exactly the way I wanted, but I'm happy to say that watching a few tutorials (Lynda.com) soon revealed that everything I had wanted to create was indeed possible.
A few things niggled me - one was the colour pallet. I couldn't find a way of preserving a colour I had selected for future use. In Illustrator, for example, you can drag a new colour into the pallet but I couldn't see a way of doing in Expression Design. I'm sure it must be possible and hope it is stupid user error!!
Another thing I seem to have a problem with, and this is a problem I find in Illustrator too (probably because I'm more of a PhotoShop user) is the way accessing elements on the page versus layers works. In PhotoShop, you only move shapes on a selected layer. I guess this is straightforward because the application is for the manipulation of bitmap images. With vector tools, I find myself using the same method of working. However, I get unstuck if I happen to click on an object not committed to the layer I wish to access. The layer then switches to that containing the selected object. Before I know it, I've got bits of a path on a different layer, and I'm editing another layer and get in a bit of a mess. I imagine its a case of adapting working methods to the tool you are using/kind of image you are creating.
Overall, however, I was quite happy using it. It will probably be seen as a poor version of the mighty Illustrator and Photoshop, but as a 'supporting tool' for Blend has lots of nice features. The stroke brush tool offers scope for some interesting effects, some compound path actions seemed refreshingly simple so its worth investigating further. With XAML export plugins available for Illustrator, it will be interesting to see where it does fit in, but my first little play left me quite keen to try it out more rather than keep away so that's got to be a positive for it!
To be honest, creating a basic map was pretty straightforward. Having experience with Microsoft products such as Publisher plus standard professional illustration software such as PhotoShop and Illustrator gets you through the majority of actions quite easily. Many of the terms and commands are similar. I did compromise on a few things and worked round these rather than perform the task in exactly the way I wanted, but I'm happy to say that watching a few tutorials (Lynda.com) soon revealed that everything I had wanted to create was indeed possible.
A few things niggled me - one was the colour pallet. I couldn't find a way of preserving a colour I had selected for future use. In Illustrator, for example, you can drag a new colour into the pallet but I couldn't see a way of doing in Expression Design. I'm sure it must be possible and hope it is stupid user error!!
Another thing I seem to have a problem with, and this is a problem I find in Illustrator too (probably because I'm more of a PhotoShop user) is the way accessing elements on the page versus layers works. In PhotoShop, you only move shapes on a selected layer. I guess this is straightforward because the application is for the manipulation of bitmap images. With vector tools, I find myself using the same method of working. However, I get unstuck if I happen to click on an object not committed to the layer I wish to access. The layer then switches to that containing the selected object. Before I know it, I've got bits of a path on a different layer, and I'm editing another layer and get in a bit of a mess. I imagine its a case of adapting working methods to the tool you are using/kind of image you are creating.
Overall, however, I was quite happy using it. It will probably be seen as a poor version of the mighty Illustrator and Photoshop, but as a 'supporting tool' for Blend has lots of nice features. The stroke brush tool offers scope for some interesting effects, some compound path actions seemed refreshingly simple so its worth investigating further. With XAML export plugins available for Illustrator, it will be interesting to see where it does fit in, but my first little play left me quite keen to try it out more rather than keep away so that's got to be a positive for it!
posted by spannah at
4:43 PM
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