Graphics File Formats for Advertising in the Philippines

From 2005 to 2007, I used to do a lot of not-so-good graphics design for our company -- making logos, t-shirts, tarps, posters, sign boards, calling cards, ID cards, brochures and our company catalog.  I've used different open source software for most of those designs:  Inkscape, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Scribus, Blender.  Since then, I've more or less passed the torch to a more gifted graphics designer.  Nevertheless, the problems I've encountered from the start are still the problems after all this years.  Rampant software piracy. 

The graphics and publishing companies around town only know Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, and Photoshop.  Rampant piracy has made it so inexpensive to own these high-priced, proprietary software that they've become everywhere.  Schools and universities teach these software.  Churches have them.  And they expect students to communicate with them using the expensive file formats of these software.  Freelancing graphic artists have their PCs loaded with whole suites of Corel and Adobe software.  To have business with the small or big print shops who will not afford these professional software, you need to send them PSDs, CDRs and AI files.  When I forward my graphic files to these shops, usually in PDF, JPG or PNG formats, I thus only get suboptimal outputs.



I await the days when XCF, SVG, PDF are the norms.  That will come not when GIMP, Inkscape, OpenOffice.org and Linux have better color management.  I think we'll have to wait for the success of BSA, the RIAA of software, to eradicate software piracy.  Unfortunately, I don't think BSA is looking forward to too much success either.