We’re back! I had built myself a little bit of a buffer by writing Wednesday’s strip in advance, but then I saved over it while I was prepping this one for launch. So, if everyone would rather see more adobee, I can certainly keep it alive.
The game being run is specifically detailed here, and it was run like fast break. As much as I want to hold Adobe up as the bastion of great software design, there are far too many troubles and inconsistencies in it’s “suite” of software to do so. It’s little things, as it so often is, that are cause for concern. The way a window resizes when you zoom, the default direction of rotating objects. What “transparency” is called, or how to make a dotted line in different programs. I swear you need a Ph.D. in Illustrator to suss out how to make a dotted line if you were never explicitly taught how, and in InDesign you select from a drop-down menu that is always there.
These little inconsistencies between their programs, programs designed to be a family, are so minor that I can deduce not one reason besides apathy and/or hubris that they haven’t streamlined the whole package. Illustrator is, of course, the worst offender, and Flash, still holding onto a lot from it’s days as a Macromedia application, is a close second.
It’s like they just need to put all these teams together in a room, or something. Have an office lunch to say “You know, Illustrator, when you resize a window or turn on your rulers, the page should re-size and re-center, the way it does in InDesign, Photoshop, and everything else.” Until then I will always think of Illustrator as the dickhead jock of the group.
Nate Voss: 
Honey Bee Invites: 
Neenah Paper: 
36 Point: 
Jeff Fisher: 
Nate Voss is a designer, illustrator, talkshow host and design journalist. Working in Omaha since 2001, Nate served four years on the Board of Directors for 
Donovan oversees all creative development at
I cannot stand the little differences! You’re right, Illustrator likes to make its own rules. For example, why when you go to Preferences, does Illustrator refer to “User Interface” and put it almost last on the list, where the other apps call it “interface” and it’s usually second or third down. That’s mad minute.
Also, we need scrubby sliders in other applications besides Photoshop! And how about a unified Print dialogue box!!! Don’t even get me started on printing — for example, in Acrobat you can’t even get to Page Setup from the Print dialogue box, you have to close that window entirely and select a new menu option. So annoying!!
“I will always think of Illustrator as the dickhead jock of the group.”
Myself, I consider Illustrator to be the Jeff Gillooly of design software. You know, Tonya Harding’s BFF who took out the kneecaps of her biggest competition, Nancy Kerrigan (Freehand) even though they were theoretically on the same side (USA).
Anyway, whenever Illustrator acts unpredictable, I yell out, “GILLOOLY!”. I call it the Gillooly Patch. While it doesn’t actually fix anything, it does make me laugh… which at least keeps me from staying mad.