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Microsoft is not a design company. Indeed, you only need to look at Excel?s spreadsheet legacy to know that color and Microsoft do not always match. This is all now changing. The Web has a focus on design and Microsoft has gathered the sense to realize that it too needs to have a focus on design. The Expression suite of tools is a shining example of Microsoft?s new commitment to design. Indeed, Microsoft exposes the heart of designer with their illustration tool called Expression Design.
Illustration with Expression Design
As you would expect, Expression Design is full of the many tools and features that are present in competing products such as Adobe?s Illustrator or Fireworks. You have the standard illustration tools, the layout tools; and the color palettes and shape tools you would find in competing products. One of the distinct features you will notice when you start Design is the chic black design interface. The contrast of black on color instead of the traditional white on color background appears to make the colors jump out more effectively.
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| Figure 1: The Expression Design black design surface makes colors "pop" off the screen |
A feature that is missing in this current release is the ability to support plug-ins. Many of the major design tools support Adobe?s plug-ins for Photoshop and Illustrator and it is disappointing to see that this feature is missing. For many designers who rely on third party effects such as Alien Skin?s Eye Candy series will be disappointed to see you cannot use their software with Expression Design.
With all that said, you will find that the design tools in Expression Design do meet your basic needs. As you surf through the Expression Design news groups you will be surprised to find out how complex some of the art is.
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| Figure 2: A little Gremlin illustrated in Expression Design |
Beyond the Fundamentals
To help with the lack of support to third party tools, Expression Design does come with pre-installed formatting controls. The controls, such as drop shadow, smudge and outer glow are there. The panels to access and control these types of visual effects, called ?Live Effects? in Design, are all very easy to access and use, as shown here:
The custom interface to control any one Live Effect is specific to each effect. The overall feel of using Live Effects is similar to applying effects in Adobe?s Fireworks. The following panel illustrates the tools you use to modify effects:
As you might expect, you can stack Live Effects on top of each other to create complex designs.
Looking to the Future
Microsoft?s Expression Design is a solid, entry level product. What is disappointing the lack of ?fundamental? features you expect to see in graphics tools today. For instance, there are export tools to publish your illustrations to the Web and to XAML, but you do not have Web optimization tools. In earlier public betas, Expression Design did have Web optimization tools, such as slice tools and JavaScript tools such as interactive buttons and other effects. Other features that the beta releases had included a very cool tool that ?stitched? a stack of images, such as group of panorama images, to one solid image.
Microsoft has already announced a refresh of the Expression Suite for early 2008. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft does continue to invest in Design and bring it up to the same level as professional tools such as Adobe?s Fireworks, Illustrator or Photoshop. For Expression Design to compete in this aggressive market it MUST compete on a feature-to-feature comparison plus have additional unique features. The battle to convert life-long Adobe advocates will not be easy.
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Matthew has written four Flash books, contributed to a dozen Web books, and has published over 400 articles. He is passionate about exposing Internet's potential for all of us. Matthew works directly with many companies as a business strategist coaching IT architects and business leaders to work tightly with each other towards common goals.
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