Dear makers of Adobe Illustrator;

I understand that you created this product for graphic design professionals.? I appreciate the art of crafting a quality product.? Your program is heralded by graphic artists across the globe.? It is one of the most state of the art graphic design programs available.? That being said, I hate it.

For years I have been a Photoshop girl.? I have worked my way up the Photoshop ranks from Elements to 6.0 to 7.0 to CS2 to finally CS3 (which currently isn’t working for me).? Photoshop has served me well over the years.? I have created some great art with it, but it is slow and cumbersome.? And raster art… not nearly as pretty and shiny as vector art.

It was with great trepidation that I made the jump to Illustrator.? Now I admit, as a budding graphic artist I didn’t go to school for this.? Like most everything else in my life I taught myself.? I am sure there are some useful things I could learn with a year or two of graphic arts training, but I’ve been trained in the principles of design.? I know those.? What I need is a crash course in Illustrator.? Because how the fuck to you make a gradient?? Blah blah blah, good vector art doesn’t use gradients.? I like gradients for specific purposes.? I just want to know how to make a gradient.? I want to know how to change the color of said gradient without ripping all of my hair out.? Oh noooo!? It couldn’t be as simple as click on the color box and input your hex code.? There is a complex series of clicks one must make to change a simple color.? But for the love of god I have the attention span of a cricket.? I did it 20 minutes ago, but between then and now I did something else, like scratched my ass and forgot.

I understand this is a personal problem, but comeon.? Couldn’t you make the program a little simpler.? Or at least publish a book that says: “to change a color click here, here and here.”? Is that too much to ask?

Sincerely,

The woman thinking Windows Vista might be better than this crap.