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Graphic Designer here, need to convince company I need a mac to do my job!

D

domerdel

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 15, 2007
17
0
Hey guys,

I'm looking for the ultimate guru's for a Mac vs. PC debate in a corporate office/firm setting. Basically, trying to convince CEO and IT why I need a mac. I'm a graphic designer for a land development firm. Work close with Landscape Architects and Civil Engineers.

I'll take concept sketches and/or AutoCAD files (that are converted for me) and pretty them up in photoshop or illustrator, do planned development books in InDesign. Web services are offered, but it's not the primary vs. print.

I'm currently working on a Dual-Core Xeon Dell workstation windows XP. Years ago up until 04' I was all about PC, but now have been accustomed to my mac.

At home, I've got a Dual Dual-Core Xeon 2.66 that I love dearly, multitasks very well.

I need to write up a report how this will communicate how I do my job better if i had a mac in the workplace. I know that's a far-fetched statement, but trying to sell them on having me use a mac for my services while the entire office can cope with their PC network. I would appreciate any elaborate feedback and insight.
 
am i right in saying that both PC and Mac would run all the programs you need ?
if so then it would be a waste of your companys money to buy you a Mac just for that.

If though you have a specific program in mind that runs only on Mac then there you go

Also not just the Hardware cost's you got the software cost's too

or Work from home :)
 
our firm is 40+ people and with new people coming in, and based on seniority, when the time is reached, I wouldn't mind handing down my machine and in place, getting a mac.
 
Well for starters, everyone and their grandmother knows that MACs are built to take up the endeverous job of design and everything that comes with it! while PCs are more home/office oriented, this is not a H.O.M.O. statement, it's a well known fact.
Yes, even though Dell has being able to "catch up" to the macs they still lack most of the "duaravility" of the Macs. I still use a PMG4/400mhz/Panther for all my design, photo, illustration, and managing my art work. but for other uses I use a PC even at work I use a PC. The Winn OS is prety much well known to all and so it is a lot easier to get into, why look at the number of OS/Network problems that have risen from PCs while the Macs are almost neutral on this.
Besides I noticed that on a Ad agency every system was Mac, even the receptionist was on a Mac! why, Macs have worked very well as design mules and to this date most if not all Ad agencies still run Macs.
I think that your IT is not willing (lazy) to try and having a Mac on their network, keep pushing, eventually when the ***** hits the fan, they will take notice and realize that you NEED to have a Mac!
Good luck on this and please keep us posted!

PS
sorry for the lengthy reply :(



:apple:
 
MorzillA said:
Well for starters, everyone and their grandmother knows that MACs are built to take up the endeverous job of design and everything that comes with it! while PCs are more home/office oriented, this is not a H.O.M.O. statement, it's a well known fact.
Yes, even though Dell has being able to "catch up" to the macs they still lack most of the "duaravility" of the Macs. I still use a PMG4/400mhz/Panther for all my design, photo, illustration, and managing my art work. but for other uses I use a PC even at work I use a PC. The Winn OS is prety much well known to all and so it is a lot easier to get into, why look at the number of OS/Network problems that have risen from PCs while the Macs are almost neutral on this.
Besides I noticed that on a Ad agency every system was Mac, even the receptionist was on a Mac! why, Macs have worked very well as design mules and to this date most if not all Ad agencies still run Macs.
I think that your IT is not willing (lazy) to try and having a Mac on their network, keep pushing, eventually when the ***** hits the fan, they will take notice and realize that you NEED to have a Mac!
Good luck on this and please keep us posted!

PS
sorry for the lengthy reply :(



:apple:
Click to expand...

I'm looking for a lengthy reply, so thank you for that. IT is definitely lacking the knowledge of mac, and coming back with the can't-do attitude. I get weekly reminders about prepping my windows machine for patches/updates for security vulnerabilities, and e-mail reminders not to open certain e-mails with attachments.... wouldn't have that worry on mac.
 
if the firm really thinks your good and only want you and nobody else, you just say, "need a mac, or i'm leaving..."
 
lofight said:
if the firm really thinks your good and only want you and nobody else, you just say, need a mac, or i'm leaving...
Click to expand...

NOW there is a great line if I ever heard one!!! It's what I would say with out any expresion, just plain cold |:[

:apple:
 
I wasn't here when my department switched over from PC to Mac, but from what I understand, the argument went like this:

The professional design world uses Macintoshes. If you want the work coming out of the department to be seen as professional, and if you want to hire professionals to create the best quality work, we're going to need to have our department have Macintosh computers.

Our department agreed to pay for and maintain all of our equipment, including software, future upgrades, tech support, installing and networking and everything.
 
When you say agreed to pay for and maintain all did you mean pay for the machines or the maintenace and there after?!

I think that's a sweet deal, that way IT can't bother and the work comes out prestine, oh yeah and professional :D




:apple:
 
Everything. It all comes out of our budget. The rest of the hospital's computers come out of the IS budget. IS subsequently troubleshoots, fixes, upgrades, etc. all of those computers.

They don't (and won't) touch our machines, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's a curse because whenever there is something wrong (like something wrong with the Exchange email server- definitely their problem) they just say, "Sorry, you're on a Mac. We can't help you." It's a blessing because we get to upgrade long before the computer actually dies, which is when the rest of the hospital upgrades. :) That, and I get to use OS X.
 
why Mac OS X is better for pre-press production

Here's an article I read via DaringFireball.net. It goes into some of the font rendering issues encountered in XP vs. Mac OS X.

check it out here.
 
akabenlee said:
Here's an article I read via DaringFireball.net. It goes into some of the font rendering issues encountered in XP vs. Mac OS X.

check it out here.
Click to expand...

WOW great article akabenlee!!! one other thing I have noticed is that on my mac I have been able to see pages from other countries with out having to install any language programs unlike Windows.

Fonts are a HUGE part of Graphic Design and how we can see them on the screen is completely different than how we see them on print, I have had this issue many times before using a PC (at home) versus a G5 (at school) and presenting many print works at school

tobefirst Amazing! yes I agree with you, I have no choice but to do all my fixing cuz just about everyone I know, knows PC/Windows but not Mac :confused::mad::( but at the same time I know that if my vintage G4 goes bey bey it was by my own hand and not some fool who thinks he/she knows more than me on the lame pretext that OS X is similar to lenux :confused: :mad:
and argue with this;
Not completely true, entorage as well Office '04 run/work/sync flawlessly with XP, clearly wilst the Exchange email server is a Windows format so is entourage, so don't give us that childish act and behave like professionals, this is a hospital for crying out loud not a day care! so earn your keep or get out and play computers games at home not here!!:mad:



:apple:
 
Well, if everything else fails you could also do what I did when a company I was freelancing for wanted me to use a pc: I brought my powerbook with me every day and worked on that. Now you could get a macbook pro, either sell your mac pro to get one or just get one, I don't know your financial situation. But I guess if your job is a full time job you won't do anything at home that the mac pro can handle but a macbook pro can't.

Apart from that this will show your boss:

- how serious you are about this

- how you are more productive on a mac for design work

- your passion for your job, after all, every boss loves it when an employe brings his own equipment I guess = less cost for them. :)
 
Just ask them to imagine a desktop or laptop computer that doesn't crash for months at a time and to imagine a PC that is close to immune to the endless train wrecks caused by viruses and worms.
 
chaosbunny said:
Well, if everything else fails you could also do what I did when a company I was freelancing for wanted me to use a pc: I brought my powerbook with me every day and worked on that. Now you could get a macbook pro, either sell your mac pro to get one or just get one, I don't know your financial situation. But I guess if your job is a full time job you won't do anything at home that the mac pro can handle but a macbook pro can't.

Apart from that this will show your boss:

- how serious you are about this

- how you are more productive on a mac for design work

- your passion for your job, after all, every boss loves it when an employe brings his own equipment I guess = less cost for them. :)
Click to expand...

bluetooth said:
Just ask them to imagine a desktop or laptop computer that doesn't crash for months at a time and to imagine a PC that is close to immune to the endless train wrecks caused by viruses and worms.
Click to expand...


Touche!! now those are valid/solid arguments if i ever saw one!


Let us know how it turns out!!!


:apple:
 
Here's another report I found. It targets the holy grail of the corporate world: PRODUCTIVITY.

From the looks of it, the report is based on the persepctive of the user interface.

Some findings that they found when comparing windows vista aero to windows xp and Mac OS X:

"Windows Vista, and particularly the new Aero user interface design, fared less well in the User Interface Friction benchmarks than Windows XP. Mac OS X came out as the clear overall winner in these benchmarks."

In Desktop Operations:
"Windows Vista with Aero was the slowest in these tests, scoring an average of 2.73 seconds per operation, compared to 2.34 seconds for Windows XP, and 1.50 seconds for Mac OS X."

Mouse Operations:
"Windows Vista scored a Mouse Precision Error Coefficient of 0.52, compared with 0.40 for Windows XP, and 0.08 (!) for Mac OS X."

I didn't read through the entire article (it has some additional PDF's detailing the entire benchmarking process). But from what they wrote this could be a gold mine of reasons to get a Mac over Windows.

edit: Another report from the same company. I would really recommend downloading the sample PDF on this page. The sample PDF has charts and actual dollar amounts when comparing PC and Macs. The whole PDF costs money but this sample is more than enough.
 
As much as I hate to say it...since there's no Mac version of AutoCAD, it might be better off to use a PC :(

All things being equal, there's no reason for you not to use a Mac, especially since the familiar interface will boost your productivity (that's corporate lingo for ya :) ), but if the software you're using isn't available for Mac or the company will have to re-buy Mac versions of all the software, it might not be worth it for them.
 
chaosbunny said:
Well, if everything else fails you could also do what I did when a company I was freelancing for wanted me to use a pc: I brought my powerbook with me every day and worked on that. Now you could get a macbook pro, either sell your mac pro to get one or just get one, I don't know your financial situation. But I guess if your job is a full time job you won't do anything at home that the mac pro can handle but a macbook pro can't.

Apart from that this will show your boss:

- how serious you are about this

- how you are more productive on a mac for design work

- your passion for your job, after all, every boss loves it when an employe brings his own equipment I guess = less cost for them. :)
Click to expand...

You could also add to that list - With a Mac you can fire one of those overpaid IT people.
 
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