Interview with Mordy ‘Bezier’ Golding

(This article is a re-post from the Dutch website, MacMojo. We are currently at CS4 but the interview is still relevant as it gives us a bit of a background on Mordy and Mordy solves several common Illustrator problems).
This time around I got to talk to Mr. Mordy Golding. First off, for all you readers that did not read the previous topics on MacMojo about Mr. Golding, Let me introduce to you the man that eats, sleeps, breathes and lives in vector-land: Mordy ‘Bezier’ Golding. Mordy lives and works in New York, USA and is an Adobe Certified Expert and Adobe Certified Print Specialist. Mordy has been working in the print- and design world ever since 1990, is the founder of a company called ‘Design Responsibly’ and he teaches and helps designers and printers. Mordy is also the author of (amongst other things) the ‘Real World Illustrator’ series and writes the Real World Illustrator blog (check the RSS-feed on the right side of this page).
Oh yeah, I almost forgot; Adobe hired him to be the product manager for Adobe Illustrator 10 and Illustrator CS. In this interview we’ll take a look at Adobe illustrator CS (3), Mr. Golding himself and his new book on the subject and we’ll be asking some Illustrator questions the MacMojo readers send me.

Marco: Well now, Mr. Golding I’d say that’s quite an introduction. Did I leave anything out?

Mordy: I think you got it covered. Sometimes I read things like this and say “did I really do all of that?” — it’s humbling.

Marco: At this point readers might be wondering why I’m doing this interview. The Dutch ‘hard-core’ readers know I’ve mentioned Mr. Golding’s site before and probably have even read a translation of one of his articles on the MacMojo website. ‘So what’s new?’ you might ask yourself. Well that’s easy! Amazon.com just started shipping Mordy’s new book “Real World Illustrator CS3”! Congratulations, Mr Golding. and excellent timing because this month Adobe released the translations of the Creative Suite 3 software. So a lot of people in Europe will be installing the new software during the months to come.

With all these new possibilities in the Creative Suite #3 it really helps if you’ve got a good book that will help you out when you’re stuck. Yeah, of course there’s the ‘help’ function in CS3 but that just drives me crazy! I’m looking for a quick and clean read that will explain the new functions and that will help me out in real world problems. Apart from that I want a book to explain to me why certain functions behave the way they do. What the creators of the app had in mind when the implemented a specific function. (Of course I’m really looking for a way to download Mordy’s knowledge into my own mind. You know like ‘Neo’ did when he downloaded new skills in ‘The Matrix’) Now I could explain in great detail what the book is about, but I figured I might as well let Amazon.com take care of that:

Amazon.com Book Description

Real World Adobe Illustrator CS3 is the definitive reference to Adobe’s industry-standard vector graphics software. With an easy, engaging style, author Mordy Golding takes readers through all of the features of the program, explaining not only how to use the multitude of features but also why and when to use them. This edition has been thoroughly updated for Illustrator CS3, including insightful techniques on using the new Live Color environment and its tools, a new Isolation mode for working on complex artwork, and new tools for drawing, erasing, modifying, and cropping graphic. New integration features with Flash CS3 are also covered in depth… Now that Illustrator and Flash are both part of several bundled offerings of the Creative Suite, this coverage is a key part of the entire uninterrupted workflow from initial concept to final execution.

Lets get started with the interview right away. I know you still haven’t perfected the process of cloning yourself, so I don’t want to waste a lot of your time chit-chatting about. It must be quite difficult to write an entire book about an application when all you’ve got is the pre-release ‘Alpha’ or Beta’ version. Did Adobe help you out in any way? Were you able to email or phone Adobe’s software engineers when you’ve felt like you’ve hit ‘a brick wall’ trying to explain a certain function? After all, the software is still ‘Beta’ so it might me a bit unstable or it might contain unfinished functions or bits of code. Or is there an online forum you writers meet?

Mordy: I can’t talk much about Adobe’s beta program. But obviously, Adobe would like to help authors if they can. There is a mechanism for beta testers to discuss things with eachother, so that does help. Since I’ve been on the Illustrator team in the past, it’s a bit easier for me to figure things out on my own (just because I have a better understanding of how things work), but I also want to emphasize that what I put into my book isn’t just a description of the new features. Sometimes I’d rather that Adobe not tell me anything and I go and try to figure it out on my own. That way, I have a better idea of how difficult or easy it might be for users like yourselves to work with the feature. Based on that experience, I try to explain the features or provide examples that I think would make the most sense on how people would use the feature (and not necessarily how Adobe thinks people should use it). Yes, I do have many personal friends on the Illustrator team, so if I do stumble upon something that I can’t figure out, I look to them for some better understanding. But overal, the entire beta process is less about my trying to write a book and more about my trying to help the Illustrator team better improve their product with as much feedback as I can offer the team. In fact, I usually don’t start working on my book until very very late in the beta process. For the Illustrator CS3 book, almost all of the update and writing was done after Illustrator had already shipped (which is why it’s coming out now and not 2 months ago).

Marco: Last week I notified the readers of MacMojo I would be interviewing you and told them if they’d have any Illustrator questions they could send them in, and you might be able to provide us with some answers. I filtered out the ‘newbie’ questions and found most of the questions were ‘general Illustrator troubles’ and not ‘CS3 specific’. Of course that makes sense; In Europe we received the CS3 software several months after you guys in America, because of the time it takes to translate everything. As a result most of us don’t – yet – have any real ‘hands on’ experience with Adobe Illustrator CS3. Apart from that: On more than one occasion people told me they actually use CS1 and never bothered to upgrade to CS2. Now I got this response a lot and I think it might be because CS1 brought about so much new functionality, CS2 just looked rather ‘pale’ compared to what CS1 had already brought us. People did not feel a need to spend a lot of money to upgrade yet again. CS3 however, is packed with new functionality and cool ways to get your work done a lot faster. So I’m betting a lot of people will be upgrading this time around.

Mordy: One of the new functions I like a lot myself is the ability to draw an object and to create a border for that object and let the border expand inwards. When you’re used to both Illustrator and InDesign CS1, it’s very frustrating to see InDesign being able do this, and then see Illustrator expand the border outwards and inwards at the same time. There was no choice. Ever since Illustrator CS2 this has been corrected, but for a lot of people CS3 will finally give them this abillity.

Back to the questions: Apart from graphic designers in the Netherlands we’ve had questions coming in from Belgium and Germany as well. Like I said they turned out to be mostly general Illustrator questions. I’ll stick to the most interesting ones. Lets start with Niels. He would like to know why Illustrator’s maximum page size is limited to 227,5 inch (or 577,9 cm). He knows he can use his RIP and print at a larger scale, but even Corel can create a larger document size and it would just make sense to work without scaling the entire document at print time. Could you tell us what’s holding Illustrator back in regards to the maximum page size?

Mordy: That’s a good question Niels. I don’t actually know how the team came about with the initial size of 227.5 inches. I know that there have been several requests in the past to change this, but I also know that backwards compatibility is an issue. For an example, if CS3 would have a larger artboard, does that mean you can’t backsave from CS3 to CS2? Again, I’m not sure what the limitation is here, but I do know that if any change were to be made, it would cause many other changes to be made. I doubt it’s something simple. But it’s a great feature request regardless.

Bert uses Illustrator to design web pages and he would like to know why he can’t just save his designs for web. He is forced to completely redraw big parts of his design in Photoshop because Illustrator can’t produce a sharp JPEG, PNG or GIF. Every element is ‘blurred’ and suddenly there’s an extra pixel in the artwork he saved for web. I’ve noticed this myself as well. If you draw a 1 pt line and ‘save for web’ suddenly there’s not just that line but also a semi-colored 1 points pixel all around the element. Whats up with that?

Mordy: I go into a lot of detail about this “problem” in the web chapter in my book. Basically, Illustrator, which is vector, and the web, which is pixels, have some issues to work out with eachother. That’s why Illustrator has features like Save for Web, Pixel Preview, and Align Stroke settings. You may find some information in a blog post I added a while back — this is the URL.

Of course Illustrator can also create perfect PDF files. Both Joost and Nynke would like to know why they can’t create a simple interactive PDF. One that contains hyperlinks or simple effects like rollover buttons. This should not be terribly difficult, now should it? This sort of relates to Dennis his question as well. He creates a lot of tables in Illustrator and wants to know if it will ever be possible to create smart ‘Excell-like formulas’ in Illustrator table cells. It would seem that all of these questions have one theme in common: A ‘smarter’ Illustrator.

Mordy: This is actually a personal frustration of mine! I would LOVE to create interactive PDF files directly in Illustrator, but that functionality isn’t there as of yet. Every time I speak with the Illustrator team, I try to convince them that this is important (after all, InDesign can do it). I would suggest that you send feature requests for this to Adobe so that they realize that more and more people are looking for this kind of functionality. I hope that future versions of Illustrator will allow us to create truly interactive PDF files.

John from Belgium would like to ask you two questions: He says he really likes the filter that will change a drawing from Pantone colors to CMYK or RGB. However, the filter ignores blends. Why is that? John also says he really likes the way Photoshop is able to convert RGB or CMYK artwork to grey scale and he would like to see this function in Illustrator. Creating grey scale just takes up a lot of time…

Mordy: John, you will be happy to know that CS3 will solve ALL of your problems. Well, at least the ones you’ve listed here… Illustrator’s new Live Color feature is really more of a color engine. Color in general is now much better implemented and can do more things. You can now change from Pantone to CMYK, CMYK to Pantone, Any defined color to another — and it works on EVERYTHING (blends, gradients, mesh, etc.) except for linked images. Also, the new live color functionality allows you to easily convert from color to grayscale. I actually have a full-color section in my book that covers these features in detail, along with all the settings you can apply. In my opinion, this functionality is one of the best reasons why people should upgrade to CS3.

Alex wants to know why placing a photo in Illustrator can’t be done from within a frame, like InDesign. Every time he places a Photo he is required to draw an extra object, to select both that object and the photo and to create a mask. Trouble is, whenever he want to adjust this mask he also selects the photo. Both objects are linked…

Mordy: Good question Alex. I wish for the same. Illustrator CS3 does make it a bit easier because of a new Mask button in the Control Panel. But in general, I would like to see the Illustrator team work on making it easier to work with cropped images (like Paste Inside for FreeHand for example).

Working in the graphic design business in New York

Marco: And that about covers some of the technical questions we’ve received. Of course there are a lot more things I (and I’m guessing the readers) would like to know about Illustrator, but I would like to use the rest of the time of this interview to ask Mordy some questions of a more personal nature. For starters; You live and work in New York. Could you tell us Europeans a bit what it’s like to work in the graphic design business in New York? Is it a melt pot of cultures and languages? What agencies are regarded as trendsetters in the design world of New York? Were do all the designers hang out ‘after hours’? I know Europe tend to look at America quite a lot. Everything we read on the web, the blogs, the information from websites, the technology we use, the movies and TV-shows we watch… But how do you view Europe? Is there any ‘design-influence’ in New York coming from Europe? Have you ever heard of ‘Dutch Design’ for example? Is there perhaps another design trend you noticed?

Mordy: It’s impossible to define NY because it is so diverse. On a street, you will hear people talking in all kinds of languages. For a designer, working in NY is not only good because there are so many business here, but also because it is so easy to become inspired here. Walk down the street and you will always get new ideas just from seeing so many things. There are always the big design agencies (like Pantagram for example) but I have many friends who work for healthcare companies or insurance companies that enjoy working in specialized design departments too. Everyone in NY hangs out after work and usually goes to bars — but there’s no specific place that I know of. I live outside the city, so I will sometimes grab a drink on the way home, but would rather be home with the family for dinner instead. I was once in Copenhagen and remember thousands of people after work sitting out drinking by the pier. It’s like that in NY, but people are in bars instead of sitting outside.

Here in America, we look at Europe as a place where trends begin. For example, Paris defines what will be in fashion. Things here sometimes get a little boring because many people like a certain thing and then everyone copies it. I like that Europe always offers a fresh view. Lately, I’ve been spending more time looking at going to speak in more countries. Next year I hope to visit and speak in places like London, Hamburg, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and even Tel Aviv, Israel.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to spend some time with your readers. I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it! Hopefully, I will get to meet some of you in the future!

Marco: Well, that about sums it up for this interview. I have to say Mordy, I’m glad you agreed to this interview. I know you are always extremely busy so I want to thank you for taking the time. For you readers out there, Mordy’s new book ‘Adobe Illustrator CS3 CS4’ is available and you can purchase your copy at Amazon.de or at Amazon.co.uk. If you can’t wait that long, there are always Mordy’s new training videos on Lynda.com. Should you have any other questions for Mordy, you can always visit his blog: Real World Illustrator.

Editor’s note: It was impossible to ask Mordy every single question you readers send in. A choice had to be made. I’m sorry if your question was not in this interview.