Info

This page was created by Artemy Lebedev (me), Moscow-based designer from Russia. Moscow is famous for its vodka, white bears walking down the streets at night and FreeHand users. Just joking. Now, back to FreeHand.

FreeHand, as you know, is the best tool for vector-based graphics around. Illustrator is just a piece of you-know-what. And it takes both of your hands to do even a simple object, while FreeHand doesn't (hence its name).

FreeHand is better than anything you might imagine (MacDraw, Illustrator, Canvas, LightningDraw, CorelDraw! etc.) It's faster, easier and smarter. That's why I've always used FreeHand and will be using it - hopefully - for the rest of my life - probably until version 71.5.

When I saw FreeHand for a first time (that was like year 1989, and I was using MacintoshPlus, and I think it was FreeHand v1.0) I thought it was a tool for animation, because sample image was drawn on the screen in about 5 minutes. Since I was not into animation, I succesfully trashed it. Some time passed, I learned that vectors are not very bad and my beloved program came back to my hard disk. Since then I hunt for every new version, knowing that it only becomes better, despites its current manufacturer.


Q and A

Q: When this page was created?
A: Idea originates at January 1996. "Official release" - September 1996.

Q: Who is the author and how to contact him?
A: Art. Lebedev, his e-mail is tema@tema.ru.

Q: Why Illustrator sucks?
A: Because to draw even a simplest object you have to do a heavy dance with your fingers on a keyboard, pressing right modifier keys to achieve different looks of a pointer. This idea should've been abandoned the same minute it was pronounces aloud.

Q: Why then other vector programs suck?
A: Have you tried them?

Q: How graphics were created?
A: Everything (almost) was created in the FreeHand, then exported to Illustrator (ewww) EPS and then opened and raped in Photoshop (kewl) and then again exported as a GIF.

Q: How to navigate at your page?
A: Simple. Left arrow at the bottom of every page leads you to previous tip/trick/thought/whatever. "Main Page" - to the main page. Right arrow leads to the next page.



Copyright 1996-1997 by Art. Lebedev
tema@tema.ru