Adobe Fireworks is a bitmap and vector graphics editor made for designers for rapidly creating website prototypes and application interfaces. It was designed to integrate with other Adobe products such as Adobe Dreamweaver (a web development tool) and Adobe Flash (an animation software). It has been described by many as the “swiss army knife” of design software and to be honest, they’re not wrong. If that last sentence confused you, apologies. You probably know what a swiss army knife is, but here is why is it’s relevant here:

A Swiss Army knife is capable of meeting most of your demands, but its simplicity makes it less of a burden than carrying around the tools individually.

Adobe Fireworks, with its simple and easy to learn interface, provides versatile features which give designers the ability to create a variety of art e.g website mockups, vector art, etc. This article will explain how Adobe Fireworks is a fully fledged design tool and 6 different ways designers can take advantage of the amazing features that come with this software.

Adobe Fireworks Basic Features

  • The tools to create and edit bitmap and vector images or objects
  • The ability to create web effects on a web page prototype, including rollovers and pop-up menus
  • The option to animate your graphics
  • Pre-built custom templates for website mobile, desktop, or web frames to get started with your next design project
  • The ability to create an animated GIF

 

Now that we fully understand what Adobe Fireworks is and what it can do, let’s go through the list we’ve put together of 6 different ways this software can be of use to designers.

1) Design Animated GIFs: Even though it’s not inherently an animation software, it can still meet the basic needs for creating an animated gif. The gif can either be used as a website graphic (e.g. button) or exported to Adobe Flash if further animation is needed.

2) Create/Organize Print Material Layout: As long as you modify your artwork’s resolution in Fireworks, you can print your designs for poster, fliers, etc. Even if you’re working with a higher quality than Fireworks can handle, you can still create an initial layout in Fireworks to organize text and images and experiment with designs before the creating the final version on elsewhere.

3) For Online Designs: Creating small scale illustrations or designs for a website are best made with Fireworks (as opposed to Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator) because it’s a cheaper and sometimes much easier alternative.

4) Create Vector Art: Fireworks contains a variety of vector-base objects and shapes to make for most vector editing tasks. If you’re considering a logo redesign for your own company or a client’s, Fireworks makes it easy to experiment with different vector graphics to create an icon that suits your needs.

5) Collect Design Objects: Fireworks has a feature called the symbol panel which you can use to collect you most popular design objects and store them (to avoid tedious repetition). For instance, you might save a company logo in the Symbols panel to use across multiple web pages, or save a vector image you often use. When you’re ready, simply click, drag, and drop your saved design anywhere on your Fireworks page.

6) Design Realistic and Interactive Website Mockups: If you need to show a client how their website will look in-action, Fireworks provides all the necessary tools. You can create buttons, navigation bars, master and sub pages, and add text, symbols, and images. If your design team works in Illustrator or Photoshop, you can import designs from those applications into Fireworks. Your web pages will be editable in both vector and bitmap modes. Plus, you can create interactive prototypes to simulate how the design will interact with a user. When you’re ready to show a client, simply export your Fireworks design as a PDF.

 

 

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