** 1 page DTP+Graphics review / 574 words **

DTP+Graphics

Man overboard! Shiuming Lai drowns in a sea of clip art...

Floppyshop is very excited about its latest DTP product, a collection of over 400 clip art images in Calamus Vector Graphic (CVG) format produced by John Weller. Particular emphasis is placed on the effort expended on each and every one of the images, mostly vectorised from high resolution bitmap scans. So without further ado, let's see if it lives up to its marketing blurb.

First impressions of Vector Art '97 are promising - it comes on six floppy disks, neatly packaged in a plastic wallet with a card insert providing a taster of the contents. All of the files are stored uncompressed, ready to use, and each disk is organised clearly under meaningful folder names - a breeze to browse.

I viewed most of the images using the Calamus Vector Graphic (CVG) import option in Kandinsky v2.5. Most of the images loaded perfectly but there were a few problem files which Kandinsky rejected. Happily these loaded into Calamus and Arabesque Professional so there's nothing wrong with files on the disk.
It was an extremely lengthy process trawling through all the files. Each of the disks includes a listing of the diverse topics covered and since it fills over two sides of A4 in ASCII I won't repeat it here! Suffice to say, just about every imaginable topic and a few you won't have thought of are included.

The actual quality of the images is commendable - even at 800% magnification they don't show the kind of poor continuity which characterises much of the clip art floating around the internet. There is a notable amount of raggedness, but only in areas of dense detail. Overall the construction of the lines and shapes is of a very high standard - as you can see from the examples included on this page.

The style used to create each clip is almost as varied as the subjects, with bold, carefree dashing strokes for cartoon-type images and more delicate, refined forms for the subtle decorative clips. I noticed a handful of the images were simply converted from existing vector images, like some of the examples from XChange, Arabesque and Easy Draw - naughty!

A few clips left me wondering why they had been included, for example, there's an Atari ST (allegedly) which is almost comical in its crude, hand-constructed from scratch appearance. Another series of clips showing ballerinas exhibits all the grace and elegance of a hippopotamus!

Creating a large collection of clip art like this is one of the most mind-numbing activities I can imagine undertaking on a computer and the actual result depends entirely on the judgement of the user. In this case, we have a collection put together by someone who obviously knows what he is doing and with enough patience to see the job though to conclusion. Overall, the collection is a useful purchase for DTPers of all levels, despite a small proportion of questionable efforts.


** Product box **
Product: Vector Art '97 Collection
Publisher: Floppyshop
Price: £10.00 + P&P (£1.00 UK, £2.00 EU, £3.00 ROW)
Contact: +44 (0)1224 312756
Requires: Any application capable of reading CVG format files
Pros: Great variety and generally very good quality...
Cons: Overall impression marred by some downright shabby images
Score: 81%
** End boxout **

** Images **

** BORDER10.GIF
** FISH.GIF
** GIRL02.GIF
** KEBABS.GIF
** WASHES_1.GIF