Quark postcard marketing campaign backfires; reveals Ebrahimi era of arrogance not over.
On 4 March select users of QuarkXPress began receiving some interesting mail.
The six postcards (the first is pictured here, with more below) are ostensibly an upgrade enticement to users of QuarkXPress versions 4–6 who have not yet taken advantage of 6.5. At the same time, the cards attempt to disparage Quark’s competitor, Adobe InDesign, while inspiring a feeling within creative pros that Quark is one of them, that it gets their humor, and it is as sarcastic and edgy they.
Unfortunately, the cards failed. Worse, they backfired.
Over the last few weeks hundreds of users have received the now infamous Quark postcards, though members of the press were apparently omitted from the mailing list, which is highly unusual. None of our staff has received them, nor have any of the other well-known industry journalists and experts to whom I spoke. Fortunately, in something of a coup, Quark VS InDesign.com was able to obtain all six postcards, which we present here.
We also asked a few recipients of Quark’s marketing campaign for their reactions to the postcards. Remarkably, we didn’t receive a single response in support of the postcards.
Katharine Shade, principal Corner Cottage Desktop Publishing:
Childish and immature. Like kids who stick their tongues out at others while hiding behind their mother, knowing that they’d lose in an actual face to face battle.
Samuel John Klein, principal SunDial Graphic Arts and Quark VS InDesign.com contributing writer:
This is Quark all but admitting they have to play catch-up with Adobe. Quark to Creative Community: “We aren’t that far behind!”
(Click thumbnails to view actual size, 89kb JPG)
Shannon, designer and illustrator Golden Boar Creations:
One thing I immediately noticed is that the things that were supposedly supposed to make Adobe cry were features that Indesign already has. I am not sure how Quark catching up with Indesign is supposed to make Adobe cry.
I thought the transparency card was surprisingly racy. And the image manipulation card, honestly, was like a slap in the face. My first thought was: Why did Quark just expose me to that? I suppose if Quark’s goal was to make me grimace, then they succeeded.
I am a happy InDesign user who has not seen any need to even try out Quark, but I saw nothing in this advertisement that made me go “Ohhhhh, I need to check out Quark!” When I finished looking through this pack, my first impression was that Quark is getting desperate. You certainly have to give them credit for taking a chance, but I would say they struck out on this one.
Anonymous, Winston-Salem, NC on the MacAddict Forums:
The cards tout some of the new features [of XPress 6.5]: Mutiple Undos (gasp), Layers (shock), Transparency (awe). All features that have already long been a part of InDesign.
(Click thumbnails to view actual size, 89kb JPG)
Johnny Hark, HarkJohnny.com:
Rather harsh way to win back a lost customer (who isn’t coming back anyway).
Anonymous on the MacAddict Forums:
What you call a sense of humor I call a desperate attempt [to] regain market share. It’s kind of sad. And I like the quote [on card #2] where [Raul Braulio Martinez of Rumbo] says “[InDesign can be hard to use.]” WTF? So the guy is an idiot because he couldn’t figure out InDesign.
Anonymous, Adobe Systems, Inc.:
We didn’t get anything done the day [we saw the Quark postcards]. We were all laughing so hard we couldn’t focus. [Some of my co-workers] started whipping up ‘counter-Quark’ postcards just for fun. Quark is really, really hurting to be going for such a negative campaign with so little ammunition.
(Click thumbnails to view actual size, 89kb JPG)
Jeremy Schultz, graphic designer, Des Moines, IA. JeremySchultz.com:
The marketing piece by Quark was certainly well-planned, well-designed and well-targeted toward the creative professional community, and it certainly convinced me that InDesign is in and Quark is out.
Quark could afford to be arrogant back when it had the best page layout product out there. That’s not the case anymore, and they won’t make it otherwise by re-emphasizing that same arrogance.
As several of the reactions noted, the cards do connect with users by presenting the attitude so familiar to Quark’s customers. This is the arrogance that made the company so vulnerable to InDesign in the first place.
Many (including yours truly) had hoped that, with Kamar Aulakh in the driver’s seat, Quark would have been more humble. Indeed, since taking on that role in January of 2004, he has driven Quark toward a friendlier, more customer-oriented image. His accomplishments are widely known: Awestruck customers have recently begun relating tales of pleasant, successful dealings with Quark Technical Support–long considered the rudest, least helpful in the software industry. The Quark Forums, mysteriously and suddenly shut down without explanation two years ago, re-opened shortly after Aulakh took office. But most significant of all was Quark giving away something for free.
Famous for miserly milking customers for every little thing (users are still stinging from the additional US$50 Quark charged for a user guide to go with XPress 5), Quark won back much respect and not a little praise when it released this past fall XPress 6.5–a significant feature upgrade–free to all users. Quark VS InDesign.com was among the loudest voices praising Aulakh and Quark for that particular relationship-building effort. Since then additional freebies have been handed to customers, including licensed Linotype fonts and the ALAP shadowing and transparency xtension, ShadowCaster.
Over the past year Quark has made huge leaps forward in building relationships with its existing customer base, and even prompted a few would-be InDesign switchers to at least delay plans to jump onto Adobe’s bus. It appeared that the world was finally seeing a warmer, more focused Quark.
But the postcards hint at the old régime. Did Fred Ebrahimi, former CEO and still sole shareholder of private stock Quark, tire of Aulakh’s Mr. Nice Quark marketing strategy and pull rank? (Ebrahimi, co-owner and CEO since 1986, became sole owner in 2000 when he purchased the remaining 50 percent stake from departing founder and QuarkXPress originator Tim Gill.) Or, did the company simply grow weary of sporting a face that was not true to its nature?
In my opinion, the campaign was a wonderful idea taken too far. In the hip design of the cards is an irreverance and attitude that instantly connects with creative pros. Unfortunately the marketing message is unsubstantiated, hyperbolic, arrogant, and misleading to the point of bordering on dishonest. Postcard number 2, for example, implies that InDesign cannot match XPress 6.5’s 30 levels of undo; at best this is innocuously inaccurate, at worst intentionally dishonest. XPress 6.5 can only undo non-structural actions; saving the document or adding, removing, or re-ordering pages breaks the undo chain, while InDesign can undo everything, even after saves.
Now is not the time for Quark to declare itself the victor of a war it has only just begun to fight–especially not with InDesign CS2 around the corner. Now is the time for Quark to build relationships with its customers. These postcards could have done that had Quark not taken the low road and attacked InDesign and Adobe on unclear–and, again, in some cases down right false–charges of inferiority.
With all the references to besting InDesign and making Adobe cry, the Denver-based company just doesn’t seem to get it. InDesign was never Quark’s weakness. Quark’s achilles heel was its own arrogance toward customers.
The postcard campaign backfired because it reminds creative pros of what Quark was like prior to the last year; it makes it clear that, despite the new personna birthed by the new CEO, the old Quark apathy and arrogance still runs the show.
Now that you’ve seen them, what is your reaction to the Quark postcards?
Damn fine article on the cards. Should be required reading for everyone.
I just wish I could get a look at the cards those Adobe employees ginned up when they saw these. I’ll bet those are even funnier.
Sorry about the scattershot commenting, but a passage in article really stands out:
Is it just me, or does this seem to be akin to movie studios not prescreening works that are anticipated as bowsers before thier release?
Sam,
Thank you very much for the compliment.
re: Journalists not getting the cards: It is…interesting. Perhaps Quark thought it would be a waste of postage to send a 6.5 upgrade marketing piece to people (industry journalists and experts) whom it knows already have 6.5. But then, the postcards haven’t appeared on Quark.com either. A marketing campaign like that, from a company that hasn’t done much advertising the last few years, one would think they’d tout it loudly on their site… If they were proud of what they were saying.
Maybe they were trying to keep it under the radar, hoping the media wouldn’t find out about the cards.
[Chuckle] If that was the intent, it didn’t work.
When I realized that Adobe was going to send PageMaker the way of the dinosaur and focus instead on InDesign, I was contemplating shifting to Quark – I figured the devil I knew was better than the devil I didn’t..at least I knew how to USE Quark and wouldn’t have to learn another software from scratch.
Boy, am I sure glad I stuck with Adobe.
I tried Quark about 9 years ago (I think it was around version 4) I was merely a do-it-yourself home based part time free-lancer, who was told by the industry “gotta get Quark” Nonetheless, I ditched it after 6 months.
I haven’t gone back. (Still pluggin away on Corel… )
I have seen all the hype on this new marketing campaign, but kept quiet since I’m neither a Quark or InDesign user. But now that I see the cards, I can’t help to simply feel disgust. I agree with all the comments posted so far and the ones used in the article.
I also feel that some of the “features” tauted simply pretty childish … as the crying baby they portray . . maybe it was simply a self-portrait.
I am the Art Director at a U.S. university—born and bred on QuarkXPress 1.0. I supervise a much younger design staff, who have a much shorter history with desktop publishing. This is just more ammunition for my young graphic designers to pressure me into dumping Quark and jumping to InDesign. Frankly, if Quark keeps up its behavior of non-customer concern, we will see InDesign soon.
Very nice article. At first i thought: “This can’t be true! I mean, look at the date. It’s almost April’s fool.Nobody is this stupid. Who would ever say they thought InDesign was hard to learn and hard to use? Kiss your career goodbye.
But, then again, this is Quark. And I do see Quark’s real face in this. Only Quarks is capable of something this foolish. They might as well spaml all their costumers and tell them “WE THINK YOUR IDIOTS!”
Or perhaps it was just a smart ‘guerilla-marketing-action’ from Adobe?
When I received the deck of postcards, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
First of all, I knew it was geared toward Quark’s notion of a “I’m such a freaking cool designer with a warped sense of humor,” crowd. Okay, no problem. My sense of humor can be pretty darned warped as well. However, I wasn’t impressed with the statements about “brain farts,” or “rocket surgery.” I mean, this was coming from a company that I knew was NOT cool to its customers, yet it was trying to be cool.
Quark overplayed that theme, particularly when they coupled it with deceptive information and multiple cheap shots at InDesign (clearly a superior program to Xpress). Those who aren’t familiar with InDesign, would assume that Quark has features lacking in InDesign, or that Quark is a more productive and efficient program. What a sack of beetle dung.
My overall impression was, “This is a professional layout application, marketing itself in a very deceptive and unprofessional manner.”
The whole campaign was a failed attempt at “brain fart surgery.”
… Not a good way to treat a dying patient.
Thanks for the excellent article. You really put your finger on the pulse of the matter. Quark’s defibrillating postcard campaign had little voltage and too much self-inflicted poison. Doctor, “I’m calling this one.”
Great article about Brand X’s pathetic low-ball attempt to keep it’s user base.
Within 3 days. Adobe will anounce CS2
within a month,CS2 will start shipping…
I was sorry not to have gotten the postcards. I thank qvsid for posting them along with the excellent article.
I am very disturbed by Quark’s comments regarding multiple undos. The way it is worded really does imply that InDesign has no multiple undo feature. Meanwhile there are so many things that break Quark’s undo chain that the feature feels terribly ill-designed.
Also, I don’t feel that ShadowCaster is true transparency. If Quark can create true transparency, that’s great. But I haven’t seen that yet.
When I worked in advertising there was only one reason why the #1 product would ever mention the competition’s name. That was when they were on the way to no longer being #1.
When former Quark customers are dropping QXPress by the thousands, what else is there to be said?Advance Magazine Publishers did switch from XPRess to InDesign by 1.100 work stations.
Details
The drop down menus were sort of entertaining and the color palette used for the cards was kind of cool.
I couldn’t believe the copy though… talk about over the top hyperbole.
And cards didn’t even make use of Quark’s plug-in transparency or drop shadow abilities. Go figure.
Thank you all for the comments.
CORRECTION to above story:
The story originally stated: “Ebrahimi purchased the company from founder and QuarkXPress originator Tim Gill in ‘93.”
It should have read as it does now: “Ebrahimi, co-owner and CEO since 1986, became sole owner in 2000 when he purchased the remaining 50 percent stake from departing founder and QuarkXPress originator Tim Gill.”
The change was made to the original story rather than simply in this correction to prevent the spread of a factual error (as it may be missed in the comments here).
My girlfriend doesn’t believe those postcards are real. Is there another site out ther where I can prove it to her? What design company did these? Please email to my email address.
Hi, Stan. I certify as a journalist these are real–and I’ve never worked for the New York Times, so you can believe me.
We haven’t been able to ascertain which ad firm created the cards. The only ones who know are Quark–who refuses to discuss the matter with us–and the ad firm–who has wisely chosen to remain silent.
If your girlfriend will wait just a few days, Samuel John Klein has a set enroute to him from another source. He can authenticate the images here from his hardcopies.
Thanks, I believe you, she’s being a pain in the ass. I’ve seen your name around so I’m guessing you must be a widely know designer.
LOL Never say in print a girlfriend or wife is being a pain in the ass. Two years from now she’ll haul it out to use against you–that comes straight from my girlfriend. ;-)
Want me to edit it out for you? ;-)
I get around. A little of this, a little of that.
I’m going to take a guess that this is the agency …
http://www.t‑3.com/innovation/port_client.aspx
good thinkin Alon, unfortunately the work is nowhere to be found. No edit necessary Pariah, she knows how she can be…
If I put that work in my portfolio, and I saw such a negative reaction, I’d can it faster than a cheetah with it’s ass on fire.
I couldn’t find any evidence of the ad campaign. However, T3 states that they are now handling the Quark account, hired a coordinator for the account, and claim they are doing the direct mail for Quark. Some of the pieces in their portfolio look like they could have been produced at the same agency.
It’s still a guess on my part.
All in All the postcards are good work. They are witty and well thought out. It’s Quark’s arrogance that shines through and makes us all think they suck. But don’t kill the messenger.
Where I’ll shoot the messenger is that the message is particularly dishonest. I wouldn’t create a campaign like that for a client under any circumstances. I’d consider it selling my soul. If the client supplied me with the copy, I’d have the client sign a waiver that I had nothing to do with the writing. Fortunately, I’ve never been in such a position.
If the agency provided the copy – it’s a darn shame – and that’s a euphemism.
I have to wonder about the quotes. Quotes can be edited and contextualized to be completely opposite of their original meanings–that certainly happens to my quotes often enough in newspapers. So, I wonder, were the quotes on the cards developed for this campaign, or did they come from another time–maybe when InD 1.0 was still current?
And, are the providers of the quotes aware of how they have been used?
Pathetic. I just can’t see why they don’t just improve Quark instead of bashing Indi. The only answer I can think of is that they just don’t know how to beat Adobe on the real world.
I’d say gonzalo is right. Why would you use quark when Indesign has more features and integrates better with the leading photo editing software? I don’t think Quark has a chance at besting adobe in this war.
And Alon, I agree with you as well. The agency should not participate in downright dishonesty, but then again, money is money right? I have to wonder how people who put together political campagins sleep at night after all the dishonesty they dish out. I guess it comes down to a character thing. It’s pure propaganda, and some don’t mind being involved in that. It’s obvious that you (Alon) have the integrity not to involve yourself in those kinds of situations.
Any publicity is good publicity. Perhaps Quark reasons that the only way to get anyone to pay attention to them is to be outrageous Let’s face it, we are talking about them, and maybe that’s all that matters.
Rob,
You make an excellent point, but in this case I have to disagree.
If Quark wanted publicity for these, the company would have send sets of cards to the press. I’ve talked to quite a few of the other writers and editors who regularly cover Quark–including one who won’t say a word in support of InDesign. I’m not the only one who didn’t get the cards directly; apparently no one with the means of publically commenting received them.
Maybe they sent the cards out to a limited market of those who didn’t upgrade to evaluate the response. Then they could determine how to tell people “what they want to hear” in another, larger campaign.
Just a theory.
The publishing company I work for dumped XPress about a year ago. We had been looking to dump XPress for years because of Quark’s horrible customer service but there was no viable alternative at the time. As soon as InDesign was accepted by our service partners and printers, we switched.
It is still amazing to me that a successful company like Quark could mistreat its customers for so long and expect to survive. Goodbye Quark. For good.
well, maybe I’m not disgruntled enough, but I thought they were funny.
it would have been a cleaner concept if they would have left the ID references out. but it has us all talking.
I came here after seeing the reference on Publish.com. Looking around it appears Publish.com took all the info for that article from here.
Great story you wrote!
Here’s that Publish.com article
Quoting rio denaro:
You have the right of it, or at least a good part of it. Quark opened here with an attempt to rhetorically body-slam Adobe. That was a risk that shouldn’t have been taken unless they had the chops to back it up. As many who are familiar with both XPress and InDesign might tell you, they didn’t.
In Paul Arden’s fantastic book It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be, he puts it very succinctly:
Although overall this kind of brought more attention to Quark than it did Adobe, it’s almost all the wrong kind. Also this makes it almost a fait accompli that Adobe is on the high road, simply by just coming out with a strong CS2 Maybe even all they have to do is come out with a solid CS2..
I don’t know if Americans realise that Quark’s international version has always been double the US price. Down here in Oz Quark has traditionally cost about $3,500 and has recently reduced its price to $2530. Street price now is about $1850. You can buy the entire CS Premium for about $1720.
I think the rest of the world jumped for joy when Adobe released Indesign 2. Good Riddance to Quark!
Recieved the cards today and I tell you, if you think they look astounding on your computer screen, you ain’t seen nuttin yet, boyos (and girlos [and alan’s girlfriend]) B-)
They’re larger than I’d pictured them, for one thing.
Just FYI:
I got the cards and don’t know why. I don’t own Quark, have never contacted them. (I’ve used InD since 1.5, now have CS.) Must have come from a mailing list. Print? Step? CommArts? Dynamic?
It’s a mystery to me.
A friend of mine from the Amsterdam area (The Netherlands) also received the cards. So Quark decided to send out a global mailing. One of the cards even states “Quark has always been number one. That wil not change.“Yeah, right.
Coming from the Printing background, I can tell you that the support from Adobe has far surpassed Quark over the years.
We do happily support our clients that use quark and keep ourselves updated. We do see many of the designers working with us ditching Quark for InDesign. I must say this a very refreshing trend.
Don’t make me laugh! I worked with Quark from 1995 to 2002 and i always hated the fact that it was expensive and that software from companies like Macromedia was so much easier and more intelligent than this Quark application from the middle ages. From day one that i started using inDesign i have been very, very and very happy. I hope that Quark will dissapear. They have enough money made and it’s time for their retirement. Bye bye!
Greetings,
Hans Bos, Amsterdam The Netherlands
I used Quark from 1996–2002, then switch to InDesign. After I got used to it, I couldn’t believe just how superior it was – in every way imaginable. Unfortunately, I am now working at ajob that forces me to use Quark again. What a nightmare. We have to use it because the rest of the staff doesn’t want to learn the new app. They say things like, “I don’t like InDesign because you can’t crop a photo.” WTF? I can’t stand the ignorance. To make matters worse, some of our clients’ preferred vendors insist on Quark files. We can’t send PDFs becuase or clients like to make last minute changes on press. The printers are responsible for versioning, too.
So, for now, even if I could train the staff here and convince them to switch, I am stuck using Quark becuase so many printers are stuck in their ways. To tell you the truth, I wish I didn’t know how to use InDesign. Now that I’m forced to use Quark, it’s just flat out torture!
Oh, and I got the cards from Quark. What a joke. InDesign not only does every feature that Quark is touting… the do it better!
I see what happened, this campaign was actually created for adobe, quark just switched out the logos and product name. Apply this theory to the first card.
Quark who?
Interestingly, Quark has not had a huge market share in India (that’s where I am) and we’ve been using PageMaker for years. (For advertisers, usually Corel rules). Quark I guess has been too expensives and not well supported. In my 8 years in publishing I’ve only worked with two quark files. It was sad for us to hear that PageMaker was no longer fully supported by Adobe, but seeing InDesign, I can see why. Compared to PageMaker, it does seem harder to learn, but well worth it. However, while Quark was never really dominating the Indian market, it may take a while before Adobe can shift the idnustry out of its Corel Draw fixation.
Thank you for the perspective on India, Ajay. It’s curious, though. With Quark having such a huge presence in India (Quark City and all), I would have thought the QuarkXPress software would be more widely used there.
According to this source Quark has an 85 percent share of the Indian market. However, I would say these are ‘official’ figures and it is difficult to get a correct picture of India because of the rampant piracy. [*One can easily get the latest copy of Indesign for Rs. 100 (about US$2). Ironically, it is easier to get Adobe pirated products than Quark, because Quark does not have a high demand… partly because you need to also have a bunch of plugins, which means more getting more CDs]
In the news front, I have noticed that Adobe news is usually bigger news than Quark. Also in the real world scenario, while the situation is perhaps different for Newspapers, which I don’t know much about. till date I have seen about 25 design houses and I saw that only one uses Quark predominently. The rest use either Corel Draw or PageMaker. A few of them are considering changing to InDesign, but not Quark.
So basically what I am saying is that while ‘officially’ Quark has a high market share, Adobe products are more pervasive and have a higher user (knowledge) base. Even as India battles against piracy, I can only see Adobe coming out the ultimate winner as people shift legitimately to software that they know.
Very illuminating. Thank you again, Ajay!
Perhaps Quark could tell us why in these cards there is absolutely no mention of type handling. Like OpenType and Unicode, like why there is a ridiculous surcharge for setting non Roman type, (Passport) etc etc.
It ain’t what you shout about, it’s what you don’t shout about that people really notice.
Quoting Gordon HIll:
Perhaps Quark could tell us why in these cards there is absolutely no mention of type handling. Like OpenType and Unicode, like why there is a ridiculous surcharge for setting non Roman type, (Passport) etc etc.
I think that’s a fantastic question. It’s a question that I believe has been intimated at in the Quark Forums, and is conspicuous by the absence of an answer. It is especially relevant in as much that InD offers multi-lingual support without any extra charge whatsoever. I do wish Quark would give us some clue.
Again, Quoting Gordon:
It ain’t what you shout about, it’s what you don’t shout about that people really notice.
Very true, and very well said.
hi pariah.
congrats for holding such a nice discussion.
and sam, when u know about unicode and open type features in XPress 7.0, then what else do uwant to hear about. for quark, policy has always been WYSIWYG. what you see is what you get. They dont beleieve in saying anything that they cant give.So guys, my advice to all the designers all over the globe is that, please think a bit before moving on to CS2, ’cause by august this year, u guys will again be shifting back; because by any of the mean(and i believe that CS 2 is better than XPress 6.0), by any possible means, CS2 cant even think of competing with XPress 7.0 . So better wait and watch out.AND PARIAH PLEASE CHANGE THE WRITING MODE FOR THIS EDIT BOX TO LTR.IT FEELS AS IF YOU ARE WORKING WITH XPRESS MIDDLE EASTERN!!!!
Following Dean Jones
Have I not been sufficiently clear? Here’s a very short list:
1. Evolution to the interface.
2. Foreign language support
3. Upgrade pricing policy
4. Customer support
Myself, I love type. Unicode and OpenType are great things for XPress to support. Layout isn’t all type, though, as much as I’d like it to be.
This edition of X‑Ray Magazine give us, at long last, a glimpse into what V7 might be looking like on the interface level. It’s encouraging. Two interface ehancements we should come to expect, according to thier article on “The Magic of QuarkXPress 7”, are docked palette groups and palette snapping. Minor in form but major in usability. I depend on this in the Adobe apps to keep my floating stuff in place and in a usable form.
Adobe’s apps have been working like since I was introduced to them, so, subjectively speaking, this is Quark catching up. Not to damn with faint praise, mind, but it is something Quark should to do XPress (which, despite the press, can generate its own palette clutter depending on the user).
Dean Jones:
What a curious statement. Usuallly the interface is WYSIWYG. B-)
Sincerely, I don’t recall anyone anywhere saying Quark is promising what it can’t deliver. In the card set, the argument wasn’t that they weren’t promoting what they didn’t have, rather the tone and the representation. For example, it’s well and good that Quark offers multiple undos. To promote them as though nobody else ever thought of it, as well as not somehow mentioning that the undo chain is broken by such routine actions as saves most times well before the limit of 30 is reached, strikes me as somewhat disingenous.
On second thought, maybe not so WYSWYG after all. Hmm.
Again, Dean Jones:
This is a theme…hey, wait a minute..did you say August? Did you say that XPress V7 is due out in August? Thanks! That’s news I haven’t even seen in the general XPress reportage, never mind from quark.com. Saaay…you don’t have an NDA, do you?
Anyway. Release dates aside, this is just a variation of the theme I’ve seen in other comments on the Upcoming, World Breaking Quark XPress V7 and which I generally whinged about in other commentary here. What’s interesting is the suggestion that I have intentions of moving to CS2 exclusively and that Quark no longer counts.
This is a viewpoint that, personally, I do not have. Perhaps a lot of people do, but despite whatever strides Quark and Adobe make with thier offerings, the way I see it, what you use will depend on a number of things; what you can afford to buy, what the installed workflows will accept, what employers and contractors demand, and what people like to use.
I am fortunate to, at this time, be able to maintain both Adobe and Quark on my system (CS and 6.5 respectively). What I do in the future depends on what is demanded of me and the price; I’m trying to upgrade to CS2 right now, and will move to XPress V7 if I can, income stream and upgrade price being the uncertainties that they are.
The question should be, at this point, not whether or not XPress V7 will blow Adobe out of the water but whether or not XPress will have compelling enough features to cause me to choose to do layout with it over InDesign.
The glimpse at the interface is intriguing, and the promised transparency will be a great boon to Quarkers, but little (if any) of this functionality isn’t available in InDesign. So far, Quark seems to be going for feature parity.
Good on Quark. My final verdict remains in abeyance however.
Even if V7 became a golden goose, sat atop my Mac, and buried both me and it in a metric ton of golden eggs, I still have CS and I still use it for apps. Why should I pull my design activity from it?
Dean Jones:
You got it, pal.
well said Jones.Quark will be back with a bang.…
Hold on guys .….…XPress 7.0 will blow Adobe’s Indesign out of the market.
When Quark finally dies, will these cards be collectors items? I’m keeping mine just in case – otherwise they would be In the trash. All I could say as I read them was,
“Oh my! What planet are they on?”
Quark appears to have missed the mark in a big way. I’m still using Quark, I can do great things with it. But I’m training on InDesign “just in case.”
Now if Quark came out saying how they’d “made the Photoshop of page layout programs,” I’d pay attention. Rather than knock Adobe for InDesign, why not acknowledge what they’re good (Photoshop) at and use *that* as the bar?
It’s one thing to come out swinging and be cocky about your capabilities. It’s entirely another to diss your competition *and* somehow upset their user base in the process – hey, aren’t those *your* potential customers too? Doh!
Humor and angst are at best difficult in marketing. Combining them reduces the tightrope to a thread. Here, the thread snapped. To be honest, I like QuarkXPress and I’m still pulling for the product to remain a force in the industry, but I’m not holding my breath for it, nor closing my eyes to th eoptions.
I am a recently graduated graphic designer and i could not figure out why did quark send me two sets of these “roflmao” card sets. i don’t have quark at home, thank God. but we did have it at school…anyways quark mailing of these cards out taking stabs at Indesign is a joke!!! InDesign Forever!!!!!
A new batch of Quark 6.5 postcards just arrived this week. Like the others, they are promising what InDesign has had for ages: PDF export, PSD import, layers, multiple undos. They really don’t get it, do they?
I friend of mine sent me the link to this message board. I thought I was the only one who’s come to absolutely HATE Quark. I got those postcards and with everyone I read, I became MORE and MORE pissed off. Who are they to criticize a layout and design program that is not only superior to them, but was actually there for designers (at about half the cost may I add) when we NEEDED a layout program to work with OSX???!!!!!
I used Quark for years, and as most designers hated PageMaker, but was forced to switch when OSX came out. I figured it was worth a shot to try InDesign, because after all, PhotoShop is another of my favorite programs and the idea of being able to use the two seamlessly was pretty exciting.
As far as I’m concerned, “Industry Standard” is a cop-out for “afraid of change”. I agree there were some changes I had to learn to work around, but for the most part, as a freelance designer, I love InDesign and don’t miss Quark at all anymore. It’s been what, three years now? If it takes Quark that LONG to get their sh*t together, I want nothing to do with them. I am one of the designers who seriously hopes that the term “industry standard” comes to mean InDesign and that Quark is put in its place (history).
Interestingly as a so-called “pioneer” in the design/computer business, we started with Quark. I even met Fred, who demoed a pre-release of 1.0 that showed color. I asked him if it would release with that feature. I could have sworn he said yes. It didn’t. THEN there was a version that came out that I heard through the grapevine blew up the eproms on the old Lino 100s. Well – we blew up the eprom on our old Lino 100! Not to mention one version that had about onefloppy a week showing up to fix bugs. I think the stack reached about 4 inches high on the desk when I started to suspect someone was not paying attention to things in Denver.
I was also pres. of the Mac user group here and did make some comments that I was leaving them and going to PageMaker. I actually had a call and a visit from one of their sales people and was treated quite nicely. But, all that aside. It has been PageMaker and Now ID – we keep a copy of Quark here in case we HAVE to use it. When I got the postcards, and I did GET several mailings – they were glanced at and trashed. We will NEVER use Quark here as our regular layout program. And the postcards further reinforced that. Whew – felt good to get that off my chest to those who know what I am talking about.
I was one of the lucky recipients of the cards, and I spent a grand total of about 45 seconds looking at them, shaking my head, and tossing them into the trash. Just as the article and more than a few others have mentioned, the content was a great push to InDesign, my first thought being “these guys are the very definition of ‘posers’ ”.
When I upgraded to 6 I determined never to send Quark another cent when they demanded extra to use the same license on my laptop came up with their “one computer per copy, no second platform” policy. I set the timer- that my shop would never send Quark another cent, and would convert completely to InDesign rather than upgrade.
Free or not, 6.5 is not going to see disk space on my machine. Quark doesn’t deserve it, proof of which is openly exhibited by this laughable, moronic, offensive, poser approach to marketing.
I just found this site, via a mention in Electronic Publishing magazine. I have to say that a cursory look through the site doesn’t suppor t the notion that this is a “Quark vs. InDesign” site, but rather a bash Quark site. You may say that Quark deserves all the ill comments it receives, but the site shouldn’t really be put forward as a balanced review and commentary site of the programs when it’s not. Also, a small peeve, but as an editor, it bugs me when the program is constantly referred to as “Quark” – the program ‘s name is XPress. The company is Quark.
Hi, Jon. Thanks for expressing your opinion.
I think, however, that if you give the site more than a “cursory look,” you’ll see plenty of evidence that it’s not about Quark bashing. Don’t just read the most popular articles–many of which are the most popular simply by virtue of the fact that there are so many frustrated Quark users.
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I didn’t read all the comments, but considering how these postcards went to Quark users, this is actually the wrong positioning to use. Frontal attack isn’t the best position to get marketing wise, in this case. No wonder why the responses weren’t that filled with excitement. First of all making shreds of InDesign might make costumers think that their idea of switching is stupid. That makes the costumer feel stupid. This is covered right in Big League Sales Closing Techniques by Les Dan. It also presumes that (1) people ARE going to switch, (2) Quark has to furiously attack Adobe as obviously they are having catching up. The latter instantly positons Quark as number 2. Adobe InDesign is being positioned as part of Creative Suite, and as such its integration with Photoshop (and Illustrator) is great. It’s the innovative solution. Quark is loosing the positioning of “industry standard” and is becoming “the one that ate the dust”. They don’t have anything to integrate with. Their price is worse too. Quark better survey their users to find QuarkXPress strong points and promote them. They should start a “what’s unique” campaign as opposed to a “me-to” campaign.
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At least the postcard campaign provided a laugh, probably the first one ever initiated by Quark. It did reflect the attitude that long-term users have come to expect and loathe. Few of us have forgotten how Quark forced us to remain with OS9 while we watched the developement of all sorts of other software for truly modern OSX from afar. During that time Quark had the nerve to bully us into buying the Xpress 5 upgrade, without which the upgrade to OSX-capable Xpress 6 was unable to handle legacy files. And yet, to this day, I cannot help wondering whether it had ever been necessary to upgrade from Xpress 4.2 at all. All added features, such as bezier drawing tools and web design capabilities were too little too late and had been so poorly implemented that we were better off sticking with the software we had already been using for such purposes.
Engaging in a feature war does not seem a productive marketing strategy for Quark, as Xpress is clearly deficient in that area, and previews of Xpress 7 appear to highlight that fact. Users have been voting with their wallets, and InDesign trainers are much in demand . Quark has underestimated the emotional reactions of XPress users to years of neglect, with nowhere to turn. The decision to switch is no longer based on practical considerations, such as price/feature comparisons, but has become an expression of revolt against being held hostage. And as designers are discovering the joys of working with software designed by people who understand and respect the creative process, they are realizing: we’ve been had.
I can only see a future for Quark if they continue to diligently upgrade their antique Xpress to keep pace with InDesign, and focus on streamlining workflow for large publishing houses. I cannot imagine great support for the program among individual designers and small studios, at least not until a new generation emerges from design schools where they have been blissfully oblivious to the page layout wars.
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I just thought I’d point out that the design of the ads – especially the sans-serif text on a gently curved solid color background – reminds me most distinctly of an Adobe CS box.
No. Seriously. I saw the layout and thought that these were altered images from some Adobe campaign.
Now, I’m not an industry type. I’m a hobbyist at this whole design thing and I bought CS 1 because I got a great academic price on it. What does that tell you about the “mind-share” that Quark must be trying to fight with?
I mean. I’ve seen the XPress logo from v4 and others. It was funky. It was different. I find it interesting that they’ve made the name of it look like the text – not of “Adobe” – but of “Creative Suite”, for this version.
Shmucks.
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Ha, no matter what Quark does, it cannot change the fact that InDesign will be the new Industry Standard. Adobe is monopolizing the whole print and web industry. With there buy out of macromedia and 2007 development of CS3, Quark will be in serious danger 3–5 years down the line. In order for Quark to survive, they must come up with a way to compete with InDesign’s Illustrator functions, PDF exports, mutiple file supports and multiple export options, copy and pasting, individual resize graphic and text boxes, as well as a full range of keyboard shortcuts. Plus more. All what InDesign already has.
InDesign has taken an even bigger leap and has widen the gap into an ocean . And who says Adobe is not developing there next version of InDesign while Xpress 7 is still in development.
The obvious decision for a professional designer is to give up quarky and move on to InDesign
This site is not Quark vs. InDesign. It’s actually fairly obvious that it’s a pro-Adobe site… and while Photoshop and Illustrator dominate the print industry for what they do, nothing assembles elements, has better control over color and is a better value than Quark… besides Quark being the “norm” in the industry.
Well, I’d agree the site has a slight bias towards Adobe, but “nothing assembles elements, has better control over color and is a better value than Quark …”
Really?
For the longest time Quark was priced at $1,500CDN, putting it on a par with the entire Creative Suite. That’s value? How about the “added value” I have to put in on Quark docs that constantly crash, fonts that won’t load, PDFs that won’t generate properly, not being able to place layered PSD files, no opentype/unicode support, horriffic font and EPS rendering …
As far as the “norm” in the industry, from my colleagues around here, ID is becoming the norm. We can actually get work done
Last year, I was working at a newspaper that was stuck with licensed versions of Quark 3.x running on half a dozen older Mac OS 9 boxes. Craving the timesaving functionality of Quark 4.1, I tried everything I could think of– for month– trying to get legitimate licenses for Q4 from Quark. I tried by e‑mail, phone, and fax. We were OFFERING THEM OUR COLD, HARD CASH to upgrade to 4, the most recent version of Quark our old office technology could handle. They wouldn’t do it. Kept trying to upsell me to Q6.5, which of course no machine in the newsroom could run. Talk about a cuckoo’s nest. What kind of company WON’T take your money for a product still in use in the world?
I came back to this link today, after seeing the CS3 sneak peek story, and on the eve of the release of XPress 7.
It was fun to read back through the comments, and to see what’s changed and what hasn’t.
I was an early adopter of ID, and have spent the last few years trying to convert the rest of my company from Quark (and one stubborn PageMaker user!)
Coming soon, we upgrade to a new Intel-based Mac server, and at that time we will standardize on CS3. For me, it was all about the customer service. I had an experience similar to #71 with my personal copy of XPress – trying to upgrade from 4 to 6, they insisted that I had a Windows-based version, when in fact it’s a Mac version. I stopped trying to force my money on them, and over the weekend I’ll be ordering my CS2 upgrade that includes Acrobat 8 and DreamWeaver. W00T!
Anything that pokes fun at a near-monopoly is fine with me. You guys aren’t happy that Quark doesn’t respect Adobe and what it stands for?
You, the Adobe users, don’t even know what Adobe stands for. Are any of you even ofay with the direction the company is heading in or what pies they currently have their fingers in?
Of course you don’t. Because its not in front of you – so who cares right?
Right now Microsoft is gearing up to release various Adobe aimed competitive products. Even attacking Adobe at a grassroots level with the “Metro” file format. You wanted anti competition? Well imagine every copy of Vista sold massively ensuring the adoption of this new application independant printing format is a guaranteed success.
Adobe and Pdf may have just come up against “the wall”. Quark is just a small company and Adobe users gloat over its impending doom. Meanwhile oblivious to their own favourite sone being targeted by the real Big Daddy of the tech market.
haha
Who cares right?
You’re absolutely right. Microsoft just let this one pass by. And yes, a total monopoly is bad no matter who it is. One thing though… Adobe is different from Microsoft and the old Quark because they believe in partnership and licensing. Besides there’s room for every program to co-exists. For example, CorelDraw is very popular with illustrators (the profession not the program), but many think that it’s gone away. In any case, it’s nice to see a different point of view. I disagree with you that this is an “ID fandboy site”. Ironically, the Quark bashing here is not nearly as sever as what you’ll find in Quark’s own forum.
Hi,
Read this now…
but maybe this post card campain was was done by Sicola Martin.
I see a that Quark is listed in the client’s list. The site features the same “controversial” scottish-arts logo.