Quark should have paid attention to the uproar at Adobe for Acrobat's "send to Kinko's" button. Taking bread out of the mouths of its users will cause even more users to abandon Quark for Adobe.

Quark lost their market share when they failed to update the app for OS X. We moved to InDesign as soon as Quark dropped the ball; so this is no skin off my nose.

This is a very risky marketing idea by someone at Quark. DIY design? not very thoughtful to any designers still using and promoting Quark. A print customer that wants to do it all themselves, hmmmm I would be suspicious of a customer that had that much time on their hands.

Someone had a really dumb idea over at Quark and decided to compete with the very audience that has made them a success. I'm delighted so many designers are no longer using their product. They deserve it.

Yet another reason I am so glad my studio switched to InDesign, after using Quark for 16 years.

With all due respect, is Quark even relevant anymore?

Graphic designers should seize this opportunity to productize their skill.
There is more money to be made from multiple small increments than through a single fee. This does not cut into the revenue from identity design. I speak from experience as a font designer: it's nice to do commissioned work for a fee (preferably up front), but in the long run the same amount of work is more profitable, creating intellectual property that will generate revenue all over the internet, far into the future.

"Graphic designers should seize this opportunity to productize their skill."

That's an interesting idea. Does anyone know of a formula that helps you decide what fee you need to receive per product (font sale, template sale, etc.) to make a profit?

Terri Stone
Editor in Chief, CreativePro.com

Quark is our profession's version of Kodak.

Although I really disagree with the whole idea of helping foster MORE untrained, unskilled people out there creating MORE bad designs and lowering the valued need of REAL graphic designers...I also don't think this is that much different than all the other programs out there that include templates with their software OR even printers/shops, etc that provide templates to download from their websites for their non-designer customers use...At least Quark is attempting to go one step further by including some type of directory of graphic designers. But even that is biasing others in the industry who are not included in any directory. Just stick with what you are good at, developing software. Add more features if you want to make your product easier to use for your target market of consumers - GRAPHIC DESIGNERS!

I still use Quark version 7 but am baulking at the upgrade cost to version 8. Reading this makes me seriously consider switching to InDesign even though it is incredibly clunky to use compared to Quark - at least my files will be more compatible and my costs contained. Allowing users to download templates is no different to my head office having a copy of Illustrator on their hard drive and using the supplied templates for their business stationery. Still trying to convince them it was not a good idea in the first place and the resulting design is so boring why would you bother wasting half a day to create it in the first place? I thought Quark were getting somewhere by allowing us to create Flash files and web pages direct from a Quark document in version 8 but this creates a feeling of ill-will because I have enough trouble now convincing clients that design has a value - not a freebie included in the print cost.

Expecting Quark to care about its customers is like expecting a pig to talk. I gave up on Quark a long time ago, and anyone who still uses their products deserves what they get.

What a tale of hubris. Quark will be belly up soon and they only have themselves to blame. They were always arrogant and dismissive of their customer base the graphic designers of the world. As someone said above, who cares about this desperation move. I don't know anyone who even uses Quark XPress any more.

I'm not entirely convinced that the small businesses that this appears to be targeted at are really using professional designers right now if what comes through my door is anything to go by i.e. black and white, badly formatted Word documents. So while I'm sure there is some small percentage of the market for this QuarkPromote service that might otherwise have used professional designers, chances are what this will replace is poor design in Microsoft Word because designers weren't getting this business anyway. So if Quark eventually has some way for other designers to build these design templates and make money from doing so, I'm sure how this is bad for designers? It seems to me it's more likely to lead to more work for designers over time. Bear in mind that VistaPrint have been doing something like this for several years now and they're a half a billion dollar company so it can't be that stupid an idea.

I do concede I appear to be out-numbered in that view though :-)

I think that's a valid point. of course if this Quark promote thing is successful it kind of proves that these small businesses do think design is worth paying for or arguably they would carry on doing it themselves. However maybe Quark should think about a charging model for higher value designs in the future or perhaps there's opportunity for one-off designs for customer's that are still excecuted through this service. Lot's of good things to ponder and for Quark to think about too if they read these posts.

Thanks so much for your input, Jim.

Terri Stone
Editor in Chief, CreativePro.com