start with graphite

Adobe pretty much has a monopoly on the good graphic design software, right?

yes.

but until I get to the point where I can afford and justify giving in to their dominion, I've got Inkscape. I never did figure out Illustrator all that well during my brief full-time design work. Photoshop was always easier for me. but today, in my opensource version of Illustrator, I turned this grimy little sketch...

into this little collection of bezier curves:

with which I shall now be able to do awesome things. like... designing business cards that won't end up looking like a scruffy pencil sketch when you print them. and stuff.

someday, the whole world will be open source. I hope somebody out there is working on something like InDesign. I miss it most of all.

you can get inkscape for yourself here.