The Curse of the Magic Pen

We've given them power over our voice and we need to fight to take it back.

Imagine an artist with a magic pen. A tool so powerful, so completely full of ability, that they know they can draw anything with that pen - and they are right. Imagine the work they could make. Imagine the lives they could touch. Imagine the career they could have and the money they could make.

Imagine an artist with a pen that empowers them to realize their ultimate vision. They've struggled for years, and the pen didn't make them great overnight, but after diligent practice and commitment to the pen, eventually it feels like an extension of their mind. All they need to do is think of an idea, and with the pen they can conjure forth an image that perfectly captures their vision. Imagine how that would feel.

Imagine an artist with limitless ability, with a pen so powerful they have transcended their own process – the pen guides them and shows them things they didn't even know they could create. They amaze themselves, as they watch their own hand express ideas they never dreamed they could envision on paper. Even they don't entirely understand how it works.

Imagine an artist with a magic pen. It is the key to their ability. It is the tool they used to create all their masterpieces. It has become their voice. It has become their hand. It is everything.

Now, imagine you could take the pen away from them.

Imagine you could hold it at arm's length and demand a fee for them to borrow it from you. What would they pay you for the chance to keep their voice?

Imagine you broke it in half in front of their eyes. What would they do if you took away their hands?

Imagine you could change the pen, modify how it feels and alter the way it draws. How would you change the artist's art?

Imagine the power you would have over them.

We don't need to imagine this, of course. It's happening right now. All around us, artists are training themselves on patented tools that are rented perpetually for a fee. Their art touches us deeply, and they are empowered by these tools to make their art, but they don't own the tools themselves.

I'm doing this right now. We all are. We're training ourselves to be dependent on tools we can't replace, let alone build for ourselves. We're building a cage around our hands and we'll never own the key.

We are supporting monopolies with the way we train students and hire people in creative fields, too. We’re supporting companies of power by reinforcing the idea that they are the “standard” that should be held up as requisite knowledge. In hiring, where someone might not know anything about the tools but are the one writing job descriptions, there’s a standard being reinforced that people trying to break-in will conform to - a standard being set by people who don’t even do the work.

Why hire based on tools used rather than the process taken or the output? The answer is obvious: efficiency. I spoke about this idea in a previous post: If artists are training themselves to be hired, then the companies, not the artists, shape how art and culture grow and change.

But in a field like the arts, where so many don't work for companies and instead freelance or work in small teams, why do we still tie ourselves so freely to these tools? Why do we give Adobe and their few equivalents so much power over our voices and our art?

Imagine an artist who is a master of learning tools. They’ve mastered no tools in particular, but they have the uncanny ability to pick up a pen - any pen, no matter how plain or obtuse - and figure out how to draw with it. It’s not the pen’s power, it’s the artist’s. They command their tools and the ability comes from within them.

Obviously the monopolies running our world aren't going anywhere overnight. This situation isn’t going to change any time soon - Adobe is working tirelessly to make sure things get worse. I think a more realistic solution is to make sure artists working with digital tools are aware of this. We should, as artists, be working on training ourselves to learn new tools, be flexible, and avoid becoming dependent on companies and products.

Rather than becoming proficient at Adobe Illustrator, you should try to become proficient at design, and learning design software. This gives you sovereignty over your creativity - the ability to cancel your Creative Cloud subscription without losing your hands and your voice.

The current model gives companies power over your creativity (and lets them hold it hostage). Your creativity and experience should inform the tools you use. Your tools shouldn't have any power over what you make or how you do it.

Imagine you could make whatever you imagined, and you didn't need a monthly subscription to keep that power for yourself. Imagine the freedom you would have to create again.

Now stop imagining, and make it real.

Some other ways to make art on your computer.

Part of what makes breaking out of these traps so hard is that the big companies entrench themselves in our lives by buying up and absorbing or shutting down alternatives. But all is not lost just yet.

The Affinity Suite offers parallels to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign for a single, one-time fee. I've been using them off-and-on and the process of trying to switch away from Adobe products to Affinity was what inspired this piece. I'm finding it very hard, and I know it's because I have decades of experience with Adobe products holding me back. That experience is feeling more and more like a trap as I grow to like Adobe as a company less and less.

DaVinci Resolve is a top-notch video editing program that you can download and start working with for free. For some reason, Adobe needs to charge a hobbyist, indie filmmaker and professional editor the same thing for Premiere Pro while this company seems to have a way to let you wait until you're working on Disney movies to charge you like you are. The game engine Game Maker recently adopted a similar pricing model and I think it’s a positive trend toward making tools more accessible.

Blender is a staggering project that is now leading the 3D modelling and animation industries. Blender is so special because it's free and open-source, and operated by a non-profit. This means anyone can work with it and a giant community has grown around it, instead of a giant mass of shareholders. As Adobe products have become buggier and less focused as Adobe crams features that aren't helpful or wanted into their products, Blender is the kind of project that is lead by people who use it and has been consistently improving in amazing ways. As well as being for 3D, Blender is becoming a competent 2D animation tool and can also be used for video editing, compositing and almost anything else - especially if you dig into the add-on community. It’s a great example of how a company that has shareholders to appease grows differently from a company that has removed profit as a motive altogether.

The masters of iPad drawing are the Australian company Savage Interactive and the app Procreate. Procreate is an amazing digital drawing tool that has entirely replaced Photoshop for my pixel-based drawing needs. It's also a one-time purchase, which is crazy considering how cheap it is and how much support it gets. I bought my copy for my iPad 2 – years before the Apple Pencil or iPad Pro existed – and I’m using that same license today for professional work. The newly released Procreate Dreams is their solution to animation and it's a seriously deep app that I'm looking forward to digging into.

If you use Adobe XD, Penpot is a browser-based alternative that is free and open-source. It's a bit tough to use at times and kind of buggy but remember, it's also free. Similarly, Photopea is a browser-based Photoshop clone that is amazingly capable and makes me wonder at Photoshop’s minutes long boot time.

There are so many other options, but the point is not to replace one magic tool with another. The point is to embrace the process of learning new tools as a means of liberating yourself and your art from these monolithic companies that want to control what and how you make.

There's always pen and paper, too! Now go make something!

Love,
Simon