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VERDICT: Powerful and award-winning new versions of InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator – and now Acrobat 8 Professional too.

So here they are – the new professional platforms for both print and web design have arrived...

With Adobe launching four CS3 Design and Web bundles based on no less than nine major applications it’s a massive undertaking - and a lot for everyone to get their head around. Inevitably the initial focus falls on those longstanding graphics and publishing flagships that have given Adobe its stranglehold on the world of design-for-print and that’s what we’re concentrating on: InDesign for high-end publishing and commercial print; Photoshop for professional photo editing and montaging; Illustrator for creative vector drawing and in-depth design; and the Creative Suite 3 Design Standard that brings all three together.
As the individual reviews show each of the new releases is a major upgrade that confirms their best-of-breed status as standalone applications. However these days, it’s comparatively rare that such applications are only used independently. Instead the focus is on larger workflows and here there is a natural logic to combining Photoshop’s bitmaps and Illustrator’s vectors together with InDesign’s text handling and multiple page support. Put it all together and you have an integrated publishing platform that is creative, productive and – especially crucial in the context of commercial print – reliable.
That’s the reasoning behind Adobe’s bundling of the three flagship standalone applications in the core CS3 Design Standard edition, along with the latest version of Bridge CS3 for shared media management. In fact make that four flagships, as with this latest release, Adobe has taken the obvious step of throwing in Acrobat 8 Professional too enabling full use of Acrobat PDF files for document exchange, proofing, preflighting and final hand-off to your printers. With some attractive pricing that makes the suite considerably cheaper than buying or upgrading separately, it’s reasoning that is difficult to argue with - so long as you know that you will actually use all, or at least most, of the applications.
However before you get out your credit card, it’s important to consider what you would be missing out on. Firstly the Design Standard edition doesn’t include the extraordinary new Photoshop CS3 Extended. For print-oriented designers this largely makes sense but, if you’re also interested in 3D or video, you’ll want to get your hands on this extra functionality. More importantly, the CS3 Design Standard edition doesn’t include any web-oriented application and, after its takeover of Macromedia, Adobe is now as strong here as it is in print.
If, like most designers, you produce work for both print and screen you’ll want to check out the reviews to see what Adobe has done with the latest versions of Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks and Contribute before deciding which of the Design and Web suites best meets your needs. However there's no doubt that the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Standard offers some exceptional print-oriented power to be getting on with.

EASE OF USE 4/6
FEATURES 5/6
VALUE FOR MONEY 6/6
OVERALL 5/6