Nova Art Explosion 800,000 Clip Art

This collection of images, fonts, and whatnot is truly extensive. The enclosed drawing program, DrawPlus 5, I'd like to call "Illustrator Lite"; it has some functionality (you can export your work as GIFs, TIFFs, JPEGs, and such), but its usefulness will only get you so far until you'd have to upgrade to the real deal.

As far as the clipart and photos go, this is no ordinary collection. If you're a desktop publisher or graphic arts moonlighter (aspiring to full time), this is a gigantic amount of material to use for your clients. The pictures are fantastic, the clipart is comprehensive--you'd probably find just about anything you can think of, or at least have the basic building blocks to customize what you need--and the fonts are a nice extra. However, most of the fonts in this collection you'd probably already have, especially if you have MS Publisher or any Adobe product (who has the best font set in the market).

I have issues with the catalog search engine. It's useful up to a point, but I don't end up using it much. If you have Windows XP, you'll be using the Windows Explorer photo feature more than the search engine, anyway. The image book (thank gods!) that comes with this set is the size of your average Merriam-Webster dictionary, and it's ESSENTIAL for this collection. The CDs are arranged in the exact order that the images appear in in the book, so using the book, then using Windows Explorer will be a much better searching feature than the included search engine program.

For Macintosh users, there are instructions in the book as to how to use the discs. I can't attest to it, but I assume you can use the CDs in Macs as well as you can use them in a regular PC.

The big blue book (the book is big and it's blue) doesn't have an extensive listing of the photos on the CDs. What you see in the book is only a representation of the category; you'll have to search the entire disk to find specific images that you want to use. Thus, you're browsing blind as far as the book is concerned.

All in all, a wonderful comprehensive library of images.

P.S. Note to Pagans: the images in this collection are rather stereotypical. (I.E. green-faced witches, mostly cartoonish wizards, etc.) No specifically named clipart pics point to "our" holidays, even though they have an "other holiday" category in the set. However, the mythology clipart is extensive, colorful and tasteful. From those sets and other parts of the collection, you should be able to either find, adapt, or customize the art you need for specific Pagan-centered projects. Bright Blessings and happy desktop publishing!


Don't be impressed with quantity.   July 11, 2005
Larry Latham (Tulsa, OK United States)
45 out of 54 found this review helpful

My IT person bought this and I can only think he must have been impressed by the huge AMOUNT of clip art. Most of it is useless, what we used to call "nephew art," as in "My nephew is only 12, but you should see him draw." There are good pieces, many of which decorate the box, but I have found the collection overall fairly useless. It's clumsy to navigate, as are other clip art collections, but my main complaint is just the poor quality of the clips. As an example, out of over 90 leprechauns, there wasn't a single one of even a low level of professional quality. It's easier to draw something myself. Even the smallest of church and company newsletters would do better to explore other options



Was ready to Explode!   March 8, 2005
S. Fuoco
26 out of 30 found this review helpful

Purchased Nova 800,000 Clip Art and was very disappointed in the quality of the clip art and extremely labor intensive navigation system. After working with the software for about an hour I was ready to Explode! If you have nothing but time on your hands then you may enjoy the program. Just not user friendly!
Thank you Amazon.com for the excellent customer service and speedy refund!


Very Well Organized, Easy to Use   November 17, 2004
Troy Chang (Los Angeles, CA)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful

I own a number of clip art products, and Art Explosion 800,000 is by far the best. I've seen them bigger but never better. I run a freelance design business, and the quality of the graphics I use is of critical importance. I can tell you that the quality of the graphics in Art Explosion 800,000 is first-rate.

It's true that there's no online searching, but it's also true that you don't need it. I've found that other clip art publishers use searching as a crutch. You see, so many products are so poorly organized that the only way you have a hope of finding a useful image is with a sophisticated searching tool. Not true with Art Explosion. Art Explosion 800,000 is impecably well organized by category and subcategory. Absolutely everything is exactly where you'd expect to find it - and the images are listed in plain English (not the old DOS 8-dot-3 file names you still find in most other collections). So it's as easy as it gets.

No question that this product is at the top of its game for good reason. I definitely recommend it.


Holy Cow, what a bad search function   September 4, 2004
Fraoch (Wisconsin)
22 out of 23 found this review helpful

This product has a lot of images. If you have a LOT of time to go thru them, it may be useful. There is NO, repeat, NO, searchablitiy by keyword. None. If you are looking for something that might have to do with say money, you get the book, look in the brief index - which does not cover the photographs at all by the way - and then go look on the various (and few) pages listed by each word in the index. Then you need to determine which disk that the image might be on.

If you want to find a photo, prepare to sit down and start going thru the cds. The book, which they tout as a great way to see previews of the images, includes only has a sample photo from each of the "categories" of photos - so you are NOT getting a thumbnail of all the photos in the book.

For someone who wants to quickly look up a keyword and see what images they might have to offer - this is worse than worthless because you know that on the 34 disks, there's probably something there you could use, but there's no way a normal person who probably has some time demands is going to sit and play around putting in disk after disk and browsing. So you are frustrated knowing there's probably something for you, but you just don't have the time to mess around looking.

If you need a photo of say, a senior citizen, and you have unlimited time, you're probably just as well off taking one yourself.

It wouldn't be that difficult for these folks to put together some kind of a search utility that might actually render the product useful. Perhaps an image gallery online. Hopefully they will put it together and stop wasting our money and time.