As most parents will know, young children are creative little things. When they can't draw on paper, they are apt to head for the nearest wall, crayon in hand, to create a mural for Mummy and Daddy to enjoy. One way of keeping the decorating bills down is to channel all that creative energy into something more confined, such as a computer screen. Aimed at 5-12 year-olds, Print Artist Junior is intended to be the virtual equivalent of the crayon and wall. Via a brightly-coloured interface, it allows children to create a variety of colourful designs that can, assuming you have a colour printer, be printed out onto paper, card, or the stickers that are included in the box.

Containing over 5,000 colourful, simple graphics images, Print Artist Junior takes the user through the creation process step by step, using templates for greetings cards, post cards, masks, posters and so on. First you select the template, then the border, then a few effects, perhaps a dash of fancy text and, if you're lucky, you end up with something considerably more imaginative than the mask shown in the screenshot below. It is possible to import photographs, too, while finished designs can be printed out in colour or in 'colouring book' outline mode. Your designs can be saved, along with your name, so several children can use the same piece of software to create their own unique designs.

There's no doubt that it is possible to create some impressive-looking cards, masks, stickers, wrapping paper and all sorts of other stationery paraphernalia using this software package. But the interface is at times clumsy, particularly for dragging and dropping text, or for selecting objects to move or re-size. The latter is especially troublesome as each item on a page, be it a balloon, alien face or piece of text, is treated as a separate object that can be manipulated at will. This is great for flexibility, but 5 year-olds aren't known for their manual dexterity, so selecting the right part of a complex image can be a little tricky. Until the little ones get used to it, parental guidance is advised, as freshly-papered walls are considerably more user-friendly. As with programming the video, though, it shouldn't be too long before they get the hang of it.

Verdict
Print Artist Junior allows children to create quite impressive printed designs without a great deal of trouble. Its user interface, while apparently simple, can occasionally be confusing, particularly since the drawing objects are, well, objects. A 'paint and forget' approach with plenty of Undo steps might have been easier to navigate. It's fun, nonetheless.

Company: Sierra Home

Contact: 0118 920 9100

Tags: printer (computing) mask postcard child shopping gifts stationery greeting cards