Adobe Illustrator CC | Graphic Design Software Overview

What is Adobe Illustrator?

Adobe Illustrator is the world’s most powerful vector-based drawing software.  It’s also part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud, which is a collection of Adobe desktop and mobile apps for creatives.

Illustrator is popular for its capability to create pixel-perfect designs which use mathematical equations and geometric primitives (points, lines, and shapes) to create artwork that can be scaled infinitely – without any loss of quality.

Why use Adobe Illustrator? 

“Adobe Illustrator is the industry-stand vector graphics application that lets you create logos, icons, drawings, typography, and illustrations for print, web, video, and mobile.” – Adobe.com

What does this mean?

Well, simply put:

Illustrations, Designs, and Digital Art created in Illustrator can be scaled down for mobile screens, and scaled up to billboard size (or bigger!) – and always look crisp and beautiful.

Millions of designers and artists use Illustrator CC to create everything from web icons and product packaging to book illustrations and billboards.

What is Adobe Illustrator Used For?

Whether you’ve known it or not, you’ve seen examples of Illustrators’ work everywhere:

Adobe Illustrator Features List

Illustrator is one of Adobe’s flagship programs, so they make sure that it’s always getting better…

This is great news for us, as they’re consistently rolling out new features:

And if you have a Creative Cloud membership, you get those features as soon as they release them.

What’s more… users have access to over 90 million high quality images, templates, graphics, and other creative assets.  

In fact, Financesonline.com shows that Adobe Illustrator CC has a user satisfaction rating of 99% – making it number 1 on the list of most popular graphic design software programs.

Adobe Plans & Pricing

Adobe offers a few different pricing plans when licensing their products.

Let’s break it down:

For individuals, Illustrator can be licensed for use as a single app (currently for $20.99/month), or bundled as part of Adobe’s most popular Creative Cloud plan (currently $52.99/month).  

One license gives you the ability to use the program(s) on 2 separate computers.

Plus… everybody loves a discount, right?

They offer a fantastic 60% discount for students and teachers, as well as discounts for businesses, schools, and universities… each coming with their own unique licenses. 

Check out Adobe Creative Cloud’s plans and pricing page for details.

Getting Started with Adobe Illustrator

If you’re new to the world of Illustrator, check out this great video by Terry White of Adobe Creative Cloud TV:

How To Get Started With Adobe Illustrator CC – 10 Things Beginners Want To Know How To Do

In this excellent overview video, Terry covers everything beginners need to know in order to get started with working in Adobe Illustrator, including:

Final Thoughts

Though it can have a somewhat complicated learning curve… the PROS far outweigh the CONS when it comes to what’s possible with Adobe Illustrator.

It’s huge selection of tools, filters, and effects make it versatile and powerful… and having the ability to scale your artwork indefinitely without quality loss – the possibilities are literally endless.

So, it’s not hard to understand why Adobe Illustrator is the preferred graphics software by artists and designers around the world.

As Adobe says… “Illustrator is all around you.”

How about you?

Do you use Adobe Illustrator for your design work?  Any thoughts you’d like to share about what makes it the right (or wrong) design application for you?