Out of all of the Adobe products in the Creative Suite, Illustrator just might be the least common for designers in Chicago and even for students studying graphic design. Why is that? Perhaps it is because there are many different products in the Creative Suite that a designer can choose from. With so many different products that have similar capabilities, how is one different from the other? What makes one product or program stand out amongst the rest? The answers really can vary. Despite the fact that there are so many different Adobe products on the market today, they all have their specialties, which may help a graphic designer choose one product over another.
While it may not be as commonly used as we think it should be, Illustrator should be one of the most essential products for a graphic design company, especially creative agencies specializing in logo designs. Illustrator focuses on vector artwork and even has 3-dimentional capabilities. The main focal point in illustrator is creating vector images that can be used in many different types of design pieces. Vector images consist of vectors, which are lines, shapes and paths. Creating vector images gives graphic designers the ability to manipulate the size of the image without losing the quality of the image.
A computer display is made up of a grid service that is measured in pixels. A picture is made up of all those cells and can be measured in pixels. The smaller and closer the cells are together, the higher the amount of pixels and the better the quality/resolution of the image. When creating a design piece, graphic designers always need to consider the resolution of the images they use in order to create a successful design piece. Images with high pixel resolution are typically large in size compared to vector images. Because of the size they can often times be difficult to transfer, especially over the web. Vector images are high quality images that are much easier for graphic designers to transport since the files are smaller.
When preparing to print a design piece, images cannot be in vector format. In order to use a vector image in a printed design piece, graphic designers need to convert all vector images into raster format (pixels). Once converted you will notice the high quality of the image. Transforming an image from vector format to raster format is fairly simple, reversing the transition. When using these multiple file types, always be sure to save all original files.
As mentioned above, the most common use of Adobe Illustrator and vector artwork is creating logos. A logo needs to be created in vector format so that it will look its best whether it is at its smallest size (if it is placed on a pen) or at its largest size (if it is placed on a blimp). No matter how big or how small that logo shrinks down, it will always translate perfectly. As graphic designers and logo creators, we are extremely picky about the logos we create. We like to make sure that our logos looks just as incredible at their smallest size as they do at their largest size.
For more information on our Logo Design Services, visit our logo design blog or feel free to contact us.