What is Adobe Illustrator?
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editing program published by Adobe. It is useful for designing logos, clip art, blueprints, and other precise, resolution-independent illustrations.
Adobe Illustrator History
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe’s first software application, was released in 1987 for the Apple Macintosh. Among its most significant features was its pen tool, which enabled the user to draw smooth curves and create high-resolution shapes and images. In 1989 Adobe released Illustrator for Microsoft Windows personal computers.
Adobe Illustrator Version History
Adobe Illustrator started its journey 36 years ago and still going on as the most popular user-friendly software in the whole world. But It’s not free you have to paid for subscription monthly or yearly to use it all time but in the subsequent you will get online adobe cloud storage library with adobe stock support and etc. Adobe Illustrator start its journey with macOS software then year later Windows software came. But now it supports almost every device and systems. Adobe Illustrator also has a lighter version Adobe Illustrator App for Android and iOS.
| Adobe Illustrator all software version information | ||||
| Version | Release Date | Logo | Platforms | Important Features Added |
| Illustrator 1.0 | January 1987 |  | Classic Mac OS | |
| Illustrator 1.1 | March 1987 | | Classic Mac OS | |
| Illustrator 88 | March 1988 |  | Classic Mac OS | |
| Illustrator 2.0 | January 1989 |  | Windows | |
| Illustrator 3 | October 1990 |  | Classic Mac OS, NeXT, other Unixes | |
| Illustrator 4 | May 1992 |  | Windows | |
| Illustrator 4.5 | 1993 |  | Solaris | |
| Illustrator 5 | June 1994 |  | Classic Mac OS, Solaris | Spell checker, find/replace text function |
| Illustrator 6 | February 1996 | | Classic Mac OS | |
| Illustrator 7 | May 1997 |  | Mac/Windows | Tabbed dockable palettes, transform palette, align palette, Photoshop pixel filters, rasterize, punk, bloat, free distort, layout grid, vertical text tool, reshape tool |
| Illustrator 8 | September 1998 | | Pencil tool, bounding box handles, smart guides, actions palette, bitmap eyedropper, gradient mesh, live brushes, links palette | |
| Illustrator 9 | June 2000 | | Flash & SVG output, pixel preview, release to layers, drop shadows, transparency, feathering, opacity & layer mask, native PDF support | |
| Illustrator 10 | November 2001 |  | ive pathfinder shapes, symbols, slicing, css layer support, ODBC data link, variables palette, save for web, live distortion, warping, envelopes (warp/mesh/top object), liquify tools, grid/line/arc/polar grid tools, flare tool, magic wand | |
| Illustrator CS | October 2003 |  | 3D effect, OpenType support, character & paragraph styles, template file format, scribble effect, columns & rows, optical kerning, optical margins, every-line composer, custom tab leaders, WYSIWYG font menu, Japanese type support, path type option, save for Microsoft Office | |
| Illustrator CS2 | April 27, 2005 |  | Live trace, live paint, colorized grayscale, Photoshop layer support, expanded stroke options, control palette, Adobe Bridge support, Wacom tablet support, SVG-t export, PDF/X export, released with an official serial number because of the technical glitch | |
| Illustrator CS3 | April 2007 |  | Live color, Flash integration, eraser tool, document profiles, crop area, isolation mode | |
| Illustrator CS4 | October 2008 |  | Multiple artboards, transparency in gradients, blob brush, live gradient editing, separations previews, in-palette appearance editing | |
| Illustrator CS5 | May 2010 |  | Perspective drawing tools, variable-width strokes, control over opacity in points on gradient meshes, shape builder tool (similar to pathfinder tools) and a bristle brush, which enables users to imitate real life brush strokes while maintaining vector format. | |
| Illustrator CS6 | May 2012 |  | Adobe Mercury Performance System, 64-bit memory support, new user interface, gradient on a stroke, pattern creator tool, ImageTrace (replaces Live Trace) | |
| Illustrator CC | June 2013 |  | Deeper Creative Cloud integration (font, color palette and settings syncing, Behance integration), new typing capabilities, multiple file place, images in brushes, CSS extraction | |
| Illustrator CC 2014 | June 2014 |  | Live Rectangles, pen rubberband, bezier handles no longer grid-snap, Windows GPU performance | |
| Illustrator CC 2015 | June 2015 | | Linked assets in Libraries, Adobe Stock integration, Faster [zoom/pan/scroll], Safe mode, file data recovery, GPU performance, tool and workspace enhancements, Charts preview | |
| Illustrator CC 2017 | November 2016 | | Improved alignment tools, find fonts faster, work easier with glyphs, easy access to templates including free Adobe Stock templates, archive and restore all your assets stored in Creative Cloud, introducing Typekit Marketplace, see a live preview by hovering over the font list with selected text, zoom to selection, flat UI and new icons | |
| Illustrator CC 2018 | October 2017 | | Properties panel; Puppet Warp; 1000 artboards; Variable and SVG color font support; MacBook touchbar support | |
| Illustrator CC 2019 | October 2018 | | Freeform Gradients; Global Edit; Trim View; Scalable UI; customizable toolbars; Content-Aware Crop; Presentation Mode; enhanced visual font browsing; external GPU support; stability enhancements. | |
| Illustrator 2020 | October 2019 | | Improved File Handling; Improved UI; Background File Saving; faster rendering of effects and live previews; more efficient path simplification; spell check; Performance improvements. | |
| Illustrator 2021 | October 2020 |  | Recolor artwork, enhanced cloud documents, Metal GPU rendering; repeat objects (read-only support) | |
| Illustrator 2022 | October 2021 | | 3D and materials, share for commenting, simplified variable width strokes, text attributes in Select Same, HEIF/WebP support, Auto-font activation. | |
| Illustrator 2023 (27.0) | October 2022 | | Intertwine, Quick Actions, share for review (Beta), pasting text from Illustrator to InDesign retains formatting, Actions panel reformatted, additional 3D object export formats | |
| Illustrator 2023 (27.6) | May 2023 | | Generative AI recoloring (beta); Retype font identification (beta); Image Trace improvements; search & filter Layers; export as WebP; retain hyperlinks in exported PDFs | |
How Adobe Illustrator Work?
Adobe Illustrator is a popular software application used by artists and graphic designers to create vector graphics. Adobe released the first version of Illustrator in 1987, and the application has gone through many iterations since then, establishing itself as a staple in graphic design.
It offers sophisticated digital drawing tools for creating vector-based illustrations, icons, typography, logos, and another artwork. Adobe Illustrator is one of the software applications included in Adobe Creative Cloud. It is popular for personal art and entertainment, as well as business branding and design.
Who Uses Adobe Illustrator?
Graphic artists, graphics designers, digital artist, social media content design, add design, design printing users, creative professional to create new or modify high-quality vector graphics. Stand-alone graphics can be created and exported for use within other programs.
What Are Adobe Illustrator’s Features?
Adobe Illustrator is a robust application with a wide array of features and tools for designers. Some of Illustrator’s core capabilities include:
- The ability to draw freehand with a variety of digital brushes, pencils, and pens.
- Advanced color options for creating color palettes, filling shapes, using gradient color schemes, and mixing different color effects.
- A “Layer’s” feature that allows you to split the components of your design across different layers, making it easy to edit one layer without impacting the others.
- A grid feature with anchor points and “snapping” capabilities, allowing you to easily align shapes and lines with accuracy.
- Cloud libraries where you can gather and store all of your design assets for a project — such as colors, brushes, graphics, text, and character styles — in one accessible place, making it easy to pick up in the middle of a project.
- A library of available fonts with a search capability so you can find the perfect font types to use for your projects.
- Tools to quickly create geometric shapes, adjust curvatures, and manipulate lines.
Here are some of the most common tools group
- Selection Tools
- Selection Tool [V] lets you select an object or a group of objects to move and resize.
- Direct Selection Tool [A] lets you select anchor points and path segments to reshape objects.
- Draw Tools
- Pen Tool [P]lets you draw connected lines and curves with precision using anchor points and direction handles.
- Pencil Tool [N]lets you draw freehand paths like drawing with a pencil.
- Anchor Point Tool [Shift+C] lets you convert from corner points to smooth anchor points, and adjust the direction handles if smooth.
- Curvature Tool [Shift+~] lets you draw and edit connected lines and curves easily using anchor points.
- Paint Tools
- Gradient Tool [G]lets you create a gradual blend between colors.
- Shape Builder Tool [Shift+M] lets you create complex shapes by merging and erasing simpler objects.
- Retouching Tools
- Spot Healing Brush Tool is used to remove imperfections and defective parts of your picture.
- Healing Brush Tool allows fixing larger defects by overpainting them.
- Clone Stamp Tool is aimed to remove objects in Illustrator. It samples pixels from one zone of the project to paint another zone with pixels.
- Live Paint Bucket Tool [K]lets you create a Live Paint group and apply color, patterns, or gradients to different elements.
- Text Tools
- Type Tool [T]lets you enter text at a point or in an area.
- Area Type Tool lets you use the boundaries of objects to enter and control the flow of text.
- Type On a Path Tool lets you enter text along the shape of a path.
- Modify Tools
- Rotate Tool [R]lets you rotate an object around a reference point.
- Reflect Tool [O]lets you flip an object over a reference point.
- Reshape Tool lets you reshape a path relative to an anchor point on the path.
And there are so many effects, pattern, styles, filters and many more which are equally important in graphics designing projects.
What Are the Benefits of Using Illustrator?
Whether you’re in manufacturing, the restaurant industry or automotive sales, your business can likely benefit from using Illustrator.
Complete creative control Adobe Illustrator gives you the ability to customize vector graphics and more to fit your brand’s specific needs. With style presets, creating consistent brand assets is a breeze. Illustrator supports many file types and invites collaboration, ensuring accessibility to every designer on your team.
It is completely scalable you have zero resolution issues when working with Adobe Illustrator. Because the graphics are based on mathematics equations instead of stored pixels, you’re always given sharp, crisp lines that are print-ready in any dimension. You never lose resolution when you’re working with graphics through this program, which means you have much more versatility when designing multimedia for various purposes.
Versatility of file types vector graphics aren’t the only format Illustrator can handle. While PSD (Illustrator Document) is master file type, these are some other file formats Illustrator can work with and export:
Photos – JPEG, TIFF, PNG, SVG
Documents – PDF, etc
To Download & Install Adobe Illustrator
It’s too easy to installing Adobe Illustrator for the first time in any device you just have to go Adobe website (https://www.adobe.com) and search for Adobe Illustrator then download (https://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/free-trial-download.html) Illustrator. Then it will download Adobe Creative Cloud installer after installing it is will ask you to login or create an Adobe account if you already have an account then login or create an account then login. After that you can start 7 days free trial or get the Adobe subscription (Adobe Illustrator Single App – US $20.99/mo – Get Illustrator on desktop and iPad as part of Creative Cloud. [https://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator.html]) there are many ways to purchase the subscription. After selecting your relevant subscription, you are ready to use Adobe Illustrator.
