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What Is Adobe Illustrator?

Graphic design software used for logos, illustrations, graphics, and icons. It helps designers with creating designs, collaborating with team members, and sharing their designs in any format. Features of the platform include global edits, repeat for patterns, vector designs, recolor, customizable effects, and 3D design.

Who Uses Adobe Illustrator?

Not provided by vendor

Adobe Illustrator Software - Adobe Illustrator main interface
Adobe Illustrator Software - Adobe Illustrator colors
Adobe Illustrator Software - Adobe Illustrator transform effect

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Reviews of Adobe Illustrator

Average score

Overall
4.8
Ease of Use
4.0
Customer Service
4.3
Features
4.7
Value for Money
4.3

Reviews by company size (employees)

  • <50
  • 51-200
  • 201-1,000
  • >1,001
Jeffrey
Jeffrey
Founder in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Retail, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Illustrator - the standard for graphic design

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: Overall my experience has been great. I definitely recommend AI if you are serious about design. It can handle any area of design and is a workhorse of a program - it is very flexible. But with great flexibility, comes great complexity. So, therefore, even though I have a pretty good understanding of how to use Illustrator, there's still more for me to learn after many years. Not to mention they always add new features. And I still have to take some time to creatively express exactly what I envision. For this reason, I also use Affinity Designer on my Mac, alongside illustrator. The reason is, Affinity Designer is much more simple and certain tasks are quicker with Affinity. However, anytime I need to do more complex stuff, such

Pros:

The nice thing about Adobe Illustrator is you can do anything you want, as far as manipulating graphics and creating any digital artwork or illustration imaginable. It's so versatile in what you can do, that it also can seem very complex to the novice. But if you stick with it and use it consistently or take some tutorials, once you learn the ins and outs of Adobe Illustrator, you begin to realize what it's capable of. I have used Inkscape and affinity designer and though I use affinity designer (due to the simplicity and quickness at some tasks), I always turn to Adobe Illustrator when I need to do more complex tasks. I am old school, and typically like drawing by hand. The great thing about digital design is you can still get a tablet and draw by hand if you like. This is obvious to many people but some may not be aware or haven't made the jump over to trying a drawing tablet yet. If you haven't tried one and you love drawing with traditional media, you are going to love working with a tablet in Illustrator.

Cons:

The biggest con I can think of is the learning curve. When first starting to use Adobe Illustrator is it can seem very complex. So when you're new, is a pretty big learning curve. With that said, I still am learning after 5+ years. For this reason, I recommend taking some tutorials or classes to understand what illustrator is capable of and for learning what every tool does. Taking tutorials also gives you an insight into how to creatively use tools for different purposes. I know when I first learned Illustrator. I had a good idea of what most tools did. But I just wasn't aware of the different use cases on how to creatively construct my artwork, actually using the tools. It was something that slowed me down, compared to just grabbing a pencil and paper and sketching out my vision. But once you learn to use the different tools together, you start to get a flow going and you get quicker with time.

Samuel
Samuel
Founder and CEO in UK
Verified LinkedIn User
Internet, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Adobe Illustrator a Vector based designing software

5.0 4 months ago

Comments: Generally Illustrator is the best photo editing software after photoshop. Adobe Illustrator has a large market and you can easily find designers.

Pros:

The ease of use. The free trial. The AI features. Vector images. Collaboration. Syncing projects into Adobe Creative Cloud. Can open multiple files. Animation. Gif making. Open mulitple image files. Export into many formats.

Cons:

May be Heavyweight on a small pc. You need Adobe CC license to do more.

Caroline
Head of Communication in Kenya
Government Administration, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Review of Adobe Illustrator

4.0 last month New

Comments: My overall experience with Adobe Illustrator has been great. However, I notice that my levels of creativity are average, which means I take longer than necessary to produce a great graphic design project.

Pros:

Adobe Illustrator is very powerful for producing vector graphics like logos that can be scaled without losing quality. Its tools are awesome, especially for a professional graphic designer.

Cons:

Learning Adobe Illustrator can be steep for non-graphic designers. Those new to graphic design can be quickly discouraged when starting out. You need a lot of creativity to use the tools and produce awesome graphics. Few people have very high creativity.

Chibuike
Chibuike
Head of IT and Support in Nigeria
Verified LinkedIn User
Professional Training & Coaching, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

My Adobe Illustrator Review

3.0 2 years ago

Comments: Adobe Illustrator has given me a platform to express my creativity and progress it. I have designed mind-blowing logos, branded businesses, and designed presentations, and vector icons. it is the best vector design in the market.

Pros:

Each version of Adobe Illustrator keeps getting better than the previous. I have been using it for more than 1o year and it keeps getting better. I love the Image Tracing feature than can vectorize and raster images. It even has more features. You can also stay organise by creating and customizing layers and artboards.

Cons:

I hate it when it crashes when I'm working. I've been in a situation when I was designing a presentation. I saved the file properly and tried opening it afterward but it refuses to open. It said something that my file was corrupt. If the file is corrupt, why should it still be having a .ai extension

Mohammed Sajid
Graphic Designer in Canada
Design, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Pricey, but best out there

5.0 3 months ago

Comments: My experience has been not just satisfactory, but I'd say Illustrator has exceeded my expectations. I learnt graphic designing long back with Coreldraw, and later my job required me to travel a lot, and I came to realize that the industry prefers Illustrator to Coreldraw, and I was forced to learn it. The interesting thing was that it did not really take me a lot of time to get the grasp of it, so it's user friendly as well. Now I can't think of any other software when it comes to vector designing. Illustrator is my go-to software for the majority of my designing needs.

Pros:

There are quite a few aspects of Illustrator that I'm fond of, but what I like the most is its integration capability with other Adobe Products, and since I use multiple Adobe products like InDesign & Photoshop, I can affirm with complete confidence that it works seamlessly with these other applications, facilitating a smooth workflow across different design and media projects.

Cons:

I'd expect it to be a one time purchase product than a subscription service. Yes, it is powerful, intuitive, and can get the job done like no other software in the designing fraternity, but it's expensive. Since it is available through a subscription model, it requires a monthly or annual fee, and I'm sure a vast majority of people like me would prefer a one-time purchase option for this software.