Adobe Illustrator blog

Join Brenda Sutherland, Illustrator product manager, as she shares a new sneak peek into gradients on strokes in Illustrator CS6, part of Creative Suite CS6 and Adobe Creative Cloud.

Strokes are core to drawing in Illustrator, and for Illustrator CS6, the ability to apply gradients on strokes will let designers transform simple paths into visually complex and compelling shapes.

The beauty of this approach, beyond the imaginative artwork that can be created, is that the shape that’s created is an easily edited stroke, not the typical shape that’s defined by many points.

In Illustrator CS6, gradients on strokes can be applied along the length, across the width, or within a stroke, but the real magic happens when these new gradients are combined with the variable width stroke feature introduced in CS5.

Watch the video on Adobe TV.

 

Join Brenda Sutherland, Illustrator product manager, as she shares a sneak peek into what’s coming for Illustrator CS6 as part of Creative Suite CS6 and Adobe Creative Cloud.

Brenda is showing Illustrator CS6′s new approach to crafting seamless, repeating vector patterns. On-artboard controls let you create and edit patterns interactively. One-click tiling arrangements let you experiment quickly so you can spend more time being creative and less on planning.

If you’ve ever struggled with creating seamless patterns in Illustrator (and I know I have), you’re going to love this new way of working.

Watch the video on Adobe TV or read the article and watch the video on Adobe Design Center.

Adobe’s first software product is as relevant today as it was when it first launched.

When Adobe® Illustrator® shipped on March 19, 1987, it was the first software application for a young company that had, until then, focused solely on Adobe PostScript®. The new product not only altered Adobe’s course dramatically, it changed drawing and line art forever.

Adobe Co-Founder John Warnock first conceived of Illustrator as a PostScript drawing tool. He saw parallels between what his wife Marva, a graphic artist, created with pen and paper and what PostScript printed with dots on paper. John recognized that PostScript’s Bézier curves could be applied to the shapes illustrators painstakingly created by hand, so he set out to develop a drawing application.

Today, it’s hard to imagine getting through even a part of our day without seeing the influence of Illustrator.

“Most people have no idea how many things in their lives were created in Illustrator. It’s not just packaging and logo design, it’s maps, car dashboards, shoes and watches,” said Brenda Sutherland, product manager, Adobe Illustrator. “From paper dolls to online avatars, from animated cartoons to collectable characters, Illustrator has touched us all.”

A New Level of Creative Freedom

Adobe Illustrator gave designers an entirely new level of creative freedom, so they could focus on what they wanted to create rather than how to do it. The secret to its success was the use of vector graphics — a way to draw objects using points, lines, curves and shapes.

The groundbreaking new software went on to become a flagship product of Adobe’s future software line. Illustrator celebrates its 25th anniversary this week.

From One Digital Revolution to the Next

Illustrator played a significant role in the first digital publishing revolution. That revolution transformed what had once been done by a relatively small number of people—perhaps 20,000 worldwide—into the modern graphic design industry, involving millions of people integrated into industries as varied asarchitecture, media and film making, web design, printing and publishing, and much more.

“It’s so hard for young designers today to even imagine how their predecessors worked before Illustrator,” Brenda said. “And what’s really exciting is that 25 years later, Illustrator continues to be an important part of the next digital revolution!”

Meet Adobe Illustrator 1.1  Take a look back 25 years as John Warnock demos Adobe Illustrator 1.1

Adobe Illustrator 88 Illustrator 88 was the second release of Illustrator. Step into the rapidly changing world of graphic design in the late 80’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The renovated Adobe Design Center has just launched.

Here you can find the best content to inspire and educate designers creating for all types of media.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Get get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most talented creative minds doing amazing work, and gain techniques and tips for your favorite Adobe products, such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, as well as new tools like Muse (code name) and Digital Publishing Suite.

Those of you who are familiar with the previous Adobe Design Center know that is was a great site, but was not updated often enough. With this new push, Adobe Design Center will offer new content on a regular basis.

Come check it out.