Scalable Graphics For All Media
Many of our clients need illustration and more often and not, it’s in a rushed scenario. Though Photoshop and raster image editors are great in a pinch, the power of vector drawing is worth the extra energy.
Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand and Corel Draw have long been valuable tools in the artist’s quiver. The value and reason for making vector art, though, is in the application.
To avoid technical art-geek speak, you can simply define graphic files as either being raster or vector. A raster file is made of lots of individual squares of color called pixels. Vector refers to a file composed of lines and points, curves and fills. The magic in vector is scalability. Raster is the format of choice for photos, while vector art can be scaled to fit on the side of a blimp, with zero loss of image quality.
When we work for you, we’re most efficient when we can create one creative body of work, and then apply it, in all media. Case in point, Solicore, maker of ultra-thin batteries used in ID, credit cards and other nifty products, needed to show just how tiny and flexible their product is. When working on sales sheets, we realized we had no art to draw upon.
Drawing their product shows prospects what their batteries can do–and helps others see possible uses. And creating it in Illustrator, allowed us to easily use the same graphics on their trade show booth. In a time crunch, having vector illustration also let us email a tiny file, as opposed to having to FedEx a monster-sized raster version.
Another benefit of using this format is that every piece of these images can be moved and stretched, color change and given perspective. This kind of versatility allowed us to make several different versions quickly and simply. Using these files in Flash for some simple animations is also a snap. And because they are vector, they are perfect for anything Flash can deliver.
We’ve been using these apps since 1992… with over 2500 flight hours in Illustrator. Though not perfect for every use, vector is often the right tool for the right job.
