Vector art, for the win.
Illustration tells a story about your product.
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. Vector illustration’s strength is it’s scalabilty and it’s for more than just logos.
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. Creating it in Illustrator, allowed us to easily use the same graphics on their trade show booth.
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.
For branding and identity, vector files are required. A raster logo just won’t work for embroidery, cut graphic decals, and more. If you didn’t craft your logo this way, it’s an added expense when it comes time for promotional products. For quality, the scalable file is perfect for any application.
The fall of Flash and the rise of the .SVG
Vector was the perfect graphics format for web and presentation. During the reign of Macromedia Flash, vector animation was small and versatile. As support for Flash has dissolved we look for better ways to illustrate and communicate. SVG as a standard is making headway and I can only hope that spinning logos on fire do not make a comeback.
For more on SVG, visit wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Vector_Graphics
We’ve been using these apps since 1992… with over 3000 flight hours in Adobe Illustrator. Though not perfect for every use, vector is often the right tool for the right job.