Adobe Illustrator - What's Its Purpose

[nestorstyle]

I was wondering if anyone could explain about illustrator and what it is best used for. Also is it a good tool for making sharp, crisp logos? I haven't used this software much and I was just wondering if anybody could shed some light on its most common uses. Thanks.

[Natsia]

First:
Resize your footer.
5 lines max. The mods will take action against you for not adhering to the rules.
Second:
Illustrator is a powerful vector based program.
Most vector programs are used for 2 things : Print & Web.
If youre going to be doing things like Corprate Stationary (letterheads, business cards, ect), flyers, posters, the list can go on and on... Illustrator not only supplies you with print safe colours, template layouts for cutting and bleed, ect, but makes it relatively idiot proof too.
And as we all know Vectors are pixel independant and therefore scalable without loosing any quality in the image > its a good and powerful illustration tool.
The possiblities are limited by you and you only.

[nestorstyle]

First:
Resize your footer.
5 lines max. The mods will take action against you for not adhering to the rules.
Second:
Illustrator is a powerful vector based program.
Most vector programs are used for 2 things : Print & Web.
If youre going to be doing things like Corprate Stationary (letterheads, business cards, ect), flyers, posters, the list can go on and on... Illustrator not only supplies you with print safe colours, template layouts for cutting and bleed, ect, but makes it relatively idiot proof too.
And as we all know Vectors are pixel independant and therefore scalable without loosing any quality in the image > its a good and powerful illustration tool.
The possiblities are limited by you and you only.

So would you consider it to be easier to use than photoshop for logo creation. I'm asking because I still have issues with creating sharp logos in photoshop. Where I am I going wrong? I want to also be able to design pixelated icons, how do I go abot doing this? Thanks, and sorry for the trouble, just trying to get past this hurdle and I need all the help I can get.

P.S. Thanks for the heads up on the footer, I added it this morning in a rush tryin to get to work and didn't pay attention to size

[Natsia]

ok lets address your problem first:
The jagged edges on your logos could be one of two things:
1: file resolution > meaning that youre working on a too small resolution which would cause your edges to be pixelated and messy. For web, a standard DPI is 72. For print, a standard DPI (for printing A4 & A3 size paper) is 300.
2: When you make a selection you should check the "anti-aliased" checkbox, this should smooth the pixels in your selection.

As for pixel art: pixel art is usually when you work on an image and resize it to become blocky and pixelated. So essentially you scale the image down. There are a few good pixel art tutorials out there, give it a search on google.

Now, on the "is illustrator better", if you are doing this logo for print purposes, I would say yes. Rather a vector than a bitmap.
The reason I say this is purely for colour and quality purposes. Think about the printing stage when it comes to that; where is your client going to take this artwork to be printed and what would be as fool proof for them to print from? Most print companies prefere illustrator & corel draw files.
The thing is, you need to know the purpose of the artwork before anything else.
Also think in the long run, should the company you are designing for require signage, or shirts ect you would have the logo in a format that pretty much anyone can use or scale with out problems.

[nestorstyle]

ok lets address your problem first:
The jagged edges on your logos could be one of two things:
1: file resolution > meaning that youre working on a too small resolution which would cause your edges to be pixelated and messy. For web, a standard DPI is 72. For print, a standard DPI (for printing A4 & A3 size paper) is 300.
2: When you make a selection you should check the "anti-aliased" checkbox, this should smooth the pixels in your selection.

As for pixel art: pixel art is usually when you work on an image and resize it to become blocky and pixelated. So essentially you scale the image down. There are a few good pixel art tutorials out there, give it a search on google.

Now, on the "is illustrator better", if you are doing this logo for print purposes, I would say yes. Rather a vector than a bitmap.
The reason I say this is purely for colour and quality purposes. Think about the printing stage when it comes to that; where is your client going to take this artwork to be printed and what would be as fool proof for them to print from? Most print companies prefere illustrator & corel draw files.
The thing is, you need to know the purpose of the artwork before anything else.
Also think in the long run, should the company you are designing for require signage, or shirts ect you would have the logo in a format that pretty much anyone can use or scale with out problems.

Thanks much, i'll do a search for a couple of tutes.

[mclelun]

Illustrator is mainly use for printing purpose, because it is vector based (which means your graphic can be resized without losing quality/pixelated), and you can set the color to cmyk, pantone. most important, alot of printing company outthere using illustrator (and other well known format). for example, you cant take ur FLA vector graphic to the company and ask them print it, because most likely they wont have flash install.

[mlewek]

With CS2 you can vectorize pictures in Live Trace and what not, instead of doing it the old way and having to go into Macromedia Freehand or another program. It's good for the web, saving in PDF format, fonts & type alignment/formatting, making printed media such as brochures, etc...