Adobe Illustrator

I'd definitely recommend Illustrator to anyone who works with vectors or digital media. It is the industry standard for vector graphic editing and creation. It's perfect for editing stock vectors. Change colors and sizes easily. If you have graphic design experience, it is great for creating your own graphics and icons. It is also great for developing print media, such as cards or handouts or anything along those lines. There a lot of free resources and tutorials online. I'd recommend watching some tutorials before trying to do anything in the software.

Illustrator is great for creating precise vector graphics that stay sharp when scaled to various sizes.

If you are an illustrator then this is the go-to tool to convert your artistic portrait into meaningful digital illustrations. It can be used more for print media as well as for digital media. The quality of print from illustrator is greater than one that you would create in Photoshop.

Basically, I think every designer with some design skills needs to learn Illustrator since there is no other application that can do what Illustrator does. You will absolutely need it when you do all aspects of visual designs.

This program should be used to create illustrations and should not be used to manipulate photos or create print documents.

Adobe Illustrator is fantastic for creating high-quality vector artwork for creating logos and visuals for digital and printed medium. It can be scaled indefinitely as it is created from equations as opposed to pixels (e.g. pixel-independent). It is not suited for raster work, such as photo-editing: use Photoshop for anything raster. Luckily, when working with Smart Objects, they work well together.

Great for creating original vector illustrations for Marketing or art. Not so good for creating illustrations that are meant to mimic 'real world' mediums like acrylic and pencil.

We primarily use Adobe Illustrator to set and manipulate text. Fonts are a huge part of our workflow and being able to create large vector graphics is extremely important. We tend to move the lettering over to Photoshop when advanced effects are needed or if the project is highly photo/graphic based.

Illustrator is an industry standard when it comes to graphics and vector designs. This software is well suited for everything from social media graphics, to logos, to T-shirts, to branding, and beyond. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Perfect for:
-Logo design
-wireframes
-mobile game menu design
-website design
-posters

You can scale your designs as large or as small as you want, and it doesn't lose quality because it is vector-based.

Not great for
-photo manipulation
-actual "painterly" designs

For these, I recommend Photoshop.

Any artwork that needs to be scalable needs to be done with Illustrator. We create huge banners on a regular basis and the thought of creating these things without Illustrator would keep us awake at night. However, make sure you are well organized with your layers or things might get a bit confusing.

I personally enjoy Photoshop more, however my colleagues think Illustrator is easier. The pen tool is wonders though, because it makes life easier and helps to create a perfect piece of illustration which helps me do digital art and create artwork easily.

Adobe Illustrator CC is well suited if

1. you are a graphic designer and you want to get closer to the world of vector graphics
2. you want to make graphics not dedicated to photo editing but purely graphics aimed at the business
3. you want to design company logos
4. you are doing the layout of newspapers or texts or anything else, it is definitely one of best software (if not the best ever).

Anywhere you need vector graphics it is a requirement. If you're laying out brochures, books, etc, this probably isn't the best program.

Adobe Illustrator CC is well suited for all design classes and introduction to business classes. The hardest thing about running a design class or a business class is that students want to create something creative, however, they often do not know how. This software is well suited for creative type classes that really want to engage students. When students access this software it makes them feel more empowered, their ideas and thoughts come to life. Their businesses become much more real and it, in turn, changes education. Education is all about creating a HOOK. That hook is often new and relevant software.

Adobe Illustrator is perfect for designing graphic that don't shape like a standard sheet of paper - logos, charts, infographics, etc. It's perfect for designing smaller items that will be added to larger documents. However, I would not use Illustrator for designing the actual documents like fact sheets and brochures - that's what Adobe InDesign is for.

Adobe Illustrator CC is great for creating logos, tracing images, creating a flyer, creating vector graphics, manipulating vectors, combining shapes, creating patterns and more.

Adobe Illustrator CC is less ideal to use if you need to crop a photo, edit coloring or hues on a photo, designing a book or large poster.

If you are looking to work quickly and efficiently, or are in need of a tool that allows maximum creativity, then Adobe Illustrator CC is for you. Adobe is now in the phase of development on this product that allows them to continue to get better and better. We are using Illustrator for everything from print layouts in our annual review to our series branding and even a lot of our social media content. It allows a ton of flexibility between other Adobe offerings, which is a huge bonus!

If you are part of a large organization Illustrator is a great investment. There is wide support on the web, and it has a wide variety of tools to manipulate images. It is well suited for anyone designing content for the web.

If you are a sole proprietor, non-profit, or small business, despite Illustrator's depth of abilities, it isn't worth it when open source tools like Inkspace has very similar functionality for those willing to overcome a learning curve.

Illustrator is great for an agency that might need to do both print and web design work across many devices, or a mobile game company where illustrative UIs and prototyping are desirable. Most artists and designers learn Illustrator at some early point in their career as the industry standard, so it's fairly easy to find designers who will know it.

If you are a product manager looking for an easy way to lay out screens for a mobile app prototype, look elsewhere, like sketch or balsamiq. It will take you too long to get up and running if you aren't already an expert user.

For those who have some creative background, I would absolutely recommend AI. For those without it, my only hesitation on recommending would be the time it takes to learn it if you have to get something done quickly. The ability to bring in images, combine things, transform them, change colors are all fantastic. Someone who is more creative than I am would be able to do so much more like creating things from scratch. I'm just not there yet.

Adobe Illustrator CC is well suited to graphics that need to be used in both web and print, as well as graphics that are frequently displayed at varying sizes. This includes company logos and signage. It is less appropriate for booklet/pamphlet design. For this I would recommend using InDesign instead. Illustrator could make some of the graphics to use in a book but I wouldn't recommend designing the book itself in this program.

It is best suited for scenarios like tracing images either automatically or manually, for getting graphic elements to work with typography, and using the path tools to create basic shapes and in combination with the other tools. With the features, you can get very appealing graphics which can be used on other software. The scenario in which Illustrator is not the best is for composing images.

You should probably have some design skills already before starting out with Illustrator. It is quite advanced and the options can be overwhelming. But if you have design experience, especially in other Adobe programs, this will be a great asset to your programs. Edit photos, design marketing materials, your complete business branding, export as any file you need. It's great.

Illustrator is the industry standard for a reason. It is incredibly powerful, and offers a full suite of tools and features. The only drawbacks are the steep learning curve, and the cost. For a professional, the cost is easily justified, but for a beginner, it can be prohibitive. If possible, a student license can be used, which is a good way to get into the software to learn.