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A must-have software for professional designers
October 28, 2019

A must-have software for professional designers

Holli Drewry | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Illustrator CC

We have access to educational priced Adobe Creative Cloud licensing. We use Adobe Illustrator in a variety of ways from teaching to professional graphic design. Students use Adobe Illustrator in Architecture, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, and Communications courses. Example professional uses include signage, printed publications, logos, web graphics, presentations, and infographics.
  • You can create multi-layered illustrations or graphics.
  • You can use the layers and styles to create many versions of a document from the same file.
  • You can export your art in a variety of formats that suite high-resolution print and 4K screens as well as images tailored to small screens or the web.
  • Vector art files can scale endlessly with no loss of detail.
  • The drawing tool is not as intuitive as the much older and no longer available tool in Freehand.
  • Make it easier or more intuitive to add points to a shape.
  • Make it easier or more intuitive to edit a shape by moving a point or changing it from curve to straight.
  • Easy to copy layers and styles save time in document set-up.
  • Being able to quickly change a color globally in a file makes creating a different version of the same design project easy and fast.
  • Illustrator files tend to be small because they are vector-based. This makes it easy and efficient to share or send files via email or other digital transfer.
Adobe Canva can be used to produce flyers and other promotional items but it is not as robust in features like Adobe Illustrator. Also, Canva is an online tool. You can use Illustrator without an internet connection (once you have downloaded the software). Canva is a good choice if you have a limited need to create flyers or other promotional items. If you want to create custom graphics and more complicated files I suggest Illustrator.
I've had minimal need to reach out for support for Adobe Illustrator but when I have I have been lucky to find lots of help documentation. I give a slightly lower than perfect rating because we've had significant issues using device licenses and switching from device to named licenses. I was impressed with the help I got from our Adobe rep in figuring out the issue but many hours of productivity were lost when the Cleaner and Uninstall tools failed multiple times. Overall, this is industry-standard software and even with the inconvenience and frustrations, it was worth it to get it working.

Do you think Adobe Illustrator CC delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Adobe Illustrator CC's feature set?

Yes

Did Adobe Illustrator CC live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Adobe Illustrator CC go as expected?

No

Would you buy Adobe Illustrator CC again?

Yes

Adobe Illustrator is especially well suited for use in creating graphics or logos, one-page flyers, signs, or folded brochures (no more than front and back printing). The pen tool and layers make it easy to complete complicated text wraps. I would not recommend Illustrator for multiple page documents - Adobe InDesign is the better tool for that type of design.