Item: Adobe Illustrator CC
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Illustrator CC

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

When our department requires smooth vector graphics for any variety of projects, we turn to Adobe Illustrator CC. Several department members have Creative Cloud subscriptions through the institution. We may design everything from course banners to elements used for interactive applications, such as Articulate Storyline. Happily, creations may be exported in whole or in part in a variety of popular formats.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Illustrator is exceptionally straightforward to operate.
A wide variety of drawing tools will delight most users.
Easily switch between palettes for printing and web. Full access to various Pantone catalogs.
Quickly convert elements from overprint to knockout, and back.
A huge work area with multiple modifiable
Export [workspaces], artboards, or individual elements in a variety of formats.
Quickly add bleed areas -- including asymmetrical ones.
Artwork is easily imported into both InDesign and Photoshop.
Decently imports PDF files for editing.
Separations preview and overprint preview are quite useful for commercial printing.

Cons

Does not always import fonts with PDF files, resulting in gibberish text.
[The] default palette can be annoying. It's a pain to delete swatches.
Software updates don't always transfer custom workspaces from previous versions.
Opacity maps need some love from Adobe.

Most Important Features

Raster image manipulation using clipping masks is highly useful.
Excellent controls for gradients -- especially multipoint area ones.
Quick turnaround when creating icons and other course collateral for our LMS system.

Return on Investment

Adobe Illustrator CC is industry-standard vector design software. It works well with our existing software.
I've been using the software since Illustrator 88. By now, it's second nature to me, so I can create artwork very quickly -- without thinking about the controls.
It's packaged with the rest of the creative cloud products, which makes it extremely versatile. When you get Adobe Illustrator CC, you get everything else from Adobe, as well.

Alternatives Considered

I own several versions of the CorelDraw Suite, which is decent, but not the industry standard. Adobe Illustrator CC just feels like a quality, top-shelf application. Though expensive, it works well and has the features that we use to get things done. If you are weighing vector design products, you would be advised to choose Illustrator in combination with InDesign and Photoshop for the best, most trouble-free experience. Additionally, most commercial printers won't be able to open CDR (CorelDraw) files.

Key Insights

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?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Adobe Illustrator CC go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Adobe Illustrator CC again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Articulate Storyline, Adobe InDesign, EndNote, Camtasia, MindManager, CoffeeCup HTML Editor

Likelihood to Recommend

The printing industry has relied on Adobe Illustrator CC, and its ability to dexterously load and save various formats, since the late 1980s. It is particularly suited for creating vectorized collateral for commercial printing. I would love to see tighter integration between Adobe Illustrator CC and Photoshop for raster image manipulation -- i.e. I don't want to have to unembed an image in Adobe Illustrator CC just to edit it in Photoshop, which means saving a new image file. Adobe Illustrator CC is often employed by professionals to cleanly mask raster images using vector outlines. It excels at this function, which ought to be thought of as an official feature.

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

Illustrator: one vector app to rule them all.