Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a
vector-based drawing program developed and marketed by
Adobe Systems.
Adobe Illustrator was first developed for the
Apple Macintosh in
1986 (shipping in Jan 1987) as a logical commercialization of Adobe's in-house
font development
software and
PostScript file format.
Initial release
In many ways Illustrator's release was a gamble: the Macintosh did not have high
market share, the only printer that could output Illustrator documents was Apple's own
LaserWriter (also very new and expensive), and the drawing paradigm of
BĂ©zier curves was novel to the mainstream user. Not only did the Macintosh show only
monochrome graphics, but display options were basically limited to its built-in 9"
monitor. Illustrator helped drive the development of larger monitors for the Macintosh.
Illustrator was a reliable, capable product, however, and its relatively low learning curve let users quickly appreciate that the new paradigm was not only better, but finally solved the problem of imprecision from existing programs like
MacDraw. It also provided a tool for people who could neither afford nor learn high-end (and perhaps overkill) software such as
AutoCAD. Illustrator successfully filled a niche between painting and CAD programs.
Illustrator's power and simplicity derive from the choice of
BĂ©zier curves as the primary document element. A degenerate curve provides a line, and circles and arcs (trigonometric shapes) can be emulated closely enough. In a novel twist, Adobe also made Illustrator documents true PostScript files -- if one wanted to print them, one could send them directly to a PostScript printer instead of printing them from Illustrator. Since PostScript is a readable text format, third-party developers also found it easy to write programs that generated Illustrator documents.
Versions 1.1â€"3
Illustrator 1.0 was quickly replaced by 1.1, which enjoyed widespread use. An interesting feature of Illustrator 1.1's packaging was the inclusion of a videotape in which Adobe founder
John Warnock demonstrated the program's features. The next version (in a novel versioning scheme) was 88 (to match the year of release which was
1988). That was followed by 3.0, which emphasized improved text layout capabilities, including text on a curve. At around this time, Aldus had their
FreeHand program available for the Macintosh, and despite having a higher learning curve and a less-polished interface, it could do true blend (gradient) fills, which kept FreeHand as a "must have" in
DTP shops along with the rest of the "Big Four": Illustrator,
PageMaker, and
QuarkXPress. It would be many years before Illustrator supported true blended fills (in Illustrator 5), and this was perhaps the one feature that users uniformly complained was lacking.
Adobe was willing to take risks with Illustrator's user interface. Instead of following Apple's UI guidelines to the letter or imitating other popular Macintosh programs, they made it possible to switch between the various navigation tools (i.e, Zoom and Pan) using various keyboard key combinations. Probably from Adobe's past experience in-house, it knew what it was doing, and the majority of users vindicated the design as "slick." Unfortunately, Apple later chose one of the key combinations (Command-Space) as the keyboard layout changer, and Windows treated another (the Alt key) as a system key.
Versions 2â€"5
Although Adobe developed Illustrator primarily for the Macintosh during its first decade, it sporadically supported other platforms. In the early 1990s, Adobe released versions of Illustrator for
NeXT,
Silicon Graphics IRIX, and
Sun Solaris platforms, but they were discontinued due to poor market acceptance. The first version of Illustrator for
Microsoft Windows, version 2.0, was released in early 1989, but it was a flop. The next Windows version, version 4.0, was widely criticized as being too similar to Illustrator 1.1 instead of the Macintosh 3.0 version, and certainly not the equal of Windows' most popular illustration package
CorelDraw. (Note that there were no versions 2.0 or 4.0 for the Macintosh.) Version 4 was, however the first version of Illustrator to support editing in preview mode, which did not appear in a Macintosh version until 5.0 in 1993.
Versions 6â€"7
With the introduction of Illustrator 6 in
1996, Adobe made critical changes in the user interface with regards to path editing (and also to converge on the same
user interface as
Adobe Photoshop), and many users opted not to upgrade. To this day, many users find the changes questionable. Illustrator also began to support
TrueType, making the "font wars" between PostScript
Type 1 and TrueType largely moot. Like Photoshop, Illustrator also began supporting plug-ins, greatly and quickly extending its abilities.
With true ports of the Macintosh versions to Windows starting with version 7 in
1997, designers could finally standardize on Illustrator. Corel's other problems notwithstanding (such as competing against Microsoft with
WordPerfect), they relegated CorelDraw to the consumer market, as something non-professionals might use. Corel did port CorelDraw 6.0 to the Macintosh in late 1996, but it was received as too little, too late.
Aldus ported FreeHand to Windows but it was not the equal of Illustrator. Adobe bought Aldus in 1994 for PageMaker, and as part of the transaction it sold FreeHand to
Macromedia.
With the rise of the Internet, Illustrator was enhanced to support Web publishing, rasterization previewing,
PDF, and
SVG.
Branding
Starting with version 1.0, Adobe chose to license
Sandro Botticelli's "
The Birth of Venus" from the
Bettmann Archive and use the portion containing Venus' face as Illustrator's branding image. Warnock desired a Renaissance image to evoke his vision of Postscript as a new Renaissance in publishing, and Adobe employee Luanne Seymour Cohen, who was responsible for the early marketing material, found Venus' flowing tresses a perfect vehicle for demonstrating Illustrator's strength in tracing smooth curves over bitmap source images. Over the years, the rendition of this image on Illustrator's splash screen has become more stylized as Illustrator gains new features.
Versions CSâ€"CS 2
Adobe Illustrator is currently in version 12 (called CS2 to reflect its integration with Adobe's
Creative Suite) and is available for both the
Mac OS X and
Microsoft Windows operating systems. The image of Venus was replaced in Illustrator CS (version 11) with a stylized flower to conform to the Creative Suite's nature imagery.
Version CS 3
This version of Adobe Illustrator which is scheduled to be released in Q2 2007 will be in Universal Binary. All previous versions were forced to run with "Rosetta", an emulator for running PPC code on new Intel Mac computers. This emulation causes Adobe software to run slower in general.Adobe announced it would not release an Universal Binary of CS2 because rewriting the code to be universal-compliant requires a major development effort. Many would-be Illustrator buyers that own new Intel-based Macs are therefore delaying all purchases of Adobe CS products or seeking alternative solutions.
| Version | Platforms | Release date | Code name | | 1.0 | Mac OS | January 1987 | |
| 1.1 | Mac OS | March 1987 | Inca |
| 2.0 | Windows | January 1989 | Pinnacle |
| 88 | Mac OS | March 1988 | Picasso |
| 3 | Mac OS, NeXT, other Unixes | October 1990 | Desert Moose |
| 3.5 | Silicon Graphics | 1991 |
| 4 | Windows | May 1992 | Kangaroose |
| 3.5 | Solaris | 1993 |
| 5 | Mac OS | June 1993 | Saturn |
| 5.5 | Mac OS, Solaris [http://www.sunmanagers.org/archives/1999/0973.html] | June 1994 | Janus |
| 4.1 | Windows | 1995 |
| 6 | Mac OS | February 1996 | Popeye |
| 7 | Mac/Windows | May 1997 | Simba |
| 8 | Mac/Windows | September 1998 | Elvis |
| 9 | Mac/Windows | June 2000 | Matisse |
| 10 | Mac/Windows | November 2001 | Paloma |
| CS (11) | Mac/Windows | October 2003 | Pangaea/Sprinkles |
| CS2 (12) | Mac/Windows | April 27, 2005 | Zodiac |
| CS3 (13) | Mac/Windows | expected Q2 2007 | Jason |
*
List of vector graphics editors*
Comparison of vector graphics editors*
AI File Format*
Official page *
Splash screen history at Guidebook Graphical User Interface Gallery*http://www.planiglobe.com/ free (CC by/sa) Maps in Illustrator 7 compatible format
*
Digital Vector Maps Royalty-free Illustrator vector maps.
