Getting started with Adobe Illustrator

I've been using Adobe Photoshop and almost nothing else to design graphics for years. Over the last couple of years in particular I have experienced an incredible rise in vector requests mainly due to the "Web 2.0" art revolution.

Photoshop is primarily designed for photography retouching and bitmap illustrations but it is very widely (and wrongly) used for creating "vector-like" images, perhaps by the more amateur or inexperienced graphic designers (such as myself ). I thought it was great, and it is, but just not for vectors.

I have been using Photoshop a lot for vector-like images and have had some pretty impessive results. However the amount of effort and persistence involved is quite simply exhausting. So I decided to switch to Adobe Illustrator and to say I was pleasently surprised would be a gross understatement!

Although I am still a rookie by far when it comes to Illustrator, I can still create stylish and modern graphics within minutes compared to the hours I would spend on Photoshop. It is astonishing how I could have gone this long without realising the power of Illustrator. It really is amazing, and for any budding graphic designers out there, it comes highly recommended.

There a lot of guides and tutorials available for Illustrator, but not half as much as there are for Photoshop, which is a great shame! So if you know of any good sites/books for Illustrator or any general tips, please post them here for all us people that want to master vector imagery.


Michael