Articles on graphic design that provide honest opinions, reviews, and information shaping the industry.
What is the size of Adobe Illustrator? The download sizes shown in the tables in this article are only averages from different download sites available on the internet. Adobe releases multiple updates in a year to fix bugs and issues and therefore the sizes may vary depending on the updates. Official Adobe software will be…
Adobe Illustrator CC2015 and newer versions have auto-recovery feature as default. When Illustrator crashes or is not responding, force close the program and relaunch it and illustrator will ask you to open the auto-recovered documents from the last time it was saved. Once you open the recovered document, save it before you start working again….
To Rasterize in illustrator means to convert a vector graphic, which is made up of paths and anchor points, and converting it into a raster image, made of pixels. Vector graphics are visual representations of mathematical formulas and are easily manipulated using the tools available in Adobe Illustrator and do not lose quality with enlargement….
The Expand function in Illustrator transforms brush strokes, text and patterns into vector shapes with editable outlines and anchor points. When you expand a brush stroke, text or pattern, you are no longer able to edit their effects in their respective tool options. For instance, if you edit a brush stroke, you can’t change the…
To find and add Pantone colors in Photoshop: Click the active color box in the Photoshop toolbar. This will open the color picker dialog box. Click “color libraries” in the dialog box. Click the drop-down and select the Pantone Color book your swatch is in e.g Pantone Solid Coated. Now quickly type the first few…
To find a specific Pantone Color in Illustrator: Go to Window>Swatch Libraries> Color Books.Gradient”> Drag a swatch from your Pantone Swatch Panel (window>swatch libraries>color book) to the gradient slider bar in the Gradient Panel. Drag a second swatch the same way. Delete unwanted swatches in the slider by selecting them and using the trash icon…
No, graphic design is not dying. However it is changing at a rapid pace and though the industry is set to grow as it recovers from the pandemic, it is estimated to shrink by 4% by 2029. Graphic designers are concerned about DIY design programs like Canva or WIx and the decline in demand for…
Ask most people what graphic designers do, and their response will likely be “they design logos and business cards and t-shirts” or something involving 2D visuals. Very few will mention a graphic designer’s role in game design even though we interact with their work every time we play games like candy crush and Call of…
Every graphic design program these days seems to have a subscription plan. A few still have one-time payments but finding a free graphic design program is getting harder and harder. You used to be able to buy the full adobe suite of editing programs for a one-time fee, but they scrapped that option and now…
Graphics drawing tablets with tilt response are becoming more popular, but it can be hard to find one that’s best for you in a sea of tablets with varying features and prices. I’ve done the heavy-lifting for you and gone through dozens of tablets to come up with this shortlist to help you find the…