Hello again, Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics software, often used to make 2D graphics such as this one. These graphics are in turn exported for various uses in both print mediums and digital interfaces.

I started messing around with Illustrator back in high school. Obviously, I was too cool to be doing anything productive like studying, and eventually ended up doing some freelance graphic design work for remote clients.

Sadly, I lost touch with Adobe Illustrator during university, so I recently committed myself to making simple illustrations on a regular basis in order to familiarise myself with the software again, and finally learn about the advanced features this time round.

Beyond the software

More importantly, I’m looking to improve my artistic ability in illustration. It’s quite fulfilling to make graphics from scratch, and eventually I hope to develop a personal style. But one major challenge for me right now is using form and colour effectively. I don’t have any formal experience in art or design, so I lack a structured approach or process when it comes to reasoning about such visual elements. This has always been the bottleneck for me, but I’m not sure how exactly I can go about learning about all this theoretical stuff.

Anyway, I also hope to master Inkscape, which is a free and open source vector graphics software. I’ll definitely check out the source code once I learn some C++, and perhaps contribute a couple of pull requests 🙂