Creative professionals utilize Adobe Illustrator to build and create graphics and illustrations as vector design tools across various industries. Most commonly, professionals use Illustrator to create logos, graphics, and illustrations for business purposes like advertisement or brand imaging. In addition to opening up various new career opportunities, Illustrator has many potential personal uses. To learn more about Illustrator's many uses and potential uses, read on if you are unsure whether learning it is right for you.

What is Illustrator?

Adobe Illustrator is a vector design tool used in industries, including graphic and web design. Illustrator allows users to build graphics and illustrations from vectors (lines, shapes, and points). Graphics created in Illustrator receive minimal decay in quality when resized. This feature lets you use Illustrator designs on anything from billboards to business cards. 

Illustrator is a key part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. It works with Adobe programs such as Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere Pro. Adobe created these programs to allow for optimized crossover.

Read more about what Illustrator is and why you should learn it. 

Professional Uses for Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is used across various industries, as almost all companies need to create an online presence and set their business apart from others. This opens up various career paths for those who learn the valuable skill of Adobe Illustrator. These career paths include Graphic Designer, Digital Designer, and UX Designer. No matter which career path one chooses, each approach uses various aspects of Illustrator.

Logo Creation

Creating a logo is a visual communication tool to help promote a company or brand's message to an audience. The unique image will help people connect with and remember your brand. In the current market, every company needs a logo that stands out. Companies will utilize professionals skilled in Adobe Illustrator to create these logos. Using Illustrator allows those logos to resize without becoming pixelated, meaning one can resize the image to fit on a business card or billboard and still look the same.

User Experience Design

User experience (UX) design involves creating products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This means physical products one can purchase at a store or a digital product like a website. Part of UX design is integrating the product, including various aspects of branding, design, and function. 

Website graphics are created using Illustrator. UX Designers can use Illustrator to create graphics that will appeal to their client bases and then arrange them to bring in more customers. 

To learn more about learning UX design and the professional uses for the tools, consider Noble's Learn UX Design articles. 

Graphic Design

Graphic design uses images and graphics to communicate certain ideas to an audience. While similar to logo creation, graphic design takes it a step further. Graphic design includes all the graphics used to convey messages to an audience, including digital and print. Most commonly, Graphic Designers use their graphics in marketing campaigns. 

Illustrator is a commonly used graphic design tool. With tools like the pen tool, Graphic Designers can easily create shapes and images that will meet their client's expectations. To learn more about Graphic Design and other professional tools, check out Noble's Learn Graphic Design articles. 

Digital Marketing

Marketing is the way of the professional world, especially with the internet. Digital marketing entails the promotion of a brand to potential customers using the internet and other forms of digital communication. This can include email, social media, and web-based advertising. 

When it comes to marketing, you want to be able to convey a message as quickly as possible. Digital Marketers use Illustrator to do precisely that. The tools in Illustrator allow digital marketers to create images and graphics that will successfully lead marketing campaigns.

Consider checking out Noble's Digital Marketing Blog to learn more about digital marketing. 

Other Uses for Illustrator

Taking the time to learn Adobe Illustrator will provide you with more than on-the- jobs skills. Adobe Illustrator is more than a professional tool; it can also help with personal projects. 

Personal Creative Projects

All graphic design tools aim to enable and enhance creative work. Many have evolved to serve commercial purposes but are still excellent tools for aspiring artists. Photoshop and Illustrator provide a digital canvas designed to make creative and artistic work simpler and more efficient, which makes them ideal tools for personal creative projects.

Editing and modifying one's work can be highly beneficial to artists. Using Illustrator, for instance, can assist creatives in building their portfolios of digital drawings, and it opens up the possibility of learning animation and motion graphics software. When users learn Photoshop, they can create impressive, creative visual designs and learn how to manipulate minor aspects of those designs.

Learning these tools will give artists access to creative tools unheard of a decade ago, allowing them to expand their work onto a fully digital canvas.

Web Design

Whether creating artwork or motion graphics, Illustrator can help you create intricate designs or graphics to support your online presence. Web design focuses on the visual aspects of a website, like a layout, user interface, and visual imagery. This is where the use of Illustrator comes into play with web design. You can easily create complex shapes and designs with the pen tool. One can then manipulate the vector images to fit the specification of the website. These unique images can help set a website apart from the rest, as it will have a unique feature instead of relying on stock images.

Ecommerce

While it may seem like a small part when starting a business, having a unique brand identity can help immensely when first starting. Whether you want to create unique images to sell or set your packaging apart from competitors, Illustrator can help create those images. Illustrator allows you to streamline those designs with its set of tools. When creating illustrations to sell, you can manipulate the images to create different sizes of the same image. Doing so can allow you to create prints, stickers, and various other products to include in your shop. As for packaging, you can create the image you want to put on your packaging and resize it to the various sizes of packaging you have to ensure all your customers receive the same product quality from you. 

Learn Illustrator Skills with Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop offers various Illustrator classes and bootcamps for students hoping to receive Illustrator training through a live online course.

• Illustrator in a Day: An introductory course covering the program's basic functionalities. 
• Adobe Illustrator Bootcamp: A more advanced class that teaches students to create complex and vibrant vector illustrations. Students finish the course with a professional portfolio. 
• Graphic Design Certificate: Students will master Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Indesign. They will work towards building various sample designs to include in their portfolio. 
• Digital Design Certificate: Students will learn the essential Adobe applications and UI and web design for digital publications. 

Key Takeaways

• Illustrator skills function in various creative and marketing professions.
• Common professions that use Illustrator include graphic design, digital design, digital marketing, and motion graphics. 
• Illustrator can be used outside of professional skill development. 
• You can apply Illustrator skills to various personal projects, including creating a unique ecommerce brand or website. 
• You can receive comprehensive Illustrator training through Noble Desktop, with in-person or online options available.