What is Vector Art?

Vector art is an incredible unique type of image made from lines and shapes using scalable math to form creative artworks for the biggest or smallest projects. Come explore this magnificient fusion of imagination and technology, what is vector art, how it’s made and a variety of ways to make your very own vector designs!

How Vector Graphics are Made

Vector graphics are made up of lines, curves and points created in special vector graphics software. These lines and points can be combined to form shapes and paths, which can in turn be combined and given properties like color, stroke and thickness to form beautiful vector artworks.

Because all elements in a vector artwork are stored with mathematical formulas, the entire image can be scaled up or down to any size perfectly!

This makes vector art ideal for things like logos, icons, web graphics, packaging artwork and any art that would be needed in a wide variety of sizes.

Vector Art a Point in History

Pioneered in the 1960s, early computers began using vector graphics with the first vector software Sketchpad invented by Ivan Sutherland. A drawing software that also made strides in showing the world that computers can be used for art as well as math and science. Very early video games like Space Wars and Asteroid also used vector graphic displays.

By the late1990s the SVG (scalable vector graphic) file was accepted by the World Wide Web Consortium as the de facto format for vector graphics, cementing vector arts place for decades to come.

Today without vector graphics common things like digital typography, many aspects of web design and CGI models for video games and movies would be all but impossible.

Where to Make Vector Art

Vector graphics software is typically where Illustrators and designers make their vector art masterpieces. Adobe Illustrator is undoubtedly the big dog of the industry, and for good reason. Illustrator has an incredible amount of tools and customization at your disposal. But this is far from the only vector graphic software, with many alternatives gaining attention in recent years. Here is a short list of applications for a great start to your vector art journey!

• Adobe Illustrator: Top of the line software for creating vector graphics with robust drawing tools, typography options, shape builder, gradients, patterns, brushes galore and seamless integration with other Adobe creative suite products. But comes with a monthly subscription.
• Inkscape: An open source Illustrator alternative, comes with many of the same functionalities and for a price you literally can’t beat.
• CorelDRAW: This vector software offers all the tools you need to make beautiful art, is also widely used in sign making, vinyl and laser engraving. Also comes as part of a suite of programs including a photo editor and font manager.
• Affinity Designer: A well respected vector drawing software. Supports vector brushes, stroke stabilizer and a nifty pan and zoom feature across your canvas. It even supports ai files! Part of the Affinity Trinity another suite with Affinity Photo a Photoshop alternative and Affinity Publisher which is akin to InDesign.

Vector File Formats: Bits and Points

So let’s talk files, image files to be exact. If you are going to be making vector art it’s important to know the common formats you’ll be working with. As well as the difference between raster and vector images.

The most common file formats on the web are jpg and png. Images of these file types are made of pixels. Pixel based images are known as raster or bitmap. Raster images are fast, have small file sizes and are supported pretty much universally making them very popular. However these images rapidly lose quality when scaled up because they only have so much detail.

Vector images are not bitmap or raster. These images are made up of numbers and mathematical formulas, which represent things like the cooordinates, length, curve and even color of a line. Here are a few of the vector file types your most likely to see in the wild.

• SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic): is the most common vector file type, widely excepted by any vector graphics software and most browsers. Very common in vector illustrations, icons and in web design where an svg can easily be manipulated with CSS and Javascript. This allows for many interactive effects, they can even be animated!
• AI (Adobe Illustrator artwork): The native file type for Adobe’s primary vector software. Can store vector art, text and other elements. Great for graphic designers and illustrators to edit and work with. Once a project is finished it’s common to export these files as something more memory efficient like svg or eps.
• EPS (Encapsulated PostScript): Eps files can store both vector and raster elements as well as text. This file type is common in the printing industry and great for things like logos and diagrams. Often the file used in non-desktop machines like plotters and industrial printers.
• DXF (Drawing Exchange Format): This format is actually capable of representing 2D and 3D vector graphics, developed by Autodesk an industrial manufacturing company. It is often used for architectual plans, engineering and technical illustrations.
• PDF (Portable Document Format): While not strictly a vector file format, pdf files support vector and raster images, text and all sorts of things. It is extremely common and widely supported and there is a good chance some clients will prefer you send them projects in pdf form.

As we learned Vector art comes in many forms and is used in a wide array of industries. It can be overwhelming especially if your coming from the artistic side and not from the technical/programmer side of graphic design.

But thankfully any clients or employers will in most cases be very up front with what formats they expect. Chances are good your preferred vector art software can easily export your illustrations in any of these file types. Not to mention you’ll always learn as you go the advantages and limitations of each.

Places to Go From Here

We learned alot here today. From what exactly vector art is and how it differs from other digital art. Where it got its start on early computers of yesteryear. An overview of som great vector graphics software to start your own journey as an illustrator or designer. We got a little technical with different vector formats and their boat load of uses.

Well I won’t just leave you out to dry with your pen in hand. There’s some great resources out there for tips and tricks to start your vector art journey!

• Envato Tuts+ | Adobe Illustrator for Beginners: An incredible and comprehensive course for people just getting started in Illustrator. Learn all about many tool like the pen tool, shape builder, curves as well as warping, colors and gradients and even image tracing, printing and exporting!
• tutvid | Adobe Illustrator Tutorials: A large playlist of one off Illustrator design tutorials. Going through this playlist is guaranteed to get you familiar with just about every feature Illustrator has to offer and make you into a vector art guru.
• TJ FREE | Inkscape Tutorials: If your unable or unwilling to shell out for premium vector software right away I completely understand. I started out in Inkscape myself and it’s a very capable app. Check out these friendly and comprehensive bite sized tutorials for this saint of a software.
• Design Made Simple | Affinity Designer Tutorials: If you have an affinity for Affinity Designer do we have the playlist for you. Design Made Simple has this easily consumable content filled playlist to help you master this graphic design app. You may want to pick around in this playlist for what seems most useful to you as there doesn’t seem to be an intended order when watching.

Thank for exploring the world of vector art with me! Now go forth my valient illustrator and carve out your own unique footprint on the world of vector graphic design, show no mercy!

too much?

If you’re ready to dive right and start making some art check out our post on how to make vector art in Illustrator.

Authored by James Digesse-quinlan