The story of Adobe Illustrator begins with the story of John Warnock and Charles Geschke. The two were both computer language developers who work at Xerox Corporation. John had written a type of language which allowed computers to process graphics through mathematical equations. When Xerox turned down the two’s proposal, citing that there was no need for such an application, Adobe Corporation was born. Illustrator was Adobe’s first application.
Illustrator’s one feature that made this graphic software appealing was the invention of the pen tool. It allowed designers to create smooth curves called Bezier curves. Mike Schuster was the programmer who created this tool, which changed the graphic arts industry forever.
Before Illustrator, graphic artists would need various templates and measuring devices to layout a page of text and images. When drawing illustrations, they would use a special pen called a “Rapidograph.” If an artist made one mistake, they would need to start over since “white-out” would still show through on the published copy. John Warnock’s wife, Marva, was a graphic artist at the time and so he probably saw first-hand the need for an edible tool to help designers.
Adobe Illustrator is a computer graphics application that allows users to create refined drawings, designs, and layouts. Illustrator is vector-based software, and which means that it is so versatile that artwork can be scale down for mobile screens and up to billboard size.
In the beginning, Adobe needed to create an image to represent the essence of Illustrator. They asked their design director, Luanne Seymour Cohen, to come up with that image. Luanne thought about the word Renaissance which translates to “revival of art.” After reviewing the many Renaissance artists, she settled on a well-known image of Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.”
The first version of Illustrator was released in 1988 for Macintosh. In 1989, Adobe Illustrator was launched for Windows platforms. In the early years, unfortunately, Illustrator was still thought of as just a novelty. However, Adobe started a marketing campaign that “influenced the influencers”. It held workshops for these industry leaders such as well known artist David Hockney and designers from Time & Life magazines. The acceptance of Illustrator from these influencers made Illustrator the standard of graphic engines.
The release of 6.0 brought a significant change. Designers who needed to use Truetype fonts couldn’t use Illustrator. Adobe started to support TrueType fonts, which meant that more designers would choose Illustrator as their design software. Before 1997, Mac and Windows versions were very different. But when 7.0 was released, Adobe standardized the user interfaces. At the time that 8.0 was released, interest in the use of the internet increased substantially. The focus of later versions concentrated on supporting web design.
In 2003, Adobe decided to bundle all its successful products together and called it Adobe Creative Suite. The significant change with this version was the addition of 3D effects. Since this was the focus of the upgrade, Adobe replaced Venus with 3D images.
The 3D floral images’ image was later replaced with the Adobe product logos, which we see today. Adobe wanted their products to be known for its dependability and not just their aesthetic features. They created a system of simple logos that were similar to the elements of the periodic table. Illustrator was signified by a capital letter, “A,” and a small letter, “i” and signature orange. Later versions of Creative Suite continued with more improvements: CS4 brought the ability to have multiple artboards.CS5 added the perspective grid tool. CS6 brought a new user interface, RGB codes, and the layers panel.
In 2016, Adobe released Creative Cloud 2017, the first design software to be sold as a subscription. Adobe Illustrator CC 2020 version is the one we use today. For myself, it is very easy to take for granted all the powerful features that Illustrator provides, considering its elementary and humble beginnings.
