Adobe Illustrator CC – An Important Tool for Fashion Industry Professionals

Hello Everyone,

In this article I would like to explain why Adobe Illustrator is so appealing for fashion industry professionals and the reasons behind creation of my textbook "The Craft of Garment Design with Adobe Illustrator", a step-by-step illustrated guide for self-study of Adobe Illustrator CC.

Adobe Illustrator is being used by apparel industry professionals:

• In the creative process of new apparel development (fashion figures and stylized garments, new textile patterns, Mood boards, Style boards, Color boards, etc.)
• In the apparel production process (the industry specification package development: technical flat garments, enlarged garment details, construction steps, garment folding instruction, etc.)
• In the promotion process (line presentations, store planograms, fashion posters, etc.)

There are several third-party plug-ins for Apparel and textile design expanding capabilities of Adobe Illustrator. Thanks to modern technologies these pug-ins are available anywhere and can be purchased or subscribed on monthly / annual subscription basis. The following plug-ins are the most interesting for apparel industry professionals:

• Embroidery i² – allows creating embroidery designs while working within Adobe Illustrator. You can create a design using Adobe Illustrator, then convert your artwork into embroidery by assigning stitch effects to every vector path, adjust embroidery parameters and create a file that is ready to use on the embroidery machine. You will enjoy the same familiar environment and short learning curve
• iPM Illustrator Pattern Making System – several plug-ins for drafting digital patterns inside Adobe Illustrator. You can do grading, add seam allowances, notches, adjust curves and do many more pattern-drafting operations.

 

Adobe Illustrator files either are already compatible or can be transformed easily into a format compatible with many widely used CAD software, such as Gerber, Lectra, Clo 3D, etc.

The idea to write a textbook for Adobe Illustrator use in fashion was born a long time ago. I instructed students with different level of skills in fashion design and computer usage. Some had to begin their computer study literally from the square one. I have noticed, that some students regarded as too difficult mastering such computer apps as Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to create a self-study textbook that could explain step-by-step various Adobe Illustrator techniques moving from simple to more complicated fashion tasks. In my blog or videos, being developed, I explain some methods and techniques that were not included in the book.

Instead of a long talk about Adobe Illustrator let me show you one example, that illustrates advantages of Adobe Illustrator application in the Fashion industry. Have a look at the jackets below – one is hand drawn and another is created in Adobe Illustrator. Lines created in Adobe Illustrator are easy to edit. Illustration can be copied, scaled, filled with various colors and so on.




 

In addition, Adobe plans to make Adobe Illustrator app available for any tablet PC, whether it is Android, iPad and etc. This will be an appealing opportunity for any creative person accustomed to hand drawing to switch to digital way of drawing and enjoy amazing capabilities promised by Adobe Illustrator. At the moment, Adobe Illustrator is already available on iPad Pro.

Make your choice now if you haven’t done so yet and study with my e-textbook "The Craft of Garment Design with Adobe Illustrator".