Video: Is Adobe Illustrator worth it? Should you invest in it if you want to be a professional surface pattern designer?

My followers often ask if they can use free tools or apps on their iPad for creating professional quality vector repeat patterns. It is totally understandable to want to save money and I have also been at the stage when I didn’t want to invest money into software or tools. I get you! The problem is that you will still have to invest time and even more time into switching from these free tools to Adobe Illustrator down the road as Adobe Illustrator is an industry standard tool for creating vector repeat pattern designs.

Is Adobe Illustrator worth it? Should you invest in Adobe Illustrator if you want to be a professional surface pattern designer? question

So my take on it is that YES, I believe that you should invest in Adobe Illustrator once you decided to try yourself as a vector surface pattern designer. You can start with a single app subscription, which is cheaper. You can upgrade later if you need Photoshop or other software too.

Some people also ask if I recommend using Corel Draw for vector repeat pattern design and I can’t answer that question with experience since I have never used it, but I do know that all of my manufacturers in 9 years of work as a textile designer referred to Adobe Illustrator as the tool that they had for working on their projects.

By the way, I do not work for Adobe Illustrator 🙂 I am only a long-term professional customer. Over the last 11 years, I made multiple six figures with my creative vector work done in Adobe Illustrator and I am very grateful that I started out with a professional tool and that’s my suggestion for you as well.

There are apps like Procreate on iPad that help you draw on the screen and you can later transfer your drawings to Adobe Illustrator and vectorize them there. This would be a great way to use an iPad app as an addition to Adobe Illustrator in your vector surface pattern work.

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Is Adobe Illustrator worth it? Should you invest in Adobe Illustrator if you want to be a professional surface pattern designer? question

I wish you good luck with your creative work!
Grow, Love, Create!
Oksana

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