The Graphic Design Trinity: Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign
Being a great graphic designer means you need the best programs to create your designs. Now there are plenty of different programs out there you can use that are doable and even free! But I want to talk about these 3 programs that I consider the graphic design trinity; Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. *Cue in the music*
A little background about these programs, they come from Adobe. For those of you who don’t know, Adobe is a computer software company that has been around since 1982. Adobe first released Illustrator in 1987, Photoshop in 1990, and InDesign in 1999. If you think about it, these programs have been around since the birth of the internet! If you want more information, click here. Now onto the good stuff, what makes these programs the trinity of graphic design? Well let me explain.
Illustrator
Illustrator allows you to create clear, clean, editable vector graphics that are scalable in any size. I talk more about vector files in this blog post. What makes Illustrator so great? You’re able to design any type of graphic and won’t have to deal with pixelated files. You don’t even need to be a real artist (drawing wise) to create graphics. There’s so many tools on Illustrator and the possibilities are endless on what you can create. I’ve surprised myself plenty of times on the things I’ve come up with because I can’t really draw… professionally anyways.
Photoshop
Photoshop is used for pixelated images that can be produced for web, print, and mobile. Now this isn’t your usual photo editing program where you can add filters and stickers. Photoshop is popular for editing color balance, altering colors, removing blemishes, combing photos together and more. Most people know more about Photoshop than the other two programs and it seems to be the one that people leans more towards when starting graphic design. Only problem is that people tend to use Photoshop for almost everything they do and it should only be for photographs mainly.
InDesign
InDesign is best used for documents with text and images. This would be your typical resume, letterheads, newspapers, book covers, magazines, etc and so forth. InDesign is great because the program lets you use precise grids and guides that help you layout your text and images as necessary. You can also create templates and have them numbered automatically for you. Everything will be consistent and it’ll make your life 100x easier. Out of the 3 InDesign has saved my butt so many times and it’s the easiest to use as well.
What I love about all these 3 programs, is that they are fairly similar with their tools. When you open any of these programs you will see almost the same exact tools on the side bar. This lets you adapt to the programs more quickly once you get the hang of one of them. Although some tools are more reliable in one program than the other, it is important to use the programs based off the projects you’re working on. Also if you’re looking to work as a graphic designer in a company, you are more than likely to be asked if you know these 3 programs. They are essential in the graphic design world and are always being updated. Right now you can buy these products individually or you can get a creative cloud account from Adobe. The creative cloud is awesome because you’ll get the latest version of all these programs and other Adobe products as well!
