As illustrators should we ever dab into the world of vector graphics? Are you an artist who loves creating in Procreate or Photoshop, but now you’re wondering if you need vector art in your portfolio at all? I was that artist, I have been there, I wasn’t sure which software to choose, and vectors intimidated me anyways.
However, in the last few months I have made some choices for my art path and I switched from raster art to vector art. In this article, I wanted to share my experience and tell you how learning vector art has set me free :)
PS: I also wrote an article about illustrating for children’s picture books using vector art, which you can read here:
Team vector or team raster? Or maybe team BOTH? Which one do you currently prefer? I’d love to chat with you in the comments section below!
Let’s start with the section on the main difference between raster art and vector art.
Understanding vector graphics
Vector graphics are like the superheroes of the graphic universe, and for a very long time I was literally scared of them :) Basically, instead of using pixels (those tiny squares that make up digital images), they rely on math and geometry. So when creating vector art, you will be using such terms as vector paths and vector nodes.
This mathematical super foundation allows vector graphics to maintain their integrity even when scaled to different sizes, making them resolution-independent. This is literally the coolest part - you can zoom in as much as you want, and these graphics will never lose their crispiness (is there such a word?)!
There are several common vector file formats used in the world of digital design and graphics. Among them, the most widely recognized formats are SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), AI (Adobe Illustrator), EPS (Encapsulated PostScript), and PDF (Portable Document Format). SVG stands out for its compatibility with web browsers and is often used for creating interactive graphics and animations on websites.
The pixel-based nature of raster art
At the heart of every raster graphics lies their pixel-based nature. Each pixel serves as the smallest indivisible unit that makes up the image, aka your illustration. And then each of those pixels stores information about its color and brightness, forming a vast mosaic that creates the overall picture.
Now, we artists care about the resolution of our art. The resolution of a raster image is defined by the number of pixels it contains per inch (DPI or dots per inch) or per centimeter (PPI or pixels per centimeter). The higher the DPI or PPI, the more pixels there are within a given area, resulting in greater image detail and higher quality. Unfortunately, enlarging or zooming in on the image stretches these pixels, causing a loss of clarity and sharpness.
Some of the most common raster file formats include JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), PNG (Portable Network Graphics), GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). For example JPEG is widely used for photographs and web images because it offers a good balance between image quality and file size compression.
The scalability game
At the moment, creating in vectors (at least the base), gives me personally much more flexibility because with vector graphics no matter how much you resize a vector image, it retains its sharpness and clarity without any loss in quality. This makes in particular my repeat patterns super scalable. Should a potential client see them and wish to license them, I will be able to deliver any pattern tile size they might need, without having to re-do my work.
I can’t recall how many times I created an illustration in Procreate, regretting later that I haven’t chosen a bigger canvas.
How would I troubleshoot ahead for my raster illustrations to overcome this issue? Because as we now know, enlarging a raster image leads to visible pixelation, causing a degradation in quality and sharpness.
I think that raster graphics are best suited for projects with a fixed output size, where you can plan ahead the maximum size you will need. This either comes with your experience as an artist, or it comes from the specifications of your client directly.
If you know what dimensions you need for your final art, then there is no problem at all - just make sure to work on the biggest canvas you can. I know that some artists work on the biggest canvas possible in Procreate and they split their illustration into multiple working files. That’s because Procreate has both a canvas size limit and a layers limit (which you don’t have in Affinity Designer).
It’s the freedom
Personally, I feel like I’m thriving after switching to vector-based creating. For example, before Affinity, I don’t think I’d be able to create such a detailed illustration:
What I liked about drawing this illustration in a vector-based software:
I don’t have to care about my canvas size too much because I will be able to resize this artwork up and down without any quality loss.
I can enjoy limitless layers in Affinity, and I really take advantage of it :)
I save a lot of time by building the base of my illustration from simple geometric shapes, such as rectangles and circles.
I utilize my pre-saved vector assets and recycle some elements that I’d be drawing over and over again (trees, eyes, mugs hi hi).
I use a lot of contrast checks from the Navigator panel in Affinity to see my artwork in greyscale and to evaluate whether it reads well. I love this new Affinity addition!
I hope that soon I can create more vector art courses and add them into my Affinity Designer courses page! I have a lot of cool learning material planned for 2024! The same for my YouTube channel wohoo!
Disclaimer
You can probably tell that I’m excited about vector art :) And the way I describe it, it sounds like it’s better than raster art. It better, FOR ME! It is my subjective and personal opinion and it’s not my intention to imply that raster art is meeeeh. For me it totally works, but it took me over a year to figure things out, to master the software. And actually, I’m still learning!
You will get more insights about this part of growing as an artist by referring back to this Substack article of mine: