14 DAY TRIAL // A lot of people might be familiar with Adobe Illustrator, but not many know that the software was launched all the way back in 1987.
Before the advent of Adobe Illustrator, graphic design was a complicated endeavor necessitating tools like a Rapidograph pen and actual, physical scissors.
But once Adobe Illustrator launched in 1987, everything changed “like magic.” And a recently released mini-documentary by Terry Hemphill tells the story behind this revolutionary software.
The video includes the testimony of designers like Jessica Hische, Ron Chan, Bert Monroy, and Dylan Roscover and also Adobe’s co-founder John Warnock, who tell the story of how Adobe came to be an integral and indispensable part of what it means to be a graphic designer.
Before Adobe Illustrator became a real deal, Warnock developed the PostScript, which could deal with images and graphics, but the trouble was that it could be used only by programmers.
However, Warnock and his team decided to try and make PostScript mainstream so designers could use it as well, without the need to have coding skills.
The video story also reveals the difficulties Adobe Illustrator had to go through before being widely accepted by industry leaders, who were skittish to make the transition to the digital environment.