Many designers and artists have a desire to take advantage of both vector and raster design together in the same design, benefitting from each principle as needed. Mixed-discipline vector and raster design Personal preference-Some illustrators prefer raster design over vector design, working from large bitmaps that can be scaled down to sized deliverables quality is assured. This gives priority to freedom of expression rather than editability. Either way, you have total flexibility conversely, once a raster stroke is painted, it cannot be edited.įreestyle creativity with no constraints-Like artists using real media brushes, the creative process is all about overpainting existing artwork, but with digital brushwork instead. Maybe you need to rework a commercial design (e.g., a logo) following client feedback or simply if yesterday’s design didn’t quite match today’s thinking. Editability-Once drawn, vectors can be edited at any future date.Hopefully that explains what a vector is, so why use them? Whichever the vector design app used, the vector design is created using the app’s toolset, layer structuring and features-it is stored as a proprietary project file until the design is output (exported) to a recognised graphic file format. Each vector object’s path is controlled by adjusting nodes on the object’s path or by manipulating a surrounding bounding box in addition, the object’s stroke and fill appearance can change with respect to colour, opacity, effect or adjustment. They are made up of paths (think wireframe outlines!) which form the skeletal structure of the line, curve, shape, or text you draw. Vectors are drawn objects that are created using mathematical algorithms. What are vectors?įirst some clarification. Instead of looking at the merits of vector or raster graphic file formats here, we’ll be looking at vector and raster design prior to export instead. These two different worlds often keep to their separate disciplines (and apps), but this article will look not only at the benefits and comparison of each independently, but also at how a clever mixed in-app ‘vector - raster’ approach can simplify your workflow.īefore moving on, it’s worth noting that both vector and raster designers expect to output their projects to a specific vector or raster graphic file format for sharing. Based on fundamentally different technologies, they’re used for graphic design (vector) and image editing/digital art (raster), respectively. Vector and raster design are two separate disciplines used in digital design. They’re two words you’ll hear designers using all the time, but what’s the difference between vector and raster?

Revit vector vs raster