The Lost Art of Vector Graphics?

I’m completely astounded every time I hear about how few (apparently) graphic designers locally are seriously lacking in vector design skills. I have heard this from at least more than 2 different people working in the area of print graphics. It seems that there is a very abundant amount of graphic designers in this town. (BSU is just cranking them out) In fact my friend Tac Anderson even seriously joked once that you could throw a rock at a coffee shop and hit half a dozen of them. However, for some reason nobody knows anything about vector graphics? Or is it just that they don’t think they know anything about vector graphics? I’ll get to the point of the second question in a bit but need to address a few other things first.

Now I’m not sure why there are so many graphic artists, with degrees of some sort or another, that don’t know anything about vector design work. There is a whole lot more to being a graphic designer than just knowing how to use Photoshop. Nearly everyone can figure out how to use Photoshop. I understand that maybe designing for the web may be more fun, but even I still like to design logo’s and other stuff with vector software such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. The reason behind this is simple. If you design a killer logo or other piece of artwork for someone, even at 300 dpi in Photoshop, it is not necessarily going to transfer to print the way you want it to. Plus, most likely if it is going to be used for print, embroidery, signage, or other similar medium, the design will have to be separated for colors and will be a big headache for someone to basically re-design the logo you painstakingly designed yourself and provided in a flattened .pdf file format.

You might start out thinking that the logo you are designing will never be used for anything but a little website. First mistake. Don’t sell yourself short. Think big. You want to see your work in lights! And, if your client likes the design enough, they may even decide they want to see it in lights too and make a huge neon sign for the front of their store or office. Of course your thinking, well, those print shops have graphic designers in house that can fix your design and make it happen. Your right, they do. But they might not end up with the design looking quite the way you originally envisioned it or with colors any more than close to the same. It’ll be good, but it might not be exact. So why let them take that little bit of greatness away from you? Be proud of your work and design with vector graphics as much as possible. Those designs can be fixed up for the web much easier in the future than they can for any other media choice.

So let’s get on to the second point. Are you a graphic designer that doesn’t think they know much about vector graphics? Well, maybe you’re right, maybe you don’t. Maybe you spent a ton of money going to art school so you could learn how to paint with water colors and manipulate your paintings later with Photoshop. Maybe I’m just a smartass. My point is that if you are a graphic designer with a major focus on web design, then you probably know at least a little bit about Adobe Flash. The amazing thing about Flash is that it’s actually a vector based program! If you know anything about Flash, then you should at least be able to get yourself around in other vector based programs that were designed for printing, screen printing, etc. like Illustrator and CorelDraw.

So now I’ll challenge you. Close Photoshop down at least once a week. Open up Illustrator and design something. Brush up on those vector chops so I don’t have to keep hearing about how so many local “graphic designers” don’t know squat about vector graphics.

If you agree or disagree with me, please comment. If you have something to add, please do so.