Adobe Illustrator for the iPad

You never know when a Eureka! moment will strike. Fortunately, we have Adobe Illustrator for iPad, which lets you design anywhere. The graphics tablet version of Illustrator is customized for optimum performance on a touch-screen platform. Empowered by Apple Pencil, Illustrator for iPad is on every graphic designer’s bucket list. Adobe has already made Lightroom and Photoshop available on iPad. This improves the overall utility of iPad as a drawing tablet.

Overview of features

Turn your hand-drawn sketches into graphic art

Not only can you draw sharp and crisp lines, but also fill gradients, textures and shadings to your sketch as Adobe illustrator for iPad is customised for Apple Pencil. You can also create straight and curve lines and patterns with a simple tap, point or touch features. The ease of creating Grid and circular patterns is also very helpful for creating mesmerising graphic art. With the mirror and symmetry features, you can incorporate the changes in real-time and watch your ideas transform into extraordinary illustrations.

Rich option of text arts and fonts

You also find an expansive typography toolkit with the app’s graphic tablet version. By using this, you can add interesting paths to your text and try out a variety of text outlines. You also get to choose from 18000 fonts made by top foundries and designers.   

Adobe creative cloud support

Drawing tablet versions of Photoshop and Lightroom are already available on iPad. This means you can seamlessly work across platforms on your iPad. Besides, the Photoshop layers are preserved when you import files to Illustrator. Illustrator syncs all your works, when you download Illustrator on iPad and sign in to your Adobe creative cloud account.

Additional supports

Illustrator provides you with various tips and tutorials for beginners. The discovery icon also lets you observe and learn graphic designs by following distinguished illustrators. Furthermore, by connecting a keyboard, your drawing tablet is as good as the desktop version.To undo an action, simply double tap on the screen.  Long pressing on the screen opens various properties of the current tool. If you like utilising the touch feature, there are many reasons where the iPad version takes the edge.

Why is the graphic tablet version of Illustrator better?

Touch enabled shortcuts

You can find a floating circle on the Illustrator’s iPad version. This serves the purpose of a keyboard modifier(like command,control, option or shift). It also lets you access various features of any tool.

Common Action on the sketch  

You can explore various modification options like opacity, stroke weight, locking duplication, arrangement, delete and smart delete, and many more. All you need is to click on the object. Various options, depending on the object type, appear as drop down. Of course, you can access other options in the Properties panel located on top right of the workspace.  

Apple Pencil: Stylus and much more

Apart from serving all the purposes of a stylus, Apple Pencil does much more. With various path smoothing options, blending options, selection options and sketching modes, Apple Pencil is a different experience all together. It is as comfortable as using a pencil or crayon on a piece of canvas.

Predictive visualisation of Combine Shapes option

Adobe Illustrator for iPad displays predictions for various features which combine shape. This can be quite tricky in desktop variants. As a result,merges sometimes turn into an undesirable illustration in desktop apps. In the iPad version, you can simply Tap or scribble on the objects  to merge them. Also deleting overlapping objects or parts of objects is easier with Apple Pencil.

What should you watch out for?

• You will find the tool and menu layout on Adobe Illustrator for iPad quite different to the desktop version. If you are accustomed to the desktop layout, you need time to adjust to the iPad version. However, once you get acquainted with the new layout, drawing tablets will make your work easy. 
• Also, projects with large linked assets containing big files might be difficult to handle on an iPad. Many designers like to use plugins that help them in designing. For those purposes, the iPad version might not be very suitable. 
• You might be accustomed to using drag and drop feature to transfer files across locations on your desktop. This feature does not always work on iPad.
• Adobe Illustrator for iPad is a work in progress. Hence, many desktop users face lack of certain features in the iPad version. Adobe has come up a long way to include as many features as possible. However, more features still need to be added.

So, should you go for the iPad version of Adobe Illustrator?

Adobe Illustrator for iPad is an indispensable tool for designers who works remotely or aspire to do so. If you love the Apple Pencil and are an extensive user of iPad, do give the Illustrator’s drawing tablet version a try. So whenever and wherever the inspiration strikes, take out your iPad and create something incredible.

Check out our Blog for more Illustrator tips, tricks, and scripts.