Images are an inseparable part of brand storytelling. An image is your best bet if you need to please visually while making a point. Images assume special importance due to the scientific fact that the brain processes images faster than text, meaning you can earn the audience's attention more easily.
Vector graphics are a type of such images and serve to give your business or brand a special unique personality. Vector graphics are characterized by their ease of use and interaction with them as a type of image. They convey all the visual communication images that images can convey, and the easy editability only makes them popular and flexible. Flexibility is a unique keyword that is especially relevant for vector graphics. They give you the freedom to set your own color and size to the image’s visual elements. You can easily edit and customize vector graphics.
What are vector graphics?
To answer the technical question, “what are vector graphics?” is quite simple. They are computer images that essentially consist of a command sequence or mathematical statements that place lines and shapes in 2D/3D space.
The vector graphics image is a computer file created by a graphic artist with information on the vector statement command sequence. It is a technical description of a series of points that need to be connected together to create a vector graphic image. Vector graphic files are also sometimes referred to as geometric files. Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW are some of the most popular software tools for creating and editing vector graphics files. Many leading website builders and CMSs like Strikingly allow users to use vector graphics besides raster images which used to be the mainstay of the web design world.
To describe a vector graphic file very simply is like a connect-the-dots drawing activity for computing machines.
What are the Advantages of Vector Graphics
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There are a lot of advantages of vector graphics including
· Scalability
Scalability is perhaps the most significant of the advantages of vector graphics. Due to their scientific, computational and technical nature, i.e., they are derived from the relationships between points to create curves and lines, vector images output cleanly and accurately no matter how big or small you scale the image.
· Small file size of images
Vector graphics usually come with minimal footprint in file sizes as the information they contain is primarily a mathematical relationship between a small number of points. In vector art, such relationships are expressed as code which involves storing fewer data in the memory compared to pixel-based images' memory footprint.
· Easy editability
With vector images, you can easily change line shapes or colors as the modification of vector relationships is fast. This makes it well-suited to iterative processes like graphics design which might involve lots of editing.
· Loads easily
The small size of vector images makes porting and loading them on different devices and software programs relatively easy.
· You can duplicate vector graphics easily
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Creating vector image clones is quite simple. You can even copy one or a few specific features of a vector graphic file to another easily.
· Precision
Not only are vector graphic images scalable, they are precise as well and output with the same precision irrespective of how much you scale the image.
· Vector Graphics Have Infinite Resolution
Like the precision and scalability that vector graphics derive from being based on math formulas, the same element also results in vector images having almost infinite resolution. You can zoom into vector images as much as you want without losing quality. To put it in another way, vector images are not dependent on image resolutions in sharp contrast to image resolution-based raster or pixel imag
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
To dig a bit deeper, vectors don’t use pixels but depend on the coordinates of specific planes to create image output. We can enlarge lines, shapes, and curves without distortion. Vector images retain their specific features and forms always as the software processing them knows the position of the points as coordinates on the screen plane and naturally always knows all about the connecting line and how to output it.
Vectors know the direction and the position between two points in a vector image.
What is the use of vector graphics?
You can use vector graphics which is sometimes referred to as vector art, for a wide variety of branding and marketing purposes—creating promotional merchandise, creating billboard designs for print, print ads to more fundamental aspects of branding like logo creation.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
Vector art can come in any of the following forms:
- Logos
- Illustrations
- Album covers
- Websites
- Email campaigns
- Branded merchandise
- Billboards
- Movie posters
- Books
- Printed ads
- Video games
- Cartoons
- Signs
It is important to note here that the utility of vector art is not limited to entertainment firms and marketers. People use vector graphics all the time. Most ordinary people have in fact actively interacted with vector graphics. While such use for vector graphics may come in a far more casual setting, like school project posters, handmade holiday gifts, or illustrations, it is there. It lets you exercise your aesthetic creativity in a very flexible manner. We have already stated how you can scale images up and down with vector images without affecting the image quality. Some of the other essential characteristics of vector graphics are:
App and Web Development
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Web and mobile apps and websites are used in a variety of OS platforms, device types and sizes, and vector images complement such diversity with particular effectiveness. Amazon relied on vector images for its WorkLink mobile app which lets businesses present company data interactively, even on a simple mobile app. Many website platforms also let you upload vector graphics as your website images.
Artists and computer graphics enthusiasts often create attractive vector art and other types of images. With the Strikingly platform, they can use their talent to earn. Strikingly supports digital downloads making it possible for such creative people to create interesting vector graphics and sell them on their Strikingly website.
Animation
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Images that are meant to be animated are typically created as vector images. This makes the images and the resultant animation far cleaner and smoother than otherwise.
- Computer-aided design (CAD)
The scalability and ease of editing images through math formulas make vector images ideal for frequent CAD use. Designers working with CAD programs for creating designs intended for the engineering, manufacturing and design industries prefer using vector graphics due to their inherent properties.
Vector vs Raster Images
The major differences between the two principal types of computer-based images are as follows:
- Type of Image Format
Images we see on a digital screen are basically of two types–raster and vector. The two are totally different from one other, especially in technical terms. We discussed vector graphics earlier, now let’s introduce you to the raster image format.
Raster image files map computer information in the form of bits directly to a bitmap which refers to the display space. Raster images are composed of specific pixel numbers. That also means that they are not scalable. If you zoom a raster image high enough, it will break and get distorted, and the underlying pixels will be visibly exposed. In short, when you zoom raster pictures, you negatively affect their quality.
- Picture Quality and Clarity
Even in their original, the intended state and look of raster and vector images are visibly different. Vector graphics demand distinct shapes for different color shades. On the other hand, in raster images, all pixels can have different colors. Raster images are more capable of revealing subtle color gradations and give viewers more image depth and clarity. If you scale up raster images, the image edges tend to become ragged, and the image pixels show through. Vector images, on the other, look the same in all sizes, as we mentioned earlier.
Each raster image pixel occupies a particular amount of memory in the computing device. With raster images, such computing devices need to store information about each raster image pixel. In contrast, for vector graphic images, the device needs to store information on only the points which connect to form the various elements of the image.
With the right software tool, users and designers can convert raster and vector images into one another. Adobe’s industry-leading Illustrator and Photoshop are only two software tools to achieve the same.
Due to the better portrayal of color depths and ability to portray unique colors, raster images are better suited for editing digital images, particularly digital photographs. Some file formats support using vector and raster graphics like SVG and PDF formats.
How Do You Create a Vector Image?
There are plenty of software tools in the market that let you create and edit a vector image, including some powerful free tools. Along with the software, there are plenty of online resources that will help you learn both design concepts and teach you how to create different kinds of vector images with particular tools. They will help you become acquainted with the entire vectorization process.
These days you don’t even need a Mac or PC to create a vector graphic as a tablet or mobile device will let you create such images. The following software supports the creation and editing of vector art:
- CorelDRAW
- Adobe Illustrator
- Sketch
- Quark
- Inkscape
- Affinity Designer amongst others
Let the vector be victorious!
