This year marks the 25th Anniversary of Adobe’s Illustrator Program, which made its initial shipment on March 19, 1987. Even though its name has not been turned into a verb like Photoshop has, it has played just as large a role (if not larger) in the shaping of our visual world. If your company has a logo, or if you have ever had to pass on a request for an .eps file to your art department, then your brand has been using Illustrator.

Originally conceived as a drawing tool, Illustrator’s influence can be seen everywhere today. For those who don’t know the difference, Adobe’s Photoshop program works with Raster Images (photos) or images that are made up of lots and lots of pixels of color to create a larger image. Illustrator works with Vector Shapes and objects that are all based on self-contained pieces of information. The best way to measure the difference is scalability. When you are given a Raster-based picture, you can work in either the size at which the photo was originally taken or smaller without beginning to lose quality (this is why your art department is constantly asking for high-resolution photos). With a Vector-based logo or illustration, you can make that file as large or as small as you want to without any quality lost.

Anyhow, as a birthday tribute to Illustrator, here are a few examples of some amazing work done in this crucial art program. Enjoy!

Seen in topdesignmag.com “Big Logo Showcase”

http://strongstuff.net/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/orange_zutto/4052819904/

http://dribbble.com/shots/289607-Sea-Turtle

And take a look at a video Adobe posted on YouTube that is the original announcement from 1987: