Illustration is different today. Professional artists are increasingly doing their work on computer software, even if they may do some conceptualizing of the art by hand. An extensive knowledge of computer skills is becoming increasingly important for all artists.

That’s where Adobe Illustrator Exchange comes in.

Adobe Illustrator training will help, but the Illustrator exchange has benefits that go far beyond that.

Downloadables

The number of downloadable resources that the Adobe Illustrator Exchange has is considerable. You can download files there for use with a large number of different illustration type software.

For example, the Illustrator exchange has:

-brushes

-styles-

Swatches

-symbols

-plugins

And many more. Anyone who’s tried to do digital illustration using their computer could tell you that the more individual tools you have for drawing, the more range accuracy and attention to detail you’ll be capable of creating within digital scripts.

Star Rating

Each individual item within the Exchange has a 5 star rating so that you can determine how other users view that particular tool. The Exchange also has tutorials available as well to help you learn any particular software or technique in the illustration category. In addition, the scripts and swatches can make it much easier to illustrate any particular project you’re working on in a fast and efficient manner.

Star rating systems are an effective way to do quality control. This is because they tend to be more trustworthy than other methods due to the crowd sourcing. It makes more sense to trust a large number of users like yourself, as opposed to review sites which may or may not be corrupt. It’s also an effective way to make sure that any particular tool is legitimate and not in any way dangerous.

Full Access

Perhaps the best benefit of the Exchange is the sheer amount of access you have once logged in. For example, there are many featured downloads which give you many different options.

An example of this is the blank t-shirt templates that allow you to print out any particular design you want yourself. There are also world maps that let you make your own designs and freely use for any purpose you deem necessary.

World maps could be very useful for teachers. For example they could use these in lessons, on tests and quizzes, or any number of other ways for teaching students.

Varying Licenses

The software and tools available have varying types of licenses based on what you need. Some of them are completely free to use for as long as you want. It’s important to have some software that’s free to use in any situation since some situations really require it., Teachers, for example, will be using the software in the public sphere and need the completely free option to avoid paying extra license fees.

But there are also more advanced options for software and various tools that give you access to abilities you wouldn’t have otherwise, although it’s only for a demo or for shareware.

Examples

An example of something you might find in the exchange is free dog silhouettes. These are shadow depictions of various types of dogs and a dog walker and are under the featured section of the site. They are available for either Mac or Windows.

Another example is a free extension for Adobe Creative Suite 5 called "Adobe Connect." This allows professionals to freely access their Adobe Connect meeting rooms from inside the suite software.