Adobe has been the go-to company for any software you require, this includes over 50 different apps that all have specific tasks for example Premiere for video editing and After Effects for video compositing. Additionally, Adobe is the industry-standard platform, and not only does this software is deemed to be the best; it comes with a very steep price point many individual users pay on a subscription service for a handful of their products which may never get used making the price per use staggeringly high. 

 

However, for most software Adobe makes, there is always an alternative and today we will be looking at the Adobe Illustrator equivalent called Inkscape which has just released the 1.0 version this 1st of May. I have chosen this product as this is a community-run open source project making it free for anyone. You may have heard of the application called Gimp and as Gimp is a free version of Adobe Photoshop; it is nowhere advanced to even compare with the Adobe product. However, Inkscape is completely different and if anything it is par-on-par with Adobe in the Vector Art game. 

 

Although Inkscape will never be as popular as Illustrator due to the branding of Adobe; Inkscape has a large and positive community behind them. I personally decided to try out Inkscape instead of going through the hassle of getting the Adobe Illustrator free trial so this article may be slightly biased but nevertheless, Inkscape is still par-on-par with Illustrator. Everything you can do in Illustrator, you will be able to do it on Inkscape with relative ease and vice versa. Yes, due to the nature that Adobe has a lot of money thrown into Illustrator, it should be more stable than Inkscape since Inkscape is community-driven which makes this such a unique and interesting product. 

 

This product is aimed at people who want to get into vector art likewise Illustrator. But following the different gratifications; people will use this software to learn how to make different graphics or to just play around and have fun for entertainment. Additionally, following the most common reasons; 

 

• People may not have the money or want to pay for Adobe. 

• They might not like Adobe and want an alternative. 

• They may want to start in the graphic business but want to test to see if it is for them.

• They may want to make a one-off thing and do not want the hassle to get Adobe.

• Et cetera. 

 

You do not even need to go through the hassle to make an account for Inkscape, it is a one-click download!

 

I say that Inkscape is successful within the graphic community since it has come a long way from the first version to this latest release, 1.0. But to say that people devoted their time and effort just to help design the software; it needs more light than it already has. This is due to the big light Adobe shines on itself so most people go to this “one-stop” shop for all their different software needs and not care to search around a little to find such a hidden gem as Inkscape.

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My personal experience with Inkscape includes a lot of learning however after watching a few tutorials by Logos By Nick (here) on YouTube; you can get the hang of it instantly. I am not that creative when it comes to designing logos but this is what I was in need to do and since I like to do things myself, I came across Inkscape and played around following Logos By Nick who taught me to make these designs:

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All of these designs apart from the middle where I used one of Nick’s tutorials and just played around, are tutorials where Nick takes you through step by step. All of the same steps will go for people using Adobe Illustrator as well!

 

So let’s see what I made with Inkscape? I actually did the Logo work for Dukotech.com where I made different designs and colour profiles which Daki looked at and chose which one looks the best and suits up with our blog site! Let’s see all of them:

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And in the end, we have settled on the 4th version with the green colour profile. Which one is your favourite? Furthermore, I did a little rework of the letters and the outline to create our official logo:

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And this is entirely done within Inkscape itself. Sure, Illustrator may make it a bit quicker but overall I would have come up with the same design.

 

So to conclude on this hidden gem. Hands down, Inkscape needs all the attention it can get. It is an amazing software especially for being free and having such a caring community behind it. Do we recommend it? Yes, hands down! 

 

But if you have access to Adobe Illustrator or you’re looking to work for a company and not for yourself. Then I recommend going to learn Illustrator since it is the industry standard and if you are paying for Adobe’s Creative Cloud then use Illustrator and get your money worth.

 

But if you want to hustle on Fiverr to make logos for people or designs and you have no money for Illustrator. Inkscape is the one for you!

 

~Ieuan

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