Illustrator Reveals New CS6 Tricks

Pam Pfiffner

Much of the focus at Adobe in recent weeks has been showing sneak peeks of Photoshop 6 in advance of releasing the public beta last week,. But this week it’s Adobe Illustrator’s turn to shine with a celebration of the past and anticipation for the future.
Adobe Illustrator turned 25 last week. The application — Adobe’s first commercial software — shipped on March 19, 1987. It was crude by today’s standards, but magical. In the early days its mission was to show how the Bezier curves used in Adobe’s PostScript printer language could be put to use in software and also to use that software in conjunction with the personal scanners that were coming onto the market.
Adobe chose as Illustrator’s icon the curvaceous figure from Botticelli’s painting “The Birth of Venus.” By using Botticelli’s famous Venus, Adobe demonstrated Illustrator’s ability to produce sinuous lines and also associated Illustrator with fine art rather than the blunt software tools graphic artists eschewed.
Illustrator was so revolutionary at the time that Adobe knew it would be difficult to convey what it was and how to use it. So the very first version of the software shipped with a VHS videocassette that shows Adobe co-founder and then-president John Warnock using the software and explaining what it does and how. The video is all the more fascinating because Warnock demonstrated Illustrator on a 512K Mac.
If you’ve never seen this historical footage, here is the complete 33-minute video. (You can find an abbreviated version here.)

Venus has long been retired in favor of Adobe’s more abstract branding. But over the years, Illustrator has become incredibly sophisticated software capable of creating fine art that even Botticelli would approve of.
Illustrator continues to move forward, amassing features for every type of media and project. Now Adobe is giving us a sneak peek of a new feature in Illustrator CS6: seamless pattern repeats. Illustrator product manager Brenda Sutherland shows how it works.

I can see this feature used in many ways, but what comes to mind first is designing textiles or wall coverings. What would you use it for?