High-quality vector art tutorials to supercharge your skills and create amazing illustrations.
(Image credit: Mike Mangialardi)
Finding the best vector art tutorials will enable you to add a personal stamp to your projects by creating your own vector graphic. Though there's heaps of stock vector art on the web, there are times when you need something a little more special.
We've searched high and low, and rounded up the best vector art tutorials out there, to empower you to create infinitely flexible digital creations. These will work for beginners wanting to get started and seasoned pros who want to sharpen their techniques. Whatever your level, we've got you covered.
All of these tutorials use software like Illustrator CC, Affinity Designer or Sketch to demonstrate how to create your own vector design (our list of how to draw tutorials may help you with the design). Need to get the software? Here are the best Creative Cloud discounts around. If you would rather use a stock vector, or need some inspiration, check out our list of websites with the best free vector art.
Unlike pixel-based images made in tools like Photoshop CC, vectors are based on mathematically defined lines and points, which combine to form shapes. So however you scale your vector art up or down, it will never become blurry or lose clarity.
For more on the difference between vector and raster images, plus more handy works and phrases you might be getting confused, take a look at our post on key terms every graphic designer should know.
In an increasingly digital world, demand for vector art is rising. So let's get going with the best vector art tutorials around.
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Get Adobe Illustrator now
One of the best and easiest ways to create amazing vector art is with Adobe Illustrator. You can buy the software through Adobe’s CC All Apps option – which gives you access to the entire CC suite of desktop and mobile creative apps. The plan also includes 100GB of cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark with premium features. (Alternatively, if you're a student or teacher you can save up to 60% on CC.)
If you're a total beginner at making vector art in Adobe Illustrator, here's a great place to start. The software's makers explain how to easy build your artwork from simple vector shapes that you can adjust, combine, and colour to make eye-catching illustrations.
Continuing on from the previous introduction, this tutorial from Adobe sets out the basics of creating and editing shapes in Adobe Illustrator CC, including how to draw combine, and trace shapes.
Adobe Illustrator is not the only tool available for the creation of vector art: an increasingly popular alternative is Affinity Designer. This Affinity Designer tutorial explains how vectors compare to bitmap/raster images, how vectors are made, which apps use vectors, why you need to export your work, and the best tips for keeping your final design looking sharp and crisp.
04. A beginner’s guide to vectors with Affinity Designer
Here, Mike Mangialardi provides a detailed guide to creating a basic vector graphic image using this software, which can be followed by anyone at any level. Even if you’re not using Affinity Designer, you will learn a lot about vectors here that you can apply to your work in other tools.
05. Create a vector illustration from start to finish
Pro illustrator and blogger Chris Spooner believes that Illustrator’s range of shape tools can be used to construct cool vector illustrations of absolutely anything. He demonstrates this here by walking through his process for creating a simple illustration of a water gun. This is all completed using Illustrator’s basic tools, then the Live Paint tool is used to add colour.
06. Transitioning from Adobe Illustrator to Affinity Designer
Maybe you’re already practised making vector art in Illustrator but you’re a novice when it comes to Affinity Designer? To help you out, Andrei Stefan here walks you through the process of switching from Adobe Illustrator to Affinity Designer, listing the key road bumps that you may have to conquer along the way.
Would you like to convert your hand lettering into vector graphics format? In this video from Scott Biersack, he shows you exactly how to do that in Adobe Illustrator.
This Illustrator tutorial from Digital Arts walks you through how to turn a hand-drawn sketch into a coloured digital vector file, taking in colour adjustments, depth and composition. The basic skills you'll learn here will help you to create scalable character vectors again and again.
In this tutorial, Andrei Stefan walks you through the process of making a simple vector icon design, a check or tick icon, using Adobe Illustrator, from start to finish.
Georgia is lucky enough to be Creative Bloq's Editor. She has been working for Creative Bloq since 2018, starting out as a freelancer writing about all things branding, design, art, tech and creativity – as well as sniffing out genuinely good deals on creative technology. Since becoming Editor, she has been managing the site and its long term strategy, helping to shape the diverse content streams CB is known for and leading the team in their own creativity.
