Illustrator Web Design Part 2 - Return of the Vector

     I searched and found two very nice looking vector-based web designs, the ones at http://www.mobilestatistics.com and http://www.digitalpodge.co.uk/2009/.  The first is for a website that points out many statistics about the sale of mobile phones (especially smartphones) and portrays them in entertaining little graphs.  I like the grid design of the site, and I like the cooler, tamer colors in the background.  The colors, along with the solid looking font, achieve the look of a graph very well.  The site being made in Illustrator helps it have its "crisp", clean appearance, no matter how large the browser window is.  The second site is for an annual meeting of designers in Britain.  I like its simple, structured design which seems very clear.  The cell-based design of the homepage makes it look organized, and the colors mesh very well together.  Again, Illustrator contributes to it having its  smooth and clean appearance.

Illustrator Web Design

    Illustrator seems to be very useful for web design, as it allows you to save elements, edit what you've already created, and optimize your workspace.  If you set the color mode to RGB, disable the artboard and page tiling, and place a web browser window that has been emptied in Photoshop, you can use that as a canvas to design on.  You can set everything to pixels and set the keyboard increment to .5 px, which can be used to fix blurriness on lines and sharp objects.  You can save master symbols used for the GUI and design to edit later, and can create entire new symbol libraries.  You can do the same with textures and swatches, as well.  Because of how vector graphics work, you can edit what you have already placed very easily, whereas in Photoshop such a process could be quite difficult.  You can format and wrap text very easily using Illustrator, and also use paragraph and character styles to further modify text.  Illustrator also lets you customize your workspace, which can speed up the design process.