While I'm not a hard-core professional illustrator or cartoonist, I do use vector design tools almost every day. Designing logos, playing with type, and creating quick layouts are things every vector design tool should do well.
Adobe Illustrator CS3, of course, is the 800-pound gorilla in this field, and it's my tool of choice. But there are plenty of people who don't need the extensive functionality that Illustrator provides. Plus, Illustrator is something of a resource hog (right now, it's using 176MB of real memory and 1.21GB of virtual memory on my system).
Today, I'm going to review four leaner, lower-cost (or free) options from four high-powered indie Mac developers: DrawBerry, EazyDraw, Lineform, and VectorDesigner. Unlike Illustrator, all of these use Mac OS X's built-in Core Image foundation, which makes them very easy to compare to each other.
It's high noon for vector apps, after the jump.
To test the features of the various applications, I designed a simple "Web 2.0 style" logo in Adobe Illustrator (as I might be asked to do).

To break this down into tasks, each application is expected to:
- Create a star shape with 20 points
- Inset the star shape a little
- Make a "horizon" by creating an intersecting shape
- Add transparency effects
- Add a drop shadow
- Add the "pointer" glyph from the Lucida Grande font
- Type "TUAW" using the Calibri Bold font
- Bend the crossbar of the "A" slightly
- Add gradients (yuck -- but hey, it's what the client wanted)
- Add diagonal lines behind the logo
- Make a file so I can import it into Photoshop
Now that we know what's involved, let's light this candle.
DrawBerry 0.5, free

DrawBerry, from Raphael Bost, is the freest application on our list, which is a big plus. And, it has a nice HUD interface, which is popular with the Mac users I know. Starting it for the first time is a little scary, though, as it looks like the HUD sneezed all over your desktop:

It offers very basic drawing tools: a rectangle tool, a circle tool, and a pen tool. The pen tool has two modes: a straight-line drawing mode, and a curves drawing mode. While I could have drawn the star shape with the straight-line drawing tool, I didn't exactly have 16 hours to spend getting it right. Instead, I used a circle in the absence of a star or polygon tool.
Zooming in was tough, because DrawBerry offers only a loupe for getting a close look at your artwork. Most difficult of all, DrawBerry lacked an intersection tool, so I had to draw the "horizon" myself, which took precious time. Additionally, the "TUAW" text couldn't be converted into vectors, and there was no way to apply a gradient fill to the letters.
Layers functionality was pretty nice, but items on locked layers can still be selected. This means if you have a selection that contains both locked and unlocked items, you won't be able to move anything.
Additionally (and these are excusable, since this is free beta software, after all):
- Help isn't available
- Clicking on the gradient swatch in the Shape palette moved the Shape palette around randomly
- Text disappears (with no clue as to where it went) if the text box is too small
- The interface few spelling problems: "Canevas"? Really?
Lastly, and sadly, the "Vectorial EPS" that DrawBerry generated was unreadable by Photoshop. Oops.
EazyDraw 2.6, $95

True to its name, EazyDraw was very easy to use. It also has charting and mathematical tools (which I'm not really covering in my test) that look very useful to someone who might need that sort of thing. At $95, it's the most expensive app in the group.
The interface needs the attention of a qualified user experience designer. Some buttons are labeled with abbreviations like "MJ," "Mn," "Vt," and "Gu" -- and as much as I like Mary Jane (from Spider Man! Honest!), Minnesota, Vermont, and ... uh ... Guam, they're just not right for interface buttons. The star tool is just bizarre, requiring the user to type a number (corresponding to the number of points) while they drag the star on the canvas.
The curve editing tools, on the other hand, were extremely easy to use (for the crossbar on the A), except I wasn't able to select more than one point at the same time to move.
I also wasn't able to add the lines behind the logo, since the maximum number of objects allowed in the demo was 35. But it looked fully capable of doing that.
Lineform 1.5, $80

Lineform, from Freeverse, comes highly rated, with a five-star review from CNet and an Apple Design Award. And as an Illustrator user, having an app that uses a lot of the same keyboard shortcuts was a blessing: it felt much faster to use than any of the others. Its feature-set was the most complete of all the tools, with a notable exception: a polygon or star tool would have made it perfect for this test.
Resizing objects is very simple -- dragging a selection over multiple objects allows you resize them all at once, even. Compared to the others in the group, the align and distribute functions were much better. (Heck, they were there, which puts it a leg up.) An align and distribute toolbar would have been very helpful, though.
Editing the vector points for the crossbar of the A was a little hard to figure out, but once I did, it made good sense. (You have to convert the corner points to "curves," and then everything will bend the way you need it to.)
Lineform had good documentation in the form of a couple of PDF files, and were written for a beginning user who wanted to get going quickly.
VectorDesigner, $70
VectorDesigner, from TweakerSoft, was just updated just a few days ago to version 1.2.0. Of the apps I tested, VectorDesigner was the only one that was able to do everything in the test (although EazyDraw is a close second -- since the diagonal lines were only a limitation of the demo). The results, as you can see, are impressive.
The gradient tool in VectorDesigner is a clear winner -- it was actually fun to use. Coming from someone that really doesn't enjoy gradients very much, that's saying something. Like the rest of the candidates in our field, VectorDesigner has very easy-to-use transparency tools, too, thanks to the Quartz foundation built into Mac OS X.
On the downside, the application becomes very, very slow when zoomed in tight on a part of your artwork. On my 2.8GHz Intel iMac (which isn't too pokey), watching the screen redraw in response to me using the key combination to zoom in was unexpected (and made me a little nostalgic).
As an added bonus, TweakerSoft offers a suite of video tutorials on their website to get you up and running right away.
In summary, is there a clear winner? In my mind, it's still Illustrator. For the price, though, VectorDesigner edges out EazyDraw for functionality and style. In any case, all these apps are solid options if you're doing basic design and need to quickly make a piece of vector artwork.













Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-13-2008 @ 4:47PM
David Deharbe said...
I am absolutely no expert on the subject, but the first vector-drawing tool that I found (and used, a couple of times) is not on your list: Inkscape.
Why wasn't it reviewed?
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5-15-2008 @ 5:06PM
Toni Panayotov said...
Inkscape is a handy vector tool. It relly had to be reviewed. For those who are no familiar witch inscape you can take a look - http://vector-art.blogspot.com/search/label/Inkscape
5-13-2008 @ 4:50PM
Robert Palmer said...
I could not for the life of me get Inkscape to run, believe it or not! I have X11 and everything, too. Rather than faulting it for something that's probably my fault, I just omitted it. I understand it's popular, but it's also in a different class than these apps, since it is runs under X11.
Cenon was another app I wanted to include, but decided it skewed a little too far to the CAD audience.
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5-13-2008 @ 4:51PM
Alan said...
I'm surprised you didn't cover Inkscape. Granted, it requires X11, but it is very capable of completing the task that you wanted. It's also very intuitive, and it's open source!
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5-13-2008 @ 4:52PM
Alan said...
Ah, it seems I was beaten.
5-13-2008 @ 4:53PM
Ryan Trevisol said...
Thanks Robert! I appreciate the comparison. I've been toying with trying to replace my trusty Swiss Army Knife o' Graphics (Paint Shop Pro) with a native mac alternative. What I've found is that short of Photoshop, there isn't ONE app that does all that PSP does.
I was toying with getting two apps at the sub-$100 price point to replace it, and I tried and loved Photoshop Elements 6, but it lacked vector editing. I do a little design work myself and I need good vector drawing. I liked Lineform's slick interface, but was left a little lacking. I liked Intaglio, but didn't try VectorDesigner. Now I'm leaning toward native mac apps again . . .
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5-13-2008 @ 4:56PM
Sam Major said...
Thank you for doing this review/test set. I use Illustrator religiously, as well as Photoshop and occasionally InDesign. Being a graphic designer at a newspaper, I also became a fan of Multi-Ad Creator, which I don't currently use (unfortunately).
The simplicity of these programs appeals to me (as does the price), so I'll definitely have to give them a try. I never took the opportunity to welcome you to TUAW as a contributor, so.. welcome! I'm enjoying your contributions so far - keep up the good work.
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5-13-2008 @ 5:01PM
Brian E said...
I'd like to have seen Stone Create in this test, as I think it can do everything in your test. At $150 it's not cheap, and the UI is not the most intuitive at times (though once you get into the mindset it works), but there's a lot of power under the hood - not to mention that I've been using it for five or six years and never once paid for a version upgrade.
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5-13-2008 @ 5:12PM
jimmy said...
my favourite pro package is fireworks - it's all geared towards web graphics but its combination of proper vector tools (which are based a lot on freehand's) and bitmap editing tools. In fact i rarely used to use pshop when doin websites. As for the 800 pound gorillas i both illustrator and freehand to be equally bad but i don't know if i have the impetus to try these low cost alternatives.
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5-13-2008 @ 6:24PM
Jeffrey said...
I will have to second on Fireworks. People always ignore this in favor of Photoshop. But for website or web app, Fireworks is the one.
5-13-2008 @ 5:17PM
SjG said...
Alas for poor ClarisDraw :(
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5-13-2008 @ 5:18PM
Jeff said...
I like the DrawIt product. It has a free version and a trial for the pro version.
http://getdrawit.com/
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5-13-2008 @ 5:33PM
Gianni said...
I'm a web developer / graphic designer and I use both DrawIt and LineForm for my vectors. I would be interested in seeing your review of DrawIt as well. http://www.getdrawit.com/
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5-13-2008 @ 5:44PM
Nigel said...
How could you not include Intaglio in your list of vector design apps? It's been a while since I reviewed the competition, but last I checked it was the best alternative out there. You really should include it in the review.
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5-13-2008 @ 6:06PM
KeynoteKen said...
I agree about the omission of the very capable Intaglio. Especially since it's one of the older, more established (and feature laden) vector editing apps on the Mac... to my knowledge, it was the first one that brought us Core Image effects as well.
http://www.purgatorydesign.com/Intaglio/
5-13-2008 @ 6:02PM
Quix said...
I agree with Nigel, where's the Intaglio love? Sure, it suffers from some annoying flaws and omissions (just like the other apps), and the interface could definitely use a fresh coat of paint (I prefer VectorDesigner's cleaner setup), but Intaglio is hands-down my drawing app of choice.
I've tried the Lineform demo, and I own VectorDesigner.
Intaglio wins.
If only we could combine the best of all these indy apps into a single drawing dynamo.
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5-13-2008 @ 6:12PM
BEC said...
Agreed. While with Intaglio, although the bottle is a bit dusty, what's inside is tasty...
I don't know how it would compare head-on to the other programs you've reviewed, but I've found its compositing, text-to-path conversion, and support for complex gradients, to be very useful. Part of its effectiveness is probably that it's been developed and improved over a number of years unlike the programs you've reviewed here.
Most importantly for me, Intaglio has deep support for reading and writing various file formats (including PDF, vector-PICT [read only] and SVG). I've monitored the draw-application universe on the Mac for years, and AFAIK Intaglio is the only app that supports these three formats relatively well.
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5-13-2008 @ 6:28PM
iJosh said...
I am surprised LineForm from Freeverse wasn't included in this test. It's sub $100 and looks like a great contender.
http://www.freeverse.com/apps/app/?id=6020
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5-13-2008 @ 6:28PM
iJosh said...
Okay I totally breezed over the lineform review. My Bad.
5-13-2008 @ 6:28PM
Robert Palmer said...
I have nothing to offer about the omission of Intaglio other than it was a product of my own ignorance. Today was the first I'd heard of it.
It wouldn't have fared well in the test, I'm afraid: it lacks support for alternate glyphs, meaning I couldn't add the little cursor icon. I couldn't sort out how to make the curve in the A crossbar, but I did add points to it, making a little pointy chevron down there. (There must be a way though; I just lack the patience to find it.) Lastly, it's missing a star tool. It did have a polygon tool, and I tried to make a star myself, but when I deleted points from the polygon, it kept reconnecting the remaining points (to keep the object a polygon). No dice.
Overall though, it's not bad. It outstrips DrawBerry, and should have been included to begin with. My apologies.
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