Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 6: Personal Computer Era (1980s)

1987

Adope Illustrator Developed

Invention · Europe

A row of Illustrator toolbars labelled by year, beginning with the compact black-and-white 1987 toolbar.
Adobe’s retrospective comparison of Illustrator toolbars, from the first 1987 version through 2017. Adobe, “Happy Birthday, Illustrator!”, 1 March 2017. Image source.

Developed in 1986 but first shipped in 1987, Adobe Illustrator emerged as a groundbreaking vector graphics software, revolutionizing the design industry. Developed by Adobe Systems for the Apple Macintoush, Illustrator provided designers with a powerful toolset for creating scalable and precise, visually compelling illustrations. Its intuitive interface and robust features quickly made it an essential piece of software for graphic designers, allowing for the creation of logos, icons and intricate artwork. Illustrator is the companion product to Photoshop that focuses on areas of typesetting and logography in design. The program was a step forward in graphic design from software such as MacDraw and was the commercialization of Adobe’s PostScript.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

Movements

digital art, graphic design

Filed under

Ideas
design, digital art, graphic design, tools, typography
Technologies
Illustrator, MacDraw, Macintosh, Photoshop, PostScript, vector graphics
Organisations
Adobe, Apple

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