So, I went ahead and downloaded the 1GB Adobe Illustrator trial last night. First, I had to download some Adobe download manager. Which was about 8K or so. Then, the big 1GB download started. I left the download running and had a nice dinner.

Once the download was complete, the install started and completed without a hitch. After installing, I played around with the different tools for about an hour, and I still have a lot of tools left. Illustrator is similar to Microsoft Expression Design, but you can tell that Illustrator is much more mature than Expression Design.

The first thing I noticed in Illustrator is all the properties windows on the right are collapsed by default. In Expression Design, most of the properties windows are open. This includes the color pallets. Also, I still haven’t figured out everything with the gradients. Also, where are all the default patterns, like brick, grass, tress, etc? I have more exploring to do this weekend.

In the mean time, I will try and submit one or 2 things to 99 Designs using Illustrator. If I win enough contests in the next 30 days, Illustrator will pay for itself. 🙂

The Illustrator trial is good for 30 days, so I will keep chugging along and learning what I can from YouTube and other sites. You can get an Adobe Illustrator trial directly from Adobe.