I do have a copy of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks on my mac which gets used every now and then but I’d still like to use a lightweight vector app that does quick easy draws on demand. To that end 2 worthy vector apps stand out: Lineform from Freeverse or DrawIT by Pieter Omvlee.
Screengrab of DrawIt panels in action. Isn’t it neat and crisp?
On one hand I love how Drawit has the drag and drop modules on the right panel and its amazingly clean interface by Laurent Baumann that helps you concentrate on your work. Its fits right along with the toolbar of apps in Apple - iWork. Powerful non-destructive editing with masks, filters, styles makes DrawIT stand out and a clean 9 out of 10 on the layout and panel contol like in Core animation and scanner integration.
On the other Lineform is a product that has been around for a while and has had a few accolades from industry big-wigs in the past: They have been awarded the Apple Design Award in 2006, 5★ rating by c|net 4★ by MacLife Magazine. Yet my experience with Lineform though limited seems to point out that the panels feel a bit cluttered as compared to the swish approach of DrawIT.
Having waffled all that much here is my dilemma: pray tell which should I squander on? Lineform with all its geewhiz buzz sells for US$ 75 while DrawIT is at US$ 49 and far more recent with all the bells and whistles. No accolades or recommendations though.
Thank you for this review, it’s nice to see people seduced by a clean and ergonomic interface
But you made two mistakes if I may. First, DrawIt have been released by Pieter Omvlee and not Tweakersoft (they released VectorDesigner). Then, I just assisted Pieter with some graphics and ideas, and I absolutely can’t get all the credit for his hard work
Laurent, thanks. I stand corrected indeed
duly updated the post as well. And kudos to you and Pieter Omvlee both for the gorgeous design and hard work to get DrawIt to where it is.
So you vote for Drawit too over Lineform?
Thanks for great review and for updating the DrawIt’s author details. Still VectorDesigner as also interesting piece of software.
Speaking with Pieter (author of DrawIt) I found that he is very open for new suggestions and ideas, which is also great adventage of DrawIt.
Yet I haven’t decided which piece of this software I’d like to buy. I’ve recently moved from Windows to Mac and I love it. But I still have some old Fireworks 8 license for Windows, yet I don’t want to buy new license for Mac as it is terribly expensive and they don’t offer upgrades for platform switchers (argh!) so I’m looking for software which will basically offer similar functionality for less price.
I’m using also Inkscape which is pretty slow on Mac (and any platform), I got also Pixelmator license (MacHeist ;P), but I miss some vector drawing software for web or icon developers.
DrawIt seems to be closest choice, but there’re some missing features that stops me from buying it.
Cheers.
I’ve been looking into this topic and trying to pick between Lineform, VectorDesigner, DrawIt, Intaglio, and Inkscape (free). (EazyDraw I consider to be too annoying.)
DrawIt’s main problem is that it’s really an object-oriented bitmap creation program. You can’t save SVGs or editable PDFs (or import them). If you change your mind about the output resolution, you can’t just change it and have everything scale. It pretty much defeats much of the point of a Vector drawing program. It’s a shame because its user interface has much to recommend it (although it has some annoying modalities).
Intaglio is the most like “Illustrator Lite”. Lineform and VectorDesigner both try to make a lot of things easier that are annoyingly hard in Illustrator.
But the real problem for me is lack of precision. If I’m making a logo I need vertices to be placed absolutely precisely, and none of these programs do this dependably (their booleans, in particular, tend to cause vertices to drift slightly).