MAT S 20150

C O M PA R AT I V E R E P O RT:
A N A N A LY S I S O N A D O B E
I L LU S T R AT O R A N D
KALEDO STYLE
APPLIED ICT/CAD/GRAPHICS

C O M P A R AT I V E R E P O RT: A N A N A LY S I S O F
A D O B E I L L U S T R AT O R A N D K A L E D O S T Y L E

Introduction
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CAROLINE JONSSON
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.. of the retail world means that designers are expected to
The extreme pace .
quickly and frequently keep up with the pace of the fashion world. The need for
increased efficiency, communication and quick turn-arounds have led to vast
technological developments that have catapulted computer software’s,
especially with program’s used for Computer Aided Designs (CAD) in order to
emulate 2D and 3D objects in virtual or real life. Software’s such as Adobe
Illustrator and Kaledo Style are specially designed for the purpose of easily
creating designs with extremely skilled tools with just a few mouse clicks.
Although Kaledo Style is more specific to the certain industries such as fashion
(apparel, accessories, footwear), automotive (car seats and interiors, airbags),
and furniture for instance, other software’s that make up the entire Adobe
family are used in many fields such as in shipbuilding, aerospace industries,
industrial and architectural design, prosthetics, and so on. However, both
software’s in question have key differences and although both computer
technologies have similarities, it is with a fashion view point that this paper
analyses which software is most efficient when designing.

Analysing Adobe Illustrator and Kaledo Style

Introducing Adobe Illustrator and Kaledo Style

Illustrator is part of the Adobe family and up until 1987, the Illustrator program
was originally designed for the Mac. It is now fully used on both Windows and
Macintosh computers and consists of a full- featured drawing program that has
enhanced the world of design (www.pcmag.com). Unlike Photoshop that deals
principally towards digital photo manipulation and photorealistic techniques of
computer illustration, Adobe Illustrator on the other hand provides designers
with a range variety of tools especially with typesetting and logo graphics. This
means that the program can be used for a wide variety of uses and is not
specific, thus making it a more diverse program. Kaledo Style on the other
hand, is geared towards specific markets, and thus the tools found in this
software make it the perfect platform to meet the specific needs of fashion
companies. Kaledo Style, part of the Lectra family, accelerate product design,
development and manufacturing purposes for industries using soft materials
(www.lectra.com, 2010) which is much like Adobe Illustrator. However because
Kaledo is more specific in its nature, the program includes modules to create
highly realistic simulations of prints, weaves and knits, and to develop
variations in just a few mouse clicks. In addition, because it is fashion specific,
the application of fabrics is more versatile because options of scaling and
positioning the textures of fabrics are made easier which also includes the
application of motifs. On the other hand, each program has its advantages and
disadvantages and a closer look into each program is vital in order to highlight
the best features of the software’s.

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The Pen Tool and Multiple Line Tool

The most frequently used tool on Illustrator when designing is the Pen Tool
which is an equivalent to the Multiple Line Tool on Kaledo due to their diverse
applications. With these tools, designers can draw the silhouettes of garments
and figures; add colours, gradients or swatches onto closed paths; lines can be
changed to resemble seams/stitching of a particular type and so on. By
clicking, dragging and setting points, various objects of different shapes can be
designed and if the design needs to be changed, there are various options
which can be used to augment the object. However, in Illustrator, these points
can be easily manipulated without having to delete the entire thing, which also
includes joining two end points in order to create a closed path object. This
task is increasingly difficult on Kaledo, which sometimes may lead to deleting
the entire path and redoing the deleted path again. In addition, the tools can
be ejected from the stationary location and can be mobile, thus the designer
can place his or her “tool box” wherever he or she would like to have it.

Figure 1: The Pen Tool Figure 2:

The extracted “tool box”

Figures 1 & 2 show how the path lines that can be

manipulated to emulate seams and stitching on
clothing illustrations. The first two images are
designed on Illustrator whereas the third image
is done on Kaledo.

Figure
3:
Seams/Stitches

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Figure 4: Seam/Stitches

Texts on Illustrator and Kaledo

Creating text paths and including texts of different fonts, styles and sizes make
it also an increasingly important tool when creating mood, trend and trim
boards which are all part of a fashion organization’s daily tasks.

Figure 5: Example of using text to highlight Figure 6: Text Tool used

here to give the
garment specification title to the
Illustrator board

The creators of these software’s have taken this aspect into consideration and
thus designers can create and illustrate their garments the way industry
requires them to. This means that
designers can feature their designs
on an A3, A4 etc canvas and highlight
specifics of the garment by using the
line tool to point to the fabric material
or a trim such as a rivet or button.
The Type Tool can then be used by
the designers

Figure 7: Example of how designers can

display their designs

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Figure 8: The Illustrator board,
another way of displaying a mood
board

who can include specifications of the

garment by writing the necessary
information for manufacturers to
take note off such as the colour or
material or the code of the material,
rivet or button. Figures 7 & 8
demonstrate two different layouts.

In addition, certain files can be

extracted from WGSN and used on
Adobe Illustrator which features pre-
made buttons, studs, rivets, lace trims and so on that can simply be dragged
and used on the garment as a brush tool of various sizes and colours. However,
this method can only be used on Illustrator.

Figure 9: Brush library for Adobe Illustrator displaying various brushes for designing
garments

The Adobe family is vast; including programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe
Indesign and Photoshop and in addition, the combination of the three
aforementioned programs together make up the Creative Suite package. The

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importance this .
that these elements combined can be used when composing a design. Hence,
the designers working on a mood board on Illustrator can work back and forth
between Illustrator and Photoshop, thus using the best of both worlds by
merely dragging the objects from one Illustrator window to the other Photoshop
window.

Figures 10 & 11 show how this is

done. The trenchcoat created on
Illustrator was dragged onto
Photoshop where part of the
bottom half of the image was
faded out by using a large, soft
brush using the Eraser Tool (which
Illustrator does not include). The
faded out image was then dragged
back onto Illustrator to achieve the
desired look on the right. On the
other hand, Kaledo does have the
Eraser Tool, making it more
convenient and quicker when designing.

Figure 10 & 11: Trenchcoat “faded out” on Photoshop to give

the final result on Illustrator

The Live-trace Tool

The advanced Illustrator software allows designers to scale, space, rotate

graphics and import objects with particular tools. A special and highly valued
feature of Adobe Illustrator is its ability to auto-trace objects with a simple
click. This means that a designer can simply auto-trace a sketch which is
scanned and opened on illustrator, the scanned object is live-traced with one
click (preferences can also be manipulated to get the desired outcome), the

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.. be expanded with a further click and the object is ready to be
traced object can .
distorted and enhanced on Illustrator. Colours can be added to closed path
shapes, points can be joined, added, deleted or moved, and paths can be
changed to a different stroke or brush which can be extracted from the brush
library.

Figure 12: Scanned

image which is live
traced on Illustrator, expanded and then given
colour

Clipping Masks, Adding Swatches and Motifs to Shapes

The Clipping Mask Tool found on Illustrator is not directly used when
constructing fashion garments, however the tool was used when constructing
the Illustrator board for French Connection.

Figure 13 shows how a combination of shapes

were created and combined to create one whole
shape. Next, a print was extracted from the
internet and placed on top of the nearly created
and selected shape.

By adding a clipping mask the following design

was made. This is a preferred way of applying a
print or fabric onto a shape or silhouette
because if this print was used through the
application of a swatch, there would be jagged
lines, which is undesirable.

Figure 13: Image showing the combination

of shapes with an added clipping mask on top
to give the shapes a pattern.

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The disadvantage of working with clipping mask and complex patterns is that
the file becomes large and slows down the speed of work. On the other hand,
applying fabrics or textures on Kaledo is very simple. This can be done by
applying a filling or motif. With the motif option, the fabric/texture can be sized
accordingly, different fabrics/textures can be experimented on without having
to close the dialogue box and this is all possible with just half the time that is
spent on Illustrator. Yet, there are other features on Illustrator that bring
diversity when designing such as: live paint; recoloring art to change color,
custom graphics, working with vectors and pixels, converting raster images to
vector using live trace, using the appearance panel and live effects together,
creating, editing, and experimenting with color groups, working with opacity
masks, and isolated blending modes.

Brushes, Layering and Changing

Opacity Levels

Adobe Illustrator offers thousands of

brushes which are found both on the
software or the internet. However, to
determine that this makes the
software better than the Kaledo
software is unjustifiable. Illustrator was
designed for a wide range of markets.
Thus, boards created on Illustrator can
be more artistic than design boards
created on Kaledo. Figures 14, 15 & 16
show how different brushes are used on top of different layers.

Figure 14: The use of an Ink brush set at 0.1 pt

to give an artistic look to the image

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. Figure 15 & 16: Images taken from
the Illustrator board displaying the
use of the Ink brush to add an
artistic feel to the illustration

Gradients

The Gradient Tool in Illustrator is another key feature of the software as it can
emulate real life images. Figure 17 demonstrates a set of dark brown beads
with highlights in them. Although the Effect tools such as the Extrude and
Bevel Tool can make it more realistic, a simple radial gradient were applied to
all the beads and hence giving them a very realistic look.

Figure 17: Image showing the use of

gradients to give a real life look

Conclusion

After analyzing both the software’s, it is evident that the preferred software
highly depends on the task at hand. Creating smoother curves more time
efficiently is easier on Kaledo with the use of two keys (Q & W) and it does not
take long for a beginner to get used to the software. However, in Illustrator, an
experienced hand is required to quickly construct smooth curves when creating
silhouettes. The overall aesthetic outlook will be better on Illustrator as the
software is geared for dynamic illustrations with its wide variety of brushes,
effects and manipulation techniques. However, due to the frequent update of
the software, designers may have to deal with compatibility issues when
working from different computers. This often means that the designer cannot
work with a file that is saved on CS4 on a computer that has CS3 programmed
in it (unless the file is manually saved as a PDF). This does not necessary mean
that there are no compatibility issues with Kaledo. In order to save a Kaledo file
as JPEG file, the designer would have to first export the Kaledo file (PST) into a
GIF format (changing the dpi if necessary), then open it in Photoshop in order
to finally save the file as a JPEG.

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. Deleting or changing points/paths is a necessary option
for all designers and of the two, Illustrator makes it
easier to do the task in a few simple mouse clicks. In
addition, the availability of Illustrator files containing
elaborate studs and rhinestones such as Figure 18 can
be used easily on garments whereas in Kaledo it is a
much harder task.

An advantage of the Kaledo Style program is the

Reflection Tool. Figure 19 shows how a reflection line
can be set wherever the designer wishes it to be and as
the designer draws, the same path is emulated on the
other side of the reflection line. To do this task on
Illustrator is more time consuming as the designer will
have to draw one side of the garment, copy, paste and
then reflect the object.

Figure 18: Illustrator file showing pre-made rhinestones and rivets ready to use

Figure 19: Using the Reflection Tool on Kaledo Style

Thus far, the highlights of the Kaledo software is the easy application of
different textures and fabrics on shapes which helps build elaborate textile
combinations (print/weave, knit/print) and apply effects, the reflection tool
which saves time dramatically and the fashion specific tools which means less
unnecessary tools to deal with that are not needed when doing fashion
illustrations. With Illustrator, the live-trace tool saves time by tracing an image
with just a few mouse clicks, the designer gets to work back and forth with

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both Photoshop.
. and Illustrator, gradients and the effect gallery can help create
.
2D and 3D looks and illustrations produced on Illustrator are more artistic than
the illustrations created on Kaledo Style. In conclusion, the Kaledo software
seems to be specifically geared towards “fashion” markets thus the tools are
specific to that nature. This means that designers can keep up with the fast
pace of creating and updating boards frequently. On the other hand, this is all
possible on Illustrator and with an experienced designer, time will not be a
factor. The presentation of an Illustrator board will be better than one made on
Kaledo style. The aesthetics of a board and how the designs are illustrated are
an important factor when displaying these boards to possible clients. However,
to determine which software is better than the other when designing is specific
to the designer and the task at hand.

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