Adobe Illustrator vs Zeplin

Overview

Adobe Illustrator

Stacks1.5K

Followers1.0K

Votes2

Zeplin

Stacks977

Followers633

Votes22

Adobe Illustrator vs Zeplin: What are the differences?

Integration with Design Tools: Adobe Illustrator is primarily a design tool used for creating vectors and graphics, while Zeplin is a collaboration tool for designers and developers. Zeplin integrates with design tools like Sketch and Adobe XD, allowing for seamless transfer of design files, style guides, and assets. This integration streamlines the design handoff process between designers and developers, promoting better collaboration and communication.
Code Generation: One key difference between Adobe Illustrator and Zeplin is their code generation capabilities. While Adobe Illustrator focuses on creating visual assets and designs, Zeplin generates code snippets directly from design files, making it easier for developers to implement designs accurately. Zeplin ensures consistency between the design and the final code, reducing the chances of discrepancies and speeding up the development process.
Interactive Prototyping: Zeplin offers interactive prototyping features that allow designers to create clickable prototypes directly from their design files. This functionality enables stakeholders to visualize the user flow and interactions, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the design. Adobe Illustrator, on the other hand, lacks built-in interactive prototyping tools, making Zeplin a more suitable choice for showcasing and testing user interfaces.
Version Control and Design Collaboration: Zeplin provides version control and design collaboration features that facilitate team collaboration on design projects. Designers can work simultaneously on design files, share feedback, and track changes efficiently within Zeplin. This collaborative environment fosters teamwork and ensures that everyone is on the same page throughout the design process. Adobe Illustrator lacks robust version control and collaboration capabilities, making Zeplin a preferred choice for team-based design projects.
Exporting Assets: Zeplin excels in exporting assets for various platforms and screen resolutions. Designers can easily export assets in multiple formats and sizes directly from Zeplin, saving time and effort in preparing assets for development. Adobe Illustrator also allows for asset export, but Zeplin's streamlined export process caters specifically to the needs of developers and ensures that designs are implemented accurately.
Developer-friendly Inspections: Zeplin provides developer-friendly tools like CSS and style guide inspections, making it easier for developers to extract design specifications and code snippets. This functionality bridges the gap between design and development, allowing developers to access design details quickly and accurately. Adobe Illustrator lacks these developer-centric features, making Zeplin a more efficient tool for design handoff and implementation.

In Summary, Adobe Illustrator is a design-focused tool, while Zeplin serves as a collaborative platform for design handoff and implementation, offering features like integration with design tools, code generation, interactive prototyping, version control, asset exporting, and developer-friendly inspections.

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Advice on Adobe Illustrator, Zeplin

Marte

Digital Designer

Feb 11, 2021

Needs adviceon

Zeplin

Avocode

Hey,

We are a diverse group of in-house UX/UI-designers who currently work in different software; XD/Sketch/InVision and so on. We need an efficient way to manage our workflow to build, share, and maintain a consistent yet dynamic design library and a smooth, less time-consuming developer hand-off.
There are lots of things to consider, and where we're at the moment, it's "design in your preferred program, but joint library and handoffs should happen through Zeplin or Avocode." Which one of these two should we go for? Any other solutions?

Thanks!

182k views182k

Comments

Bobby

Feb 14, 2020

Needs advice

Hello, I want to start an unlimited graphic design service. (yes, yet another one, but bear with me)

It’s the second week that I’m working on this project, my goal is to test the market as soon as possible.

One element that is missing is the solution to handle communication between the clients and the designers.

• Mandatory: it needs to communicate instructions, progress/status, and design files (exported from Adobe Illustrator or similar). • Optionally it would also display the design inside the app so the files don’t need to be opened. • Optionally it would let the client easily mark the design where he wants revision.

• Mandatory: it needs to have unlimited clients and unlimited projects (I’ll have hundreds of clients and each will have at least one project) • Optionally it would auto-assign a new project to the first available designer, or let the designers choose themselves which project they want to work on • Optionally it would have groups (corresponding to a subscription plan) with different clients and different designers in each • Optionally it would communicate with other apps so that client and designer management tasks (access, payment, etc) can be automated

I’m open to all suggestions, not just the selection above. Ultimately I guess I’ll have a custom app developed on a no-code platform, but to begin with I need something simple and ready.

Reminder: it is only for graphic design, between my designers and my clients

169k views169k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Adobe Illustrator	Zeplin
The industry-standard vector graphics app lets you create logos, icons, sketches, typography, and complex illustrations for print, web, interactive, video, and mobile.	Collaboration app for designers & developers. Supports Sketch and Photoshop (on beta!).
-	Connected Components; Bring development context to designs
Statistics
Stacks 1.5K	Stacks 977
Followers 1.0K	Followers 633
Votes 2	Votes 22
Pros & Cons
Pros 2 Vector Creation Cons 3 Massive disk space usage 3 Adobe Updater to slow you down even more 2 Expensive 1 Clunky 1 Not really a tool for web design	Pros 7 Avoid the insanity of extract this info from Photoshop 7 Free 2 CSS 2 SVG 2 Works with lots of devices Cons 8 SVG
Integrations
Adobe Photoshop	Adobe Photoshop Sketch Slack

What are some alternatives to Adobe Illustrator, Zeplin?

Figma

Figma is the first interface design tool with real-time collaboration. It keeps everyone on the same page. Focus on the work instead of fighting your tools.

Sketch

Easily create complex shapes with our state-of-the-art vector boolean operations and take advantage of our extensive layer styles.

Adobe Photoshop

It is the best in the world of graphic design and image processing software that will realize any of your ideas. Create and enhance photos, illustrations and 3D graphic objects.

Adobe XD

A vector-based tool developed and published by Adobe Inc for designing and prototyping user experience for web and mobile apps.

Blender

It is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation.

ProtoPie

It is the easiest tool used to turn your UI/UX design ideas into highly interactive prototypes for mobile, desktop, web, all the way to IoT. ProtoPie runs on macOS & Windows and the player app is on iOS and Android.

Readymag

Readymag—an online platform for website creation focused on design & creativity. Advanced typography. Powerful animations. Code injection & third-party tool integrations.

Inkscape

It is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. This software can be used to create or edit vector graphics such as illustrations, diagrams, line arts, charts, logos and complex paintings.

Affinity Designer

No bloat, no gimmicks, just all the tools you need, implemented how you always dreamed. It is a stripped back, pro-end workhorse that will always get your job done. It was created to thrive on the electric pace of the latest computing hardware. Live, responsive and incredibly fluid, it’s simply a joy to use.

Affinity Photo

It is born to work hand-in-hand with the latest powerful computer technology, it’s fully-loaded photo editor integrated across macOS, Windows and iOS.

Related Comparisons

Adobe Illustrator vs Zeplin: What are the differences?

Integration with Design Tools: Adobe Illustrator is primarily a design tool used for creating vectors and graphics, while Zeplin is a collaboration tool for designers and developers. Zeplin integrates with design tools like Sketch and Adobe XD, allowing for seamless transfer of design files, style guides, and assets. This integration streamlines the design handoff process between designers and developers, promoting better collaboration and communication.
Code Generation: One key difference between Adobe Illustrator and Zeplin is their code generation capabilities. While Adobe Illustrator focuses on creating visual assets and designs, Zeplin generates code snippets directly from design files, making it easier for developers to implement designs accurately. Zeplin ensures consistency between the design and the final code, reducing the chances of discrepancies and speeding up the development process.
Interactive Prototyping: Zeplin offers interactive prototyping features that allow designers to create clickable prototypes directly from their design files. This functionality enables stakeholders to visualize the user flow and interactions, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the design. Adobe Illustrator, on the other hand, lacks built-in interactive prototyping tools, making Zeplin a more suitable choice for showcasing and testing user interfaces.
Version Control and Design Collaboration: Zeplin provides version control and design collaboration features that facilitate team collaboration on design projects. Designers can work simultaneously on design files, share feedback, and track changes efficiently within Zeplin. This collaborative environment fosters teamwork and ensures that everyone is on the same page throughout the design process. Adobe Illustrator lacks robust version control and collaboration capabilities, making Zeplin a preferred choice for team-based design projects.
Exporting Assets: Zeplin excels in exporting assets for various platforms and screen resolutions. Designers can easily export assets in multiple formats and sizes directly from Zeplin, saving time and effort in preparing assets for development. Adobe Illustrator also allows for asset export, but Zeplin's streamlined export process caters specifically to the needs of developers and ensures that designs are implemented accurately.
Developer-friendly Inspections: Zeplin provides developer-friendly tools like CSS and style guide inspections, making it easier for developers to extract design specifications and code snippets. This functionality bridges the gap between design and development, allowing developers to access design details quickly and accurately. Adobe Illustrator lacks these developer-centric features, making Zeplin a more efficient tool for design handoff and implementation.

Adobe Illustrator vs Zeplin

Overview