What are Vector Images and Why Should You Use Them?

Creators and digital artists often use vectors for their projects. They opt for this format, as vector graphics have multiple advantages over raster images, including scalability and sharpness. Vectors might be your best choice to create an appealing website design and attract your audience using illustrations.
Do you want to improve your web performance, enhance customer engagement, and boost your brand awareness? Read on to learn the main perks of using vector pictures in your creative projects.
Raster vs. vector images
Vector images might not differ from rasters at first glance, but they are created using different technologies and, therefore, perform differently. Vectors are created using mathematical formulas, which help preserve their quality, color, and overall appearance, even when you significantly enlarge them. On the other hand, rasters consist of pixels, which is great for color preservation but isn’t the best solution for scalability: such images lose their quality when enlarged.
Both image formats have their pros and cons. However, vectors are generally more suitable if your main goal is to work with pictures that are easy to change and scale.
Benefits of using vector illustration art
Appealing, sharp online visuals
Illustrations made in the form of vector graphics can be simple or complex. They are eye-catching, appealing, and fit different purposes: website design, blog illustrations, patterns used for backgrounds, social media designs, and many more.
It might be hard to find a vector artist who meets your requirements, works in a style you like, and fits your budget. That’s why many entrepreneurs and small business owners look for illustrations on photo stocks. Depositphotos.com is one of the most popular stock content platforms on the market. It offers 50+ million royalty-free HD vector art and graphics created in various styles. Instead of looking for an artist who will create something according to your needs and taste, you get to browse illustrations at that you can use in your content right away. No drafts, no misunderstandings.
They also have an exllent Background Remover at https://depositphotos.com/bgremover.html The tool works with JPG and PNG file formats, automatically removing backgrounds from images of all complexity levels. It processes visuals with people, objects, animals, and graphics. Moreover, the background remover features editing Brushes that help you restore and erase any additional image details.
Scaling without quality loss
Vector images are easily scalable, as they are made with anchor points instead of pixels and can be resized using vector-oriented editing software. They are the best choice for mobile-friendly websites and printed goods: you can enlarge or compress them without fearing that they’ll lose quality.
Such flexibility also makes vector illustrations a good solution for branding. You can place visuals on massive billboards, use them on social media, print them on pamphlets, and use them for other marketing purposes.
Easy to adapt and change
Many brands tend to optimize the usage of their visuals to save money and diversify content. With photos, you can achieve this by removing the background and reusing a picture in a collage. Vector images, however, offer more options for editing.
It takes just a couple of clicks to change the color of a vector object in your designs using Adobe Illustrator. It’s also possible to move particular illustration objects, make them bigger or smaller, delete or duplicate them, and do other manipulations. So, if you want to use a series of slightly different illustrations, it might be easier to modify one source file according to your needs, than wait until the artist draws other pictures.
Smaller file size
Unlike rasters, a vector image doesn’t have to store every pixel’s information, color, and positioning. All the necessary information about the file is encrypted into a mathematical formula, which doesn’t change after resizing. Due to that, such pictures don’t occupy much space when stored on a device.
Using vector images also helps optimize the website’s performance, as pictures with small file sizes load faster. This, in turn, improves the website’s loading speed, which is very important for boosting views and making a website easier to use and navigate.
Where can you use stock vector illustrations?
Branding
Flexibility and scalability make it easy to use vector illustrations on different carriers and digital formats, which is crucial for branding. Vector images ensure that you won’t have to struggle with creating a billboard poster. A vector file always retains its appearance. Even if you decide to place a print on a box of matches, the image will still look good.
Websites and mobile apps
Usually, websites automatically optimize visuals according to the screen size on your device. Using vector graphics that always look sharp and bright, you don’t have to worry about a picture displaying poorly on a non-standard screen.
Animation
Vector art is bright, appealing, and easy to modify if you have a source file. You can easily use it for animation, modifying only certain parts of an image instead of creating a picture series for animation purposes.
Print designs
Due to their scalability and detail sharpness, vector illustrations are also a great solution for creating printed goods: T-shirts, posters, book covers, and other materials. However, if you’re using vector illustrations from stock websites for that purpose, make sure that your license allows that. Although most royalty-free licenses allow using stock images for prints, in most cases, you cannot sell these prints without upgrading to the Extended license or modifying the image.
Other creative projects
Vector images support fewer colors and don’t transfer gradients and shading as finely as rasters. This could be considered a flaw, but actually, it’s a perk for specific niches that benefit from using clean colors and simple shapes. For instance, vector illustrations are often a good basis for creating various hobby goods: like ones for embroidery or painting by numbers.
To sum up
Vector images are easily scalable and, therefore, are a great solution for various things, such as website design, print materials, and many more. The easiest and cheapest way to get high-quality vector images is to look for them on stock image websites. Photo stocks offer vector illustrations in different styles, allowing you to find perfect visuals for your projects in a couple of clicks, instead of spending your resources on finding a professional artist.