Adobe Illustrator Versions By Year May 2026

Adobe Illustrator Versions by Year: The Complete Visual Legacy

The CS era integrated Illustrator into a unified package with Photoshop and InDesign, introducing advanced artistic tools. CS (11.0) - 2003: Debut of 3D effects and OpenType support. CS2 (12.0) - 2005: Introduced Live Trace Live Paint CS3 (13.0) - 2007: Live Color and tighter Flash integration. CS4 (14.0) - 2008: Breakthrough addition of Multiple Artboards and the Blob Brush. CS5 (15.0) - 2010: Introduced the Perspective Grid and Variable-Width Strokes. CS6 (16.0) - 2012: Released with the Mercury Performance System (64-bit support) for faster processing. The Creative Cloud (CC) & AI Era (2013–Present)

Adobe Illustrator CS (11.0) – 2003

Conclusion

The Genesis Era (1987–1990)

, allowing for photorealistic color blends using "points" rather than just lines or circles. 2020: Illustrator 2021 (v25) – Major launch of Illustrator for iPad adobe illustrator versions by year

The Intel Transition. This version was rewritten as a Universal Binary to run natively on both PowerPC (old) and Intel (new) Macs. It was blisteringly fast on new hardware. Adobe Illustrator Versions by Year: The Complete Visual