Illustrator Beginner Home User looking for affordable plan

[Liesl_Du_Plessis]

Hi there.

I bought my CS3 Creative Design Student Version package almost 7years ago. Since the cd-installed software have been cancelled and creative cloud is the only option. However, just to give an indication, this version has been sufficient for the stuff I needed to do.

I am an ad-hoc, home-user of mainly Illustrator and sometimes Photoshop ( I use this once in 3 months for instance). I have self-taught myself, am not a graphic designer, but still need to use the software for textile design projects, proposals and my kids' school projects. I prefer working in vectors.

Recently my software have started crashing and I know it's not possible to renew. However, with me living in South Africa, the 149$pm option is way to expensive and not justifiable for how irregular I use it, and it is not for profitable gain.

Are there any other options available where I can purchase Illustrator individually?

Ps. Also I have heard that Illustrator will be discontinuing? With what program will it be replaced?

Hope to hear from anyone who knows more than I do

Regards

Liesl

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

1. You could still use CS3 on older systems. There only is an issue with registration Blank registration screen in Adobe Creative Suite 3 products But that can be solved.

2. Apart from educational or maybe non-profit licenses Adobe nonprofit pricing discounts & programs  there is no option available to get a cheaper license

3. You could try open source apps, such as Inkscape, GIMP or Scribus as an alternative.

Which kinds of functions do you need in Illustrator? In the sense of: you rely on them and wouldn't want to live without.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Illustrator is not being discontinued.

You can purchase a monthly subscription to just Illustrator (single app plan) for $19.99/mo. US.

[JETalmage]

All of these vector drawing programs can be had without a rental fee, range in price from $600 US to free, and would be fine for the uses you describe and much more. People do commercial quality work in all of them:

ACD Canvas (Deneba Canvas). ~$600.
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. Includes Photopaint and more. ~$450 (current promotion).
Xara Designer Pro. Vector, raster, and web. ~$300.
Serif Affinity Designer. (Affinity Photo also available; Affinity Publisher under development.) ~$50 each.
Inkscape. Free. Open-source.

Gravit Designer. Free.

There is no reason to fear learning your way around a different drawing program.

JET

[Myra Ferguson]

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