Our Toon Characters are made with Adobe Illustrator, which is a great vector editing software that’s ideal for both web and print projects. However, there are other alternatives that can do the job just as well. We decided to test how these programs work with our newest flat design cartoon characters. Take a look at our research below.

At first, our Toon Characters were meant to be compatible with just Adobe Illustrator, but then we decided to go in a new direction with the Flat Design Characters.  They don’t have any gradients or blending effects, which makes them compatible with most vector editing software. That way people that use other programs will be able to work with them as well.

We have compiled a list of some of the most capable, vector editing software that are out there. Ranging from desktop applications to web applications, they could easily substitute the Adobe product.

Let’s take a look at some of the best ones that you can use to easily edit our newest cartoon characters:

1. Corel Draw X6

Platform: Windows

Released in 2012, Corel Draw X6 is an editor used in graphic design, sign making and fashion design industries. It allows you to do pretty much everything Illustrator does. For example, experimenting with colors, compositions and brush strokes.

Toon Characters Compatibility:

You will have no trouble opening any PDF and EPS files from the ultimate pack of the cartoon. All the layers are intact and you can easily edit them with just a few clicks.

2. Inkscape 0.48

Platform: Windows and Mac

Inkscape gives amazing vector effects and allows the user to see effects applied in real time. The 0.48 version, which was released in 2010 includes advanced features such as arbitrary transformations, opacity, and gradients. It has all the capabilities of Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator. The advantage of using it, is that it’s free of charge, so you can easily get ahold of it.

Toon Characters Compatibility:

It will open our Toon Characters AI files, however unlike Illustrator, it will not show its layers. In order to separate the groups, just select Object -> Ungroup.

3. Affinity Designer

Platform: Mac

Developed by Affinity Designer’s interface has quite a few similarities with Adobe Illustrator. It features flexible layer management and a range of raster tools for finishing your images, and takes full advantage of native OS X technologies.

Toon Characters Compatibility:

As stated above, the program is easy to use, if you’re familiar with Adobe Illustrator. It opens all the files from the ultimate pack. Unfortunately, it doesn’t open the special Symbol Library, but you can easily use the Body Parts.ai instead of it.

4. Sketch

Platform: Mac

This Mac-only vector editor is a slick, polished alternative to Illustrator, offering a full range of editing tools including a rich set of web options such as the ability to copy CSS styles directly to the the clipboard.

Toon Characters Compatibility:

It doesn’t show the AI file layers, but it opens all the EPS, SVG and PDF ones. However, the PDF file might have some very slight difference from the original.

5. SVG-edit 2.7

Platform: Web Browser

If you want to edit an existing SVG file quickly, then are a few online editors that will do the job just as well as Adobe Illustrator. One of the best is definitely SVG edit. Its newest version was released 12 months ago.

It’s built entirely on HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript without requiring any server-side processing. So not only can you use it to create and edit documents, but as it’s open source you can also download and modify the code – making your own version if you want.

Toon Characters Compatibility:

In order to separate the parts of the character, you will need to choose Ungroup Elements, however it still doesn’t show them in separate folders like Illustrator. You need to click on each individual element to customize it.

It’s pretty easy to find a vector editing program that allows you to customize our Toon Characters and fits your budget. Thanks to the flat design, you can easily edit them with some of the most popular vector editing software out there. Whether desktop or web application, Windows or Mac platform, you are covered for any situation.

Which vector editing software do you prefer to use?

Let us know about your experience with any of these programs or others you may have used.