This blog explains the usefulness and difference between vector and bitmap graphic applications and file formats to create media products. To start let's consider vector graphics and the most widely used application Adobe Illustrator.
Many media products require the use of some type of illustration or graphical device to help explain a point. This could be a weather map in a newspaper,
a diagram of a water cycle and rainfall in a geographical magazine,
or an illustration of a magician in a children's book.
You could take and use a staged photograph or a satellite image but to get real clarity you could produce these visual assets using vector graphics. To explain this further I will show the processes I went through to produce a self-portrait in Adobe Illustrator the market leading vector graphics software used by just about all graphic designers working in digital media.
