How to make anything a vector.

First, some theory (just a little, I promise).

Vector graphics are points, lines, curves and shapes that are based on mathematical formulas. When you scale a vector image file there's no loss of quality, so it can be sized to however large or small you need it to be. It's an excellent tool for putting company logos on business cards, creating poster designs or anything that will be going to print. Any art made with vector illustration software like Adobe Illustrator is considered vector art. In comparison, raster art (also referred to as bitmaps or raster images) is created using colorized pixels. When you enlarge a raster file with pixel-based art too much, the edges look jagged and the quality is lost. The resolution independence vector art displays allows it to be used in a variety of forms, from small illustrations to massive billboards.

The best tool to turn anything to vector is Adobe Illustrator.

Choose a file and open it inside Illustrator. The document size doesn't matter.

I will be using a nice skull in .jpg format I found on Vecteezy .

Once we select the image we want to trace, the option comes up to right "Image Trace". If you don't see it, with the object selected go to Object -> Image Trace -> Make.

You can experiment with the options given (3 Colors, 6 Colors, Line Art). I will be selecting "Black and White Logo".

Now let's go to Window -> Image Trace, to get some more options.

Click on the arrow left to "advanced" to get all the options.

Depending on how complex your original image is, you might want to experiment a bit with the paths and corners.

I will be selecting "Ignore White" to get rid of the white background.

Once we are happy with the outcome, we click "Expand".

Voila! Our image is now a vector and won't pixelate no matter how much we scale it!

Let's see another example with a photo of an actual object.

Here's a boombox I found on Amazon .

We will follow the same process.

Object -> Image Trace -> Make. I selected the 6 Colors option and leave it as it is because I am going for that low-poly aesthetic. Feel free to play around with depending the needs of your project.

And if you really want to take it a step further, once you select "Expand", go to Edit -> Edit Colors -> Recolor Artwork.

We can get really funky with that tool!

Let's go in-depth in another article.