What is FreeHand
FreeHand is quite possibly the best vector-based graphics application ever created. Worldwide, many of the leading graphics designers, illustrators and cartographers, just to name a few vector-reliant professions, still use FreeHand. It's a remarkable fact considering that development ceased just prior to Adobe acquiring Macromedia in 2005.

What is Free FreeHand
After Adobe bought and buried FreeHand in order to dominate the market with their own inferior Adobe Illustrator, in September of 2009 a group of FreeHand users founded the Free FreeHand organization with the mission of saving FreeHand. The organization gathered over 6500 members, ultimately filing a lawsuit against Adobe Systems Inc. after many failed attempts to influence the company's policy and desicion-making with regards to FreeHand. Following a long and challenging legal struggle, a settlement was reached early 2012.

While no stone was left unturned in the effort to bring FreeHand back into development and return it to market viability, in the end this proved to be an impossible goal because we were not able to compete against Adobes well paid lawyers. And so from the ashes, FreeHand Forum was born. It run until January 2026 and is now shut down since most users have switched over to Affinity.

Forum Shut Down 2026
The forum is closed now as of January 2026

Who was behind Free FreeHand
Thü Hürlimann, former Art Director of Macworld & Computerworld Switzerland, graphics designer & multimedia artist (Ecliptic, Zugergrafik), who has worked with FreeHand since 1987 (Aldus version 1.0). Jabez Palmer of Bez Design, Seattle (founded 1997), whose first experience with MacDraw on a Macintosh Plus in 1986 made an indelible impression on his psyche. Since then his eclectic career points to variety of projects including illustration, graphic design for print, and web design & animation. Mark Gelotte is a book designer and illustrator of Gelotte Book Design. A designer since the late 1970's, he began computer arts with Aldus FreeHand 3 on up to the present FreeHand MX. As a user of Adobe products, Mark is a strong believer in healthy competition and that a variety of graphic applications are essential to the design community.