True Grit Texture Supply was founded by Andrew Fairclough in 2016 as a design asset resource providing a wealth of products that make it easy for designers to add realistic textures to their projects. Back when Andrew was teaching courses online, he shared some of his own handmade textures with the class and when people later inquired about their commercial availability, the idea to establish True Grit Texture Supply was born.

Busy designers understand the importance of finding ways to trim time from their workflows and when it comes to incorporating texture, the right design asset can take a project to the next level in moments. Over the years, Andrew has found that a lot of the folks who use True Grit Texture Supply’s products are visual makers that include comic book illustrators and designers, those working in the film and music industries, clothing designers, and even those working on indie game projects.

Andrew uses textures taken from scans of real objects that include folded paper, wood, and photocopiers, which are converted to digital files for easy application in various software applications.

True Grit Texture Supply lives by its motto, providing “the best digital texturing tools money can buy,” and it continues to be one of the best places to find realistic texturing tools with a decidedly vintage spin.

One of our favorite products from True Grit Texture Supply is Hardwear Vector Distressing Kit, designed to make it a snap to add abrasive texturing effects natively in Adobe Illustrator.

Inspired by the naturally time-worn packaging of vintage power tools, Hardwear Vector Distressing Kit adds rough and distressed texturing effects with an emphasis on authenticity – and ease.

This toolkit offers a variety of customizable settings that range from subtle grainy texture to heavy-handed grunge, and everywhere in between. That’s because, like all of True Grit Texture Supply’s wares, Hardwear Vector Distressing Kit was crafted using authentic materials that include halftone printed materials, vintage paper samples, woodgrain, card stock, ink, and toner.

This kit provides designers with control over the finest details, including the frequency, scale, and randomization of the texture, edge speckle and distressing, brightness, rounded corners, and texture inset.

Hardwear Vector Distressing Kit provides 48 high-quality texture presets in a variety of styles and one action set that provides five different actions when you’re dealing with complex or repetitive tasks. Additionally, you’ll get 9 speckle and grit texture brushes for adding those final hand-crafted touches to your work!

This tool kit also includes free updates so you won’t miss out on any upgrades as time goes on. While Hardwear Vector Distressing Kit is suited to intermediate to expert-level Illustrator users, it comes with a detailed tutorial along with customization tips, and a troubleshooting cheat sheet in case “things get weird.”

Hardwear Vector Distressing Kit works with Adobe Illustrator CS6 or higher. True Grit Texture Supply recommends using a system with a 2.4ghz processor (or higher) with at least 8GB of RAM (16+ recommended) for best results.

True Grit Texture Supply currently offers 26 products through YouWorkForThem, offering a variety of design assets that will add the perfect vintage texture to your next project. If work on a lot of midcentury designs or simply enjoy incorporating a retro aesthetic in your own work, visit their portfolio to take a look at the rest of their products and bookmark it so you check back for new releases!