Details
prerequisites
If you are completely new to professional Desktop Publishing software, or if your experience is limited to Microsoft Office products, you should be familiar with the basic concepts and vocabulary covered in our Desktop Publishing Overview. If the topics outlined for that class are familiar, you're ready for this one!
Very helpful for graphic creation, but not required before tackling Illustrator, is the Digital Drawing Workshop (to gain experience with the Adobe Pen Tool).
If you take both of these half-day classes, we will automatically refund 1/3 of their cost! They're almost always offered on the same day!
what we cover
recommended text:
Who uses Illustrator? Architects, artists, designers, engineers, and Photoshop divas who need some vector graphics power tools. Illustrator's ability to create graphics in a freeform way or with incredible precision appeals to all these users. Learn to utilize this amazing tool to design logos, create detailed maps, illustrate products and more.
Awesome!!!
- Illustrator Essentials student
(always customized for the students in attendance):
- Create both basic and complex shapes
- create simple, "logo-esque" shapes
- secrets of the "basic" shape tools
- know when to edit and when to redraw
- Bend and twist graphics with powerful transformation tools
- the Scale, Rotate, and Reflect tools
- the Liquify tools: Warp, Twirl, Pucker, Bloat, and friends
- Free Transform
- the Bounding Box
- point by point editing
- adjust line weight variably for gorgeous, custom calligraphic effects
- Control your illustrations with Layers
- control stacking order of your illustration's parts
- organize complex illustrations (like maps)
- selecting objects from the Layers panel
- hiding, locking, and more
- Create and control color swatches
- the power and pitfalls of Illustrator swatches
- using color libraries (like Pantone®)
- the joys of Live Color: recolor whole illustrations elegantly
- Use Gradients effectively
- surprising ways to add depth to objects
- shading and subtlety
- Using Type
- the Adobe type engine
- font choices
- controlling typographic features
- converting type to graphics
- flowing text along a path
- flowing text inside a path
- getting text from other applications
- Adding images from other programs to your illustrations
- take advantage of Photoshop features in Illustrator
- linking vs embedding
- Tracing scanned images: pros and cons
- line drawing to vector paths
- photos to vector forms
- taming the Live Trace feature
- Working intuitively: Live Paint
- from vector shape quilting to drawing the way you want
- mind the gap: pitfalls in Live Paint
- Transparency
- transparency risks made clear (puns intended)
- opacity, blending modes, and output
- transparency effects vs overprinting
- Combining Shapes
- shape modes
- using shapes as tools on other shapes
- using the shape builder tool
- Basics of Blends
- morphing of objects
- using blends to create subtle shading
- Graphic Styles
- saving appearance attributes for later use
- make major changes globally and efficiently
- Saving and Exporting
- saving for older versions of Illustrator
- PDF and EPS