How to Teach Yourself Illustrator Visually

Adobe Systems produces Adobe Illustrator as a graphics editor for the computer. The editor uses vectors, rather than pixels, to edit. Vectors allow graphics to be resized without any loss of quality, unlike pixel-based graphical editors. Although there are many versions of Adobe Illustrator, they all use vector-based graphics, as well as other similar features such as art boards and path editing. Illustrator is used to produce a variety of images, including billboards, logos, banners, clothing designs and comics. Learning Illustrator visually, rather than reading a book on Illustrator, is a trial-and-error process that gives you hands-on experience of the program.

Instructions

Instructions

1. Open Illustrator and choose what settings you want your art board to begin with. The art board is the size of the printing or viewing area for the final view of the image you create. Change the art board size by changing the length on the width and height text boxes. Play around with the bleed size--the area where ink will bleed into--and art board orientation, as well as the preconfigured art board formats Illustrator comes with.

2. Note the menu bar of tools on the left of the screen and the buttons on the top of the window. The tools and buttons displayed are different for different versions of Illustrator. For example, before the Creative Suite rebranding of Illustrator, Illustrator opened with panels on the right side of the window. The Creative Suite Illustrator does not.

3. Click on a tool in the toolbar on the left side of the screen and see what it does. Start with the pen tool to create complex paths, and cycle through the pen tool options by clicking on the pen tool icon and choosing one of the other icons that appears, including the add or subtract anchor point icons. Anchor points allow you to adjust paths. Continue using each tool icon until you understand what each does.

4. Click on the buttons in the menu above the window and use one of the features there. Begin by using the features under the object tab. Apply these features to an object, or image, you've created, using the toolbar from Step 3. Use features such as reflect, rotate and scale to change the image. Continue to cycle through these features until you've gone through all that the tab has to offer, then continue through the other menu tabs, especially type and effect, the first of which applies specifically to text and the second to both images and text.

5. Save your experimental work by clicking the file tab in the menu bar, then the "Save As" button. Save the image as an Adobe Illustrator (.ai) file first, then experiment with other file formats, such as JPEG (.jpg) and TIFF (.tif). Open these files in other visual review programs, such as preview, to see how your image looks. Continue to learn Illustrator visually by trying out a file type and inspecting the result.

References

• Adobe Illustrator CS4 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques; David Karlins; 2008
• The Adobe Illustrator CS3 Wow! Book; Sharon Steuer; 2007
• Illustrator 10 for Dummies; Ted Alspach and Barbara Obermeier; 2001