This hands-on workshop will introduce you to one of the most popular vector graphics programs on the market. We will explore the basic features of Illustrator, discuss basic vector graphics theory and create a simple brochure.
What are Vector Graphics? Computer graphics fall into two main categories--vector graphics and bitmap images. Understanding the difference between the two helps as you create, edit, and import artwork. In Illustrator the type of graphic image can have important effects on your workflow. For example, some file formats only support bitmap images and others only vector graphics. Graphic image types are particularly important when importing or exporting graphic images to and from Illustrator. Linked bitmap images cannot be edited in Illustrator. Graphic formats also affect how commands and filters can be applied to images; some filters in Illustrator will only work with bitmap images. Drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator create vector graphics, made of lines and curves defined by mathematical objects called vectors. Vectors describe graphics according to their geometric characteristics. For example, a bicycle tire in a vector graphic is made up of a mathematical definition of a circle drawn with a certain radius, set at a specific location, and filled with a specific color. You can move, resize, or change the color of the tire without losing the quality of the graphic. A vector graphic is resolution-independent--that is, it can be scaled to any size and printed on any output device at any resolution without losing its detail or clarity. As a result, vector graphics are the best choice for type (especially small type) and bold graphics that must retain crisp lines when scaled to various sizes--for example, logos. Because computer monitors represent images by displaying them on a grid, both vector and bitmap Ramu Magar (www.ramumagar.com.np)
images are displayed as pixels on-screen.
Toolbox Overview (1 of 5)
The selection tool (V) selects entire objects.
The directselection tool (A) selects points or path segments within objects.
The groupselection tool (Shift+A) selects objects and groups within groups.
The lasso tool (Y) selects entire objects.
The direct-select lasso tool (Q) selects points or path segments within objects.
The rotate tool (R) rotates objects around a fixed point.
The twirl tool (Shift+R) twirls objects around a fixed point.
The scale tool (S) resizes objects around a fixed point.
The reshape tool (Shift+S) smooths or changes a path while retaining the
The reflect tool (O) flips objects over a fixed axis.
The shear tool (Shift+O) skews objects around a
The pen tool (P) draws straight and curved lines to
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path's overall shape.
fixed point.
create objects.
Toolbox Overview (2 of 5)
The add-anchorpoint tool (+) adds anchor points to paths.
The delete-anchorpoint tool (-) deletes anchor points from paths.
The convertanchor- point tool (Shift+P) changes smooth points to corner points and vice versa.
The type tool (T) creates individual type and type containers and lets you enter and edit type.
The area type tool (Shift+T) changes closed paths to type containers and lets you enter and edit type within them.
The path-type tool (Shift+T) changes paths to type paths, and lets you enter and edit type on them.
The vertical type tool (Shift+T) creates vertical type and vertical type containers and lets you enter and edit vertical type.
The vertical areatype tool (Shift+T) changes closed paths to vertical type containers and lets you enter and edit type within them.
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The vertical pathtype tool (Shift+T) changes paths to vertical type paths and lets you enter and edit type on them.
The ellipse tool (L) draws circles and ovals.
The polygon tool (Shift+L) draws regular, multi-sided shapes.
The star tool (Shift+L) draws stars.
The spiral tool (Shift+L) draws clockwise and counterclockwise spirals.
The rectangle tool (M) draws squares and rectangles.
The roundedrectangle tool (Shift+M) draws squares and rectangles with rounded corners.
The pencil tool (N) draws and edits freehand lines.
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The paintbrush tool (B) draws freehand and calligraphic lines, as well as art and patterns on paths.
The scissors tool (C) splits paths.
The knife tool (Shift+C) slices objects and paths.
The measure tool (Shift+H) measures the distance between two points.
The eyedropper tool (I) samples paint or type attributes from objects.
The paint bucket tool (K) fills objects with the current paint or type attributes
The gradient mesh tool (U) creates multicolored objects and applies a mesh for adjusting color shading.
The gradient tool (G) adjusts the beginning and ending points and angle of gradients within objects.
The page tool (Shift+H) adjusts
The column graph tool (J) positions
Toolbox Overview (4 of 5)
The auto trace tool (Shift+W) traces
The blend tool (W) creates a blend
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the outlines of objects in placed images.
between the color and shape of multiple objects.
the page grid to control where artwork appears on the printed page.
columns vertically.
The stacked column graph tool (Shift+J) stacks columns on top of one another.
The bar graph tool (Shift+J) positions columns horizontally.
The stacked bar graph tool (Shift+J) stacks columns and positions them horizontally.
The line graph tool (Shift+J) shows the trend of one or more subjects over time.
The area graph tool (Shift+J) emphasizes totals as well as changes in values.
The scatter graph tool (Shift+J) plots data as paired sets of x and y coordinates.
The pie graph tool (Shift+J) creates a circle graph with wedges showing relative percentages of the compared values.
The radar graph tool (Shift+J) uses a circle to compare sets of values at given points in time or in particular categories.
Toolbox Overview (5 of 5)
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The hand tool (H) moves the Illustrator artboard within the illustration window.
The zoom tool (Z) increases and decreases the magnification in the illustration window.
The smooth tool (Shift+N) removes excess anchor points to smooth a path while retaining the overall shape.
The erase tool (Shift+N) erases paths and anchor points from the artwork.
The free transform tool (E) scales, rotates, or skews a selection.
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Using the pen and shape tools trace the dotted lines. One you have each of the pieces for the apple finished fill them in with the proper stoke weight and color. Take each of the pieces and put the apple together so that it matches the finished one.
Exercise 2
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Make a 350 x 150 rounded square and fill it with three stars of different point numbers and radii. To do this click on the tool and then click once in your workspace, this will allow you to change your tool settings.
Exercise 3 Make four text areas. 1. fill a closed path with horizontal text. 2. make a long open path and write vertically on it. 3. make a circle and write horizontally on it. 4. make a box and fill it with vertical text.
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Brochure
Download: classroom.jpg and openhouse.txt Draw a rectangle. Change the Style to the red and black border Using the Text tool, SINGLE CLICK and type the heading of the poster. Change the Style of the text. Change the font size to 56 in Arial Black, Italic. Place the classroom.jpg file under the poster heading. Draw a white rectangle. Change the transparency to 80% and place this on the bottom left corner of the picture. Type something in this box. Draw a curvy line under the picture. Using the Path Type Tool click on the line and type the date and time. Import text. Place the text file openhouse.txt and resize the bounding box to the width of the poster. Change the font to Arial 13. Draw a rectangle with no fill. Change the stroke to a dashed line, and position it on the bottom of the page. Type in the coupon text and add lines for the writing. Using the Character Map go to Wingdings and select one of the scissors, hit the copy button. Go back to Illustrator and select the type tool. Click once and paste. Change the font to Wingdings. Draw a big star, and change the fill and stroke of it. Use the TWIRL tool to slightly twirl the star. Use the SHEAR tool to make the star look like it's slanted. Place the star behind the text. Change the transparency of the star to 20%.
AN INTRODUCTION TO ILLUSTRATOR
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Hello there prospective graphic designers! Today, we're going to take a look at the very basic aspects of Adobe's superb application for vector graphics - Illustrator. In this tutorial, I'll be referring to the functions and layout in
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Illustrator 10 (although my instructions should scale well to earlier/later editions since nothing here is too unique). Together, we will design a quick, simple logo for this website and, in so doing, get used to the most fundamental functions and tools that Illustrator has to offer. I will assume you have some rudimentary knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, as the program will be referenced occasionally, and a mastery of both applications is very useful. I will also assume that your application preferences are still the standard factory-set ones. Step 1: Start by making a new document. Name it "BioRust logo", choose RGB-colour, and then press OK. In case you didn't know, CMYK is the colour setup used when designing for print, while RGB is the preferred for screen-based design - i.e. web design, wallpapers, etc. When it comes to the document size you can choose from a range of presets or define your own - is not important either way right now, so just set it to 800x600px. Illustrator, unlike Photoshop, does not limit your work to a set canvas size. Step 2: Now we're in a workspace similar to that of Photoshop. Arrange toolbars, window sizes etc. to your personal preference, and we'll get started on the logo! The first thing we want to do is enable guides. This can be done in the View menu, or by pressing Ctrl+U. The guides are snap-to lines which are really helpful most of the time, and can be set to become visible at all sorts of angles from any given point, using the Edit > Preferences > Guides dialog box. For now though, just turn them on and leave them on standard settings. You will, however, want to edit your General preferences (Ctrl+K). Here, simply make absolutely sure that "Scale strokes and effects" (the second bottom checkbox in the right column on my version) is checked - you really want this to be enabled. Press OK. Next, we'll make an ellipse as the base for our logo. Step 3: Unlike Photoshop, the two colours on the toolbar are not foreground and background colours, but stroke and fill colours. For our ellipse, we'll be wanting a transparent centre - i.e.. no fill. Simply bring the solid square to the front by clicking it, and select the third of the three boxes below. They represent, respectively: Solid colour, gradient, and clear. Now, we want a black border marking our ellipse, so bring the border box to the front, select the first box for solid colour, and make sure it's actually black. In the second highest section of your toolbar, right side, there should be a text tool, a shape tool and a Pencil Tool. The shape tool set to a square as standard, so click it, hold, and change it to a ellipse. Now it's time to do some actual drawing. Step 4: With the Ellipse Tool selected, click and hold near the middle of the document. As you drag the mouse back and forth, you see some blue lines with an X in the middle. That's our ellipse-to-be. As in PS, holding Ctrl, Shift or Alt while dragging has its effects; Alt makes the point you drag from the centre of the ellipse, Shift makes it a perfect circle, Alt+Shift makes a circle with centre where you clicked, and Ctrl lets you drag the circle by its physical corner, rather than the corner where the X-axis extremity meets the Y-axis extremity. Release the mouse, and press Ctrl+Z to undo our shape undo. This may seem like a backward step, but we'll make our ellipse much more accurate than this using a few handy tips. Get up the Stroke palette (press F10 if you can't find it), set stroke size to 25, and click once in the middle of the document - still with the
Ellipse
Tool selected. You can now type the exact dimensions you want for your ellipse - that is, 600px tall, and 370,8px wide. Press OK. Step 5: You should see a rather oblong shape. It's a little bit too big for your workspace, but this matters not a jot. That's part the beauty of working with vectors. We could zoom in 2000%, draw up our entire logo, zoom out to 25% and resize it - and it'd look just as good, whereas working with raster graphics, you'd just get a couple of huge squares when trying the same thing. Now that we look at it, however, it's too tall for our purpose - but how tall should it be? We'll find an example to help guide us! Step 6: Using the brilliant cogwheel tutorial for Photoshop located here (download this file if you haven't tried it yet), we've already made ourselves a nice element reminiscent of something mechanical. Time to use it in our design, rather than leave it on the HD for "possible future use". Choose File > Insert, and navigate your way to the .PSD file of the gear. Insert it, and if given a dialog, merge PS-layers to a single picture. Illustrator can recognize and import just about any graphics you can think of and then allow you to vectorize them, which is a fantastic feature. You should have a big, shiny metal cogwheel spread out atop your ellipse. Choose the Vectorize or Auto-trace tool (its name depends on your version of Illustrator and language) - it's located directly below the
Gradient Tool, in the second lowest tier of the toolbar. Now, with the Vectorizer selected, click once on the shiny metal outline of the cogwheel. If you hit the spot, you should now have a large, black cogwheel outline atop the Photoshop-version you made before. Step 7: Ditch the Vectorizer to the benefit of the Standard Selection Tool and select the PSD-import. Delete it. You should now be left with a large, black cogwheel, with very ragged edges, as well as an ellipse both with a stroke weight of 25. Now, for dynamics sake, we'll still be wanting an oblong shape rather than a squared one. But first we need to smoothen that cog! Move it a good distance away from the ellipse, and get your view centered on it again - now we have some room in which we can work. As you can see when the cogwheel is selected, the blue lines defining its actual shape are anything but regular, at least in some areas.
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There are a number of ways correct this, but we'll go with the most practical, and the one that always works - i.e. manual adjustment. Find the
Pen Tool in the toolbar, click and hold, and select the Delete Anchor Point
Tool - henceforth the "Minus Pen". Zoom in to, say, 400%, on a section with a good amount of anomalies. Step 8: Make sure the cog is selected, so you can see the blue lines inside the black stroke, and study it. The dots are anchor points, and can be added, moved, deleted, or transformed to alter the shape of the object they compose. Study the sections. There should be two anchor points on each outer corner, and one on each inner. We want to duplicate this pattern all around the wheel. Use the Minus Pen, and remove all superfluous points you find. If there are some points that are in roughly the correct area, only in a bad position - we'll move them around later. Don't worry if you remove one too many, or if it looks rather horrible right now - we'll fix this too.
Step 9: We should now have a 1-2-2-1 pattern of anchor points all the way around the cogwheel. That said, I seem to be missing a couple of points myself. To rectify this, change the Minus Pen to a Plus Pen (or
Add Anchor Point Tool if you want to be picky about it). Simply click the path roughly where you need that extra point. By now you'll have noticed that your tools snap to the anchor points and the path as you work your way along - one of the wonders of the guides we turned on in the very beginning. Now that the correct number of points is in place, we can allow ourselves a quick zoom out to get a quick overview. Much better already, aye? But now is no time to rest on our laurels - our vector still needs some work.
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Step 10: Back at 400% zoom, it's time to do some dirty work, using the
Direct Selection Tool (A) Direct
and the Convert Point tool (Shift+C). The
Selection Tool is a pain to use, by the way, you'll soon see why. Select it - it's the innocent-looking white pointer at the top of your toolbar - but make sure the cogwheel is unselected. Thanks to the guides, moving the cursor along the path will highlight it with blue, and snap to the anchor points. Now we'll simplify our work further, by hiding everything that's not a path. Click View > Outline, or just press Ctrl+Y. Your beautiful, fat strokes should disappear, leaving you with a thin black line your vector path. Move along it with your Segmenting tool and move any out-of place anchor points where they belong. NB. Between every time you move a single point, you must click outside the path to deselect it. Having selected the path, and then trying to move an anchor point just moves the entire shape. Anyway, when you're done, we'll get started on transforming those points. Step 11: Select the Convert Point tool - it's in the box with the Pen Tool - and we'll get started. It's a good idea to turn off the Outline mode, so press Ctrl+Y on the keyboard again - That way we'll be able to see our changes right away. Clicking and dragging an anchor point with this tool will allow you to transform both its handles at once. Handles determine which way the path will take from that anchor point, in both directions, to reach the next one. Keep this in mind for when you're drawing your own paths. Anyway, you can also transform one handle at a time, independent of the other. This can give some pretty funky (and unrealistic) effects, so we'll try to stay out of that for now. Try experimenting a little, and drag around the handles until you're satisfied. You should note that simply clicking once on an anchor point with the Converter tool will erase both handles, effectively turning the anchor point into a straight corner. This is useful if you're after a harder effect, of if your handle handling has gotten way out of hand, and you'd like to restart.
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Step 12: Assuming that you are satisfied with all your anchor points, handles, curves and corners, we'll zoom out and continue. By now, it's probably dangerous for me to say this, but you could have gotten away with not editing a single anchor point and still gotten a lovely cogwheel. If you'd painted up your cogwheel in PS using the aforementioned tutorial, and stopped before adding any texture, effects, gradients etc - and just kept that simple, solid-colour cogwheel, you could have imported that, vectorized it, and not needed to think of anchor points for one second. But hey, where's the fun - and learning - in that? ;) Select your cogwheel with the
Standard
Selection Tool, and get ready to resize. First move it to roughly the centre of your old ellipse. Resize it upwards, so it takes on an oblong shape, although not as much as the ellipse itself. Then do the reverse with the ellipse, shorten it a little, to match the cogwheel. Try to match the two in size and position, allowing the guides to help you out.
Step 13: The ellipse must be smaller. It will be representative for the hole in the cogwheel, as well as the letter 'O'. Grab the ellipse by a corner, hold Shift+Alt, and drag it towards the centre. The Alt makes sure your scaling is relative to the centre, and the Shift makes sure the shape itself is not altered. Stop scaling down once the ellipse is inside the cog, like in the picture. You'll notice, however, that your stroke gets really thin, because we chose to scale strokes and effects in the general preferences back in step 2. This is not good in this particular case, so select it, and set the stroke size to something nice and heavy - 25 is a good value.
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Step 14: Now for the finishing touches. Choose the regular Pen Tool (P), which is my personal favourite of all the tools in Illustrator. It severely rocks, as you will come to learn! Using the guides to aid you, find the top-point in your ellipse, and click once. Now, simply go down to the bottom of the ellipse, 90 degrees down from your brand-new anchor point, and click once there as well. You now have a line dividing your ellipse in two halves, representing the letter 'I'. To emphasize this a little, we'll make a little circle above it. Using the Ellipse Tool (L), hover over your new line to activate its guides, and Shift+Alt-click roughly in the middle of the space that's directly up from that point. Drag out a nice little circle, and release the button. You'll see the circle, but your stroke weight is set to 25 or so - so it's huge, and completely black. Set it to 15. Now no-one can deny that the line through your 'O' is an 'I'. Currently, we only lack a 'B' to get 'BIO', and the cogwheel - a mechanical element - can pretend to be the 'rust'. :) Step 15: Its first things last, it seems, as we begin working on the first letter in "BioRUST". Select the
Pen Tool again, and find the middle of the ellipse. Do this by activating the guides, hovering the tool over the left or right anchor point of the ellipse. Follow the 0 degrees guide towards the centre, and click once where the guide intersects the straight line path of the 'I'. Click once to create an anchor point. Now, follow the 135 degree guide from this point, create a new point roughly half-way between the one you just made, and the contour of the ellipse - but do not release the mouse button! Instead, drag the mouse downwards along a 90 degrees guide, until the handle you see rising up on the other side of your current anchor point is about level with the one in the middle of the 'I'. Release the mouse button. Now, just follow the 0 degree guide from the handle you're already hovering over, until it intersects with the 'I'. Simply click once. Things should look like this now. Select the brand-new crescent shape of yours, drag it downwards and out, scaling it to look like the "belly" of the letter 'b' up against the 'I'. Set the stroke weight after scaling to 20 or so - and we're done! If you want, you could always select it, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste, then move the second crescent on top of the other so as to form a "B" rather than "b". This is a matter of taste, and really... I prefer the small "b". :P
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You can now save your vector for web, export to PDF, or experiment as you will with colours, fill, gradients etc. Illustrator is an immensely powerful tool, and one that no designer should ever have to be without. You've just learned to master the first, most basic steps of it - it's up to you what you want to do with these skills in future projects.
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The Selection Tool is used to select objects that have been created. Using this tool you can also click, hold and move objects. Shortcut: V. The Pen Tool is covered in Illustrator Tutorial #2: The Pen Tool In Depth. The Ellipse Tool is used to create ellipses. As with any other "shape creator", click and drag to draw the shape, click once to draw to a specific size. The centered ellipse tool is selfexplanatory. The polygon tool can be used in different ways. For instance, click and drag; then press Ctrl And Up or Down (Ctrl-Up/Ctrl-Down) to change the number of sides of the polygon. Click once to control the radius and number of sides produced by the tool. The star tool is similiar to the polygon tool except it can control two radius'; the outer and inner. The spiral tool is used to create snail-looking objects. Amount of segments can be adjusted by clicking, dragging and pressing Ctrl-Up/CtrlDown. Click once to bring up a dialog box with: Radius, Decay, Segments and Style. Shortcut: N. The Pencil Tool is used to draw object with stroke and fill. The paintbrush tool is used similiarly, however it does not fill from origin to end point; rather, it fills within the painted portion itself. Shortcut:
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Y. The Rotate Tool is used to rotate selected object(s). Select an object, select the rotate tool and then click, hold and drag to rotate. Use the twirl tool to twirl and object. This creates a sleek and effective result. Shortcut: R. The Reflect Tool is used to reflect a shape across a user-defined axis. Select an object, then click somewhere on the page. Next, click, hold and drag and the object and it will reflect across the axis you defined. Shortcut: O. In order to use Blend Tool you have to select 2 objects, then select the blend tool, then select two points on the outer edge of each object, as shown below. A dialog box will pop up which says Steps (Number of shapes to be drawn between the two chosen shapes), First And Last (Press Tab key; this will make an even spacial arrangement between each shape).
The autotrace tool traces any image shape automatically. With this tool, you can click the edge of a shape you want to trace, and Illustrator draws the entire outline of the shape. Shortcut: B. The Measure Tool is used to measure lengths and angles. Click and drag and you will obtain values. Shortcut: U. The Paint Bucket simply fills in an object using the fill (X) color. Shortcut: K. The Hand Tool is used to manuever around the drawing board in Illustrator. Click, hold and drag to move around the drawing board. Shortcut: H. The Fill Color is the color that is used as the fill of the object. The Stroke Color is the color that borders an object. You can change the Color (,), Gradient (.) and Transperancy (/) of the fill or stroke colors using the three buttons located directly under fill and stroke boxes. To get the Default Fill And Stroke, press D or click on the
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icon located to the left of the stroke box. Shortcut: X (toggles between Fill And Stroke). The Zoom Tool itself is self-explanatory. However, in order to escape the wrath of Zoom, go View >> Zoom Out (Ctrl -), Fit On Screen (Ctrl 0) or Actual Size (Ctrl 1) in order to get back to the original size. Shortcut: Z. The Eye Dropper Tool is used to select a color from an object. To get good accuracy, try zooming in as close as possible. This will allow you to better see the color that you are selecting. This tool can be especially useful when designing color coordinated sites. Shortcut: I. The Gradient Tool is used to fill in an object with a gradient. Select an object, then select the fill icon, and then select the gradient icon (under the fill and stroke icons). Now go Window >> Show Gradient in order to adjust the gradient. There will be an entire tutorial devoted to colors and gradients in upcoming weeks, so stay tuned! Shortcut: G. The Graph Tool will be covered in an upcoming tutorial on how to use Illustrator for projects, so stay tuned! Shortcut: J. The Shear Tool is used to skew objects around a user-defined point. Select an object, click on the Shear Tool icon, then click once to define a "point of skew", and then click, hold and drag. Play around with this tool in order to achieve your desired results. Shortcut: W. The Scale Tool is used to adjust the size of an object/set of objects. Select an object, select the scale tool, click on the screen to determine where you want the object(s) to be scaled, click, hold and drag to scale. The reshape tool lets you select one or more anchor points and sections of paths and then lets you adjust the selected points and paths globally. Points selected by the reshape tool are highlighted with small boxes. When you drag the highlighted points, any paths containing regularly selected anchor points are smoothly distorted as if they were being pulled by the highlighted anchor points. Shortcut: S. The Scissors Tool is used to cut out section of an object. Select an object, click on the scissors icon and then click on anchor points or the path; after clicking three times or more, a section will be cut out, meaning that the tool has worked. The knife tool is basically a pencil tool that splits an object, depending upon where you drag the knife. Shortcut: C. The Rectangle Tool is simply used to create rectangles. Click and drag to draw the rectangle; click once to enter in precise values. The Rounded Rectangle tool is used the same way, except the corners of the rectangle are rounded. The other 2 tools in this set are Centered Rectangle And Centered Rounded Rectangle, which are the same as the first 2 tools except that they are drawn from the center. Shortcut: M. The Type Tool is covered on Illustrator Tutorial #3: Text And Text Manipulation. Shortcut: T. The Direct Selection Tool is used to select control points along a path or an
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objects path. The object must be deselected in order to select a control point. Click, hold and drag to move that control point around. The group selection tool is used when you want to select an object but can not select all the control points. This tool is especially useful when you are working with numerous objects, as most often is the case. Shortcut: A. Now that you know the many dimensions of the Illustrator Tool Bar, proceed on to the Pen Tool In Depth Tutorial.
Illustrator Tutorial #2: The Pen Tool In Depth The Pen Tool (Shortcut: P) is definitely the most important tool to know how to use in Illustrator. Mastering this tool will give you a firm grasp on drawing custom objects, which is a skill that will serve you well as long as you use this program. The Pen Tool draws curved and straight lines in order to create objects. In order to create straight lines, simply select the Pen Tool, click once to create a start point, then click again anywhere else on the image. In order to create points in 45 degree increments, simply hold the shift key and then click somewhere else on the screen.
In order to draw curves, click hold and drag in the direction you want the curve to go in using the Pen Tool, as shown in the first part of the image above. Next, click hold and drag at another position (the end of the curve) and drag it in the opposite direction in order to complete the curve. Next, you can either: draw the next segment of a continuous curve by positioning the pointer where you want the next segment to end, and then drag away from the curve OR you can change the direction of the curve in order to create a noncontinuous curve by releasing the mouse button, pressing the Option/Alt key, dragging the direction point in the direction of the curve, Releasing the Option/Alt key and the mouse button, reposition the pointer, and drag in the opposite direction to complete the curve segment. See the image below in order to create a noncontinuous curve.
Now that you know how to create basic lines and curves using the Pen Tool, take a look at the options under the Pen Tool, and you'll see three other tools: Add Anchor
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Point, Subtrac t Anchor Point and Convert Direction Point. We'll start with the Add and Subtract Anchor Point tools. If you have a Pen-created object selected, use these two tools to add and subtract anchor points by clicking somewhere on the path; anywhere on the path if you want to add point(s), on a point on the path if you want to subtract point(s). The Convert Direction Point tool is used to round a rigid corner or make a round corner straight. In order to straighten a rounded section, select the object and click once on the anchor point.
In order to round out a straight section, select an object and using the convert direction point tool click, hold and drag and the straight lines will round out quite nicely.
Now that you have learned how to effectively use the Pen Tool, go on to Tutorial #3: Text And Text Manipulation.
Illustrator Tutorial #3: Text And Text Manipulation The type tool (Shortcut: T) is the second most important tool that is used in Illustrator, with the first being the Pen Tool. Let's start with how to create basic text. Click on the text tool (2nd tool down in right column of the tool bar), and then click anywhere on the page. A blinking line will pop up, indicating that you can type in the text. Next, type in your text, hold the shift and ctrl keys, and press left until all the text that you wrote is highlighted. Hit CTRL-T in order to bring up the text dialog box; here you can adjust things such as text size, font, horizontal and vertical spacing, and more. Where it says font, click there in order to change the specified font and setting (i.e. regular, bold, bold-italic, etc.). Where it says "12 pt" is where you adjust the size of the text. "14.5 pt" is where you can adjust vertical spacing between lines. The parenthesis indicate the default value for the specified font size. "auto" indicates the Kerning level. "0" indicates Tracking, in other words the space between each character. Remember that in order to change these values, text must be highlighted. The area type tool is used to create text within a path area. To use it, you must first create an object, select it and then make it a path. Then, click on the area type
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tool and then click within the path. The text will then be restricted by the boundries of the path. For our example, we used a simple ellipse.
In order to use the Path Type Tool, you must create an object and make it a path. Next, click on the path type tool and click on the path. Type in your text and there you have it. To adjust the position of the text, use the direct selection tool, click on the starting point of the text and drag. You can have the text go on either the inside or the outside of the path. The Vertical Type Tool is a very easy tool to use. This tool simply creates text that goes in a vertical line instead of a horizontal line; an example of this is shown on the right. Not a difficult tool to use at all. The Vertical Area Type Tool is a simple combination of the vertical type tool and the area tool. Create an object path, and then click inside the path using this tool. Then simply type away. The Vertical Path Type Tool is another combination, this time of the vertical type tool and the path tool. Create an object path, and then click on the path using this tool and type away. That's it for this tutorial; always remember, text MUST be highlighted/selected in order to adjust attributed (which can be adjusted using the type dialog box, CTRL-T). Check out the next tip on creating rounded 3-D buttons.
Illustrator Tutorial #4: Create Rounded 3-D Buttons
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This is a very simply tip and produces a nice looking button. 1. First, create a shape (we created a rounded rectangle, 3 in x 2 in with .25 in corner radius). 2. Next, we chose a stroke of 1, black and the fill to be a gradient. We created a 3-D looking gradient; if you need help on what type of shadowing to use, take a pen and hold it up against a light source. Observe the greyscale gradients, and use that as your basis for creation of the gradient in Illustrator. This blend of darks, greys and whites creates a 3-D looking effect that is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Be sure to go on to Tutorial #5: Working With Patterns.
Illustrator Tutorial #5: Logo Design In Illustrator Logo design is one of the most fundamentally important assets a designer can have in his/her repertoire. Logo, Design, or "Identity", can be a complex design issue. Generally, the best logos are ones that are simple and can stand the test of time. Some examples include the IBMÂŽ and the McDonalds logos. Both of these logos, shown below, are incredibly simple and instantly recognizable, which adds to their value tremendously. Imagine you were in a foreign country with a foreign language, and you saw the arching "M". You would instantly know that good old McDonald's was right there. That is what excellent identity design is all about.
The first order of business is writing down exactly what the text in the logo will say. What letters will be capitalized? Will there be a ".com" in the logo somewhere? In this stage you should also have an idea of the type of font you are going to use (i.e. an artsy font, a tekkie font, a classy font, etc.). Be sure you know the colors you want to use also. Write down all of this information; the more organized you are, the easier it will be to create this logo. The next thing you must do is decide the general shape of the logo you are going to create. It could be just text, 2 letters put together, text on a curved path or an illustration with text. Start sketching out some (generally around 10 or so) ideas on paper and fool around with different formats for the logo. Here are a few fictitous
logos: You have got to decide for yourself what type of look and image you are trying to portray for your company. I'm not going to lie to you; your logo can and will hurt your company if it is poorly designed, but it can make the world of difference if it is a quality logo. Make sure that you choose a style that suites your company. Squares and "boxey" corners will work for a tech-related company but may not suite and art studio. In my opinion, logo is a combination of common sense, functionality and design. The common sense part includes not creating a logo that detracts from the functions of your company. This happens when a logo is too extravagant, gaudy, or just plain wrong for the type of company you are.
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OK. At this point, you should have the specs on your logos, some sketches and an idea of what sketches are working and are not. Circle or highlight 3 or 4 that are working well; if you find that none are working well do some more sketches, and make sure you think about what you want out of the logo this time even more. After you highlight 3 or 4 logos, you can start to draw the logos in Illustrator. Use the Pen Tool to create the shape(s) of the logo, and then implement the Text with the Text Tool. A useful item when creating logos is the Pathfinder tools. Click and select 2 objects and go Object >> Pathfinder and select one of the options. This is useful for creating unique and interesting shapes for your logo. Use the items in the Align window to make sure your logo is precise. Use the swatches window to figure out which colors would be best for the logo. Copy and paste a black copy underneath and offset to objects to create a drop shadow effect. All of these hints should be helpful in creating your unique brand logo. This tutorial is more or less a tutorial in design process. Use it to formulate a plan to create logos and tackle design problems head on, and use Illustrator effectively to create your vector-based logos.
Create 3D Fruit Bowl With Illustrator CS2
This tutorial shows you how to create realistic 3D fruit bowl illustration with one of the Adobe Illustrator CS2 new features: 3D Revolve Effect. Version: Illustrator CS2
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1. Create the bowl Create a path and fill it with yellow color like the image below. Then, select Effect > 3D > Revolve from the menu.
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2. Apply 3D Revolve Setting When the 3D Revolve Options window popups, apply the following setting: Click on the More Options if the lower portion window is not showing Create a new light by clicking on the New Light icon and drag those two lights as shown Change Shading Color to orange by: select Custom from the drop drop, click on the sample color box, Color Picker window will pop, then enter this color value (R=255 B=50 G=0) If you want a smooth blending, increse the Blend Steps (default is 25, max is 256). Note: increase Blend Steps will also increase file size and memory usage.
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3. Create the apple Create an oval path with the Ellipse Tool
and fill it with green color. Then select that green path and
apply Effect > 3D > Revolve, leave all options in the 3D Revolve Options window as default and click OK. Now, you should get something like the image shown below:
4. Add Drop Shadow Keep the apple path selected, go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow and apply the setting as shown below.
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5. Create New Art Brush First create a path similar to the image as shown below, fill it with black (k=100), and then create the highlight path fill it with 80% black (k=80). Drag it to the Brushes library window to create a New Art Brush. If your Brushes library is not on the screen, go to Window > Brushes or press F5.
New Art Brush Options The Art Brush Option window should pop out, select Tints from the Colorization Method drop down menu, leave everything as default, and click OK.
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6. Draw the apple's basin Create a stroke path with the Pen Tool and select the Art Brush that you've created in the previous step. Now place it on top of the apple like the image shown below.
7. Duplicate the apple Select the apple (with basin), hold down the 'Alt' (or 'Option' key for Mac), drag it to make a copy of it. You may also use Copy & Paste to duplicate the apple. Then, change it to red color.
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8. Adjust 3D Revolve setting Select the red apple (oval path only), in your Appearance pallate, double click the 3D Revolve effect icon to adjust the options/setting. If your Appearance is not showing, select menu Window > Appearance or press Shift+F6.
3D Revolve Options Now, your 3D Revolve Options window should pop out. Enter the following value(X=57 Y=63 Z=-159). You can change the rotation values manually by entering the numbers or by dragging the cube on the left.
9. Fix the apple's basin Notice the basin is slightly off from the apple after you changed the rotation values from previous step. Move the basin stroke to center of the apple by using the Selection Tool or Direct Selection Tool.
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10. Add one more apple Make one more apple by repeating Step 7 to 9.
11. Put them together Put the apples and the bowl together as shown. Draw a oval shape path, base on the shape of the bowl.
12. Mask the apples Select the the apples and oval path only, go to menu Clipping Mask > Make or press Ctrl+7
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13. Final That's it! Your illustration should look like the image below:
Click here to download the source file and see it yourself.
Create 3D Vase With 3D Revolve + Map Art
This tutorial shows you how to create a nice 3D vase in 5 minutes with Illustrator CS2 3D Revolve Tool. It is fun and easy! Version: Illustrator CS2
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1. Create a path First, create a path like the image shown below with the Pen Tool, go to menu Effect > 3D > Revolve
3D Revolve Options The 3D Revolve Options window should pop up and look like the image below. Click on More Options if the lower portion window is not showing. You can leave most of the setting as default, but add an additional light spot by click the New Light icon and drag it to the lower left corner as shown. Enter 35 for Blend Steps, maximum Blend Steps is 256, higher Blend Steps results better rendering quality but also increases file size and memory.
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2. Create the flower symbol Now use the Ellipse Tool, create a flower like the image below. I have a very simply flower illustration here, but you can create anything as you like. Drag the flower to the Symbols Library Pallate to create a new symbol. If your Symbols Pallate is not showing, press Ctrl+Shift+F11 or go to Windows > Symbols to show Symbols.
3. Create Map Art With the vase object selected, in Appearance Pallate, double click on the 3D Revolve effect icon(f) to change the 3D Revolve Options.
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When the 3D Revolve Options window pop ups, click on Map Art button.
Map Art options Check Preview option so you can preview the result. At the top where it says, Surface, use the arrow buttons to locate the surface that you want to Map Art. Notice there is a red wireframe on your object which show you the surface you've selected. In this case, it is 4 of 5. From the Symbol drop down, select the symbol that you've created in the previous step. You can position and resize the symbol in way as you want. You can also create multi-surface Map Art by selecting the Surface then the Symbol. Click OK when you are happy with the result.
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Final That's it! With just 3 simple steps, I just created a nice 3D Vase with Illustrator 3D Revolve Tool.
Ramu Magar (www.ramumagar.com.np)