Overview

Adobe Illustrator CS3 is a fundamental part of the creative workflow, enabling you to efficiently create sophisticated vector artwork for print, web and interactive, and mobile and motion designs.

Live Color

Explore, apply, and control colour variations using Live Color, which lets you select any artwork and interactively edit the colours to see results immediately. Use the Color Guide panel to quickly choose tints, shades, or harmonious colour combinations.

Swatches panel

Organise swatches in groups and view them in organised hierarchies. Automatically name them by their colour values, or name them intuitively. Easily access swatch libraries from a pop-up panel menu, view swatches in Adobe Bridge, and share them with Adobe Photoshop CS3 and InDesign CS3 software.

Live Paint

Easily paint any closed or partially closed area of your artwork with the Live Paint Bucket, which automatically detects and corrects gaps and lets you interactively select colours from a Swatch palette for faster work.

Envelopes and live distortion

Warp, liquify, and distort artwork any way imaginable with envelopes and live distortion tools. Easily access envelope options from the Control panel.

Live effects

Apply live effects without affecting the underlying artwork, so you can edit at any time without starting over.

Unlimited transparency

Expand your design options with blending modes and transparency effects similar to those in Photoshop.

Gradient Mesh

Simulate airbrush and watercolour effects by adding multiple colours and precisely controlling the transitions between colours.

3D effects

Turn 2D shapes into fully editable 3D objects by extruding and revolving paths. Add lighting and wrap images around 3D shapes to easily create objects such as packaging mock-ups, and separate spot colours applied to 3D artwork.

Clipping masks

Use clipping masks to hide areas of an object or group, crop placed images, or cut intricate shapes. Quickly find the clipping mask options in the Control panel.

Course Summary

This course is aimed at new users or those who already have a little experience, and will teach you how to use Illustrator for the production of a wide range of graphical elements. From designing logos through to converting sketches, we concentrate on essential drawing and production techniques, taking full advantage of Illustrator’s wide range of tools and features.

Audience

Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based graphics program that allows beginners and experts alike to create professional quality print and web designs.

On Completion

In this 2 day course, you will learn how to create illustrations and type effects, design advertisements and printable documents. You will learn to work with colours, gradients, layers, fonts, and photos to create eye-catching illustrations and text effects.

Course Content

Creating basic Documents

Explore the pre built Document Profiles
Shortcuts to navigate the Artboard effectively
Work in a Custom Workspace

Drawing in Illustrator

Use the Pen tool for straight lines
Add, delete or adjust points along a path
Understand how Bezier Curves work, learn to draw and edit these Curves
Freeform drawing and editing with this powerful tool
Create Logos using simple Shapes
Using Live Trace to transform your hand drawn sketches into vector artwork that can be further adjusted

Modifying Objects

Lasso select and the other goodies in the Select Menu
Transform objects with scale, shear, rotate & reflect tool
Be precise using Smart Guides, Grids & Guidelines
Align, Group & Duplicate to achieve better results
Layers palette: Hide & Lock Objects
Intro to Isolation Mode for effective editing

Working with Colours in Illustrator

Difference between Swatches and Colour palette
Applying colour to Stroke and/or Fill
Adjusting Stroke with the Stroke palette
Live Colour for perfect Complementary / Analogous colours
Live Paint as an easy way to colour artwork
Introducing Gradients & Patterns

Text copy in Illustrator

Point, Area and Type on a path
Import Body Type & fix Spelling Errors
Find and Replace Text or Insert Typographic Characters
Create Text Outlines to design your own fancy headlines

Outputting your Artwork

Defining cropping area
Saving your artwork in vector formats
Save for Web & Devices

Dates

Duration: 2 days
Price: £495