Adobe Illustrator CS5: Introduction

Course Description:

This is a comprehensive two day Adobe authorised introduction to Adobe Illustrator CS5. The course has been designed to enable anyone new to Illustrator to produce professional graphics, designs and illustrations. The course covers Illustrator's sophisticated drawing and text controls, creating complex shapes, using adjustable strokes, using painterly effects and the LiveTrace and LivePaint features allowing you to create beautiful, professional artwork and designs.

Throughout the two days the emphasis is on practical, hands-on learning including a series of exercises designed to consolidate new skills and build confidence. If you wish to tailor this outline to your exact requirements, please call or email.

This course includes the following modules:

Welcome to Illustrator

• About vectors and bitmaps

Getting started in Illustrator

• Opening illustrations
• Using templates
• Creating new illustrations
• Using document profiles
• Exploring panels and workspaces
• Navigating your illustrations

Artwork components

• Outline vs Preview mode
• Rulers, guides and grids
• Intuitive Smart Guides
• Paths, point and handles
• Grouping objects
• Using layers
• Working in Group Isolation Mode

Creating basic shapes

• Creating primitive shapes
• Creating polygons, stars and spirals
• Drawing lines, grids and arcs
• Snapping and aligning shapes

Working with colour

• Colour models
• Applying colour to objects
• Spot vs process colour
• Process and global process colours
• Managing swatches
• Creating colour groups
• Introduction to gradients
• Loading swatch libraries

Working with layers

• Creating layers
• Using layers effectively

Drawing in Illustrator

• Working with paths, points and direction handles
• Drawing paths
• Tips for drawing curves
• Editing, manipulating and modifying paths
• Adding and deleting anchor points
• Splitting cutting and erasing paths
• Using the Average and Join commands

Organising your artwork

• Introducing multiple artboards
• Editing the artboard size
• Using guides and smart guides
• Creating custom guides
• Positioning elements
• Aligning and distributing artwork

Painting in Illustrator

• Manipulating stroke options
• Creating dashed lines
• Creating variable width strokes
• Introducing blends
• Painting with the Paintbrush
• Using the Blob brush

Placing imported graphics

• Placing vs embedding images
• Creating template layers
• Photoshop import options

Using LiveTrace

• Automatically tracing artwork
• Adjusting LiveTrace results
• Converting LiveTrace objects

Using LivePaint

• Creating LivePaint groups
• Painting LivePaint objects
• Detecting gaps
• Modifying LivePaint groups

Transforming objects

• Using the Transform tools and menu commands
• Using the Transform panel

Creating complex shapes

• Introducing the Shape Builder tool
• Creating compound shapes
• Expanding compound shapes

Working with type

• The type tools
• Using the Character and Paragraph panel
• Creating outlines from text

Saving and exporting

• Saving Illustrator files
• Creating Adobe PDF files
• Exporting files from Illustrator