Fundamentals of Illustrator CS4

Objectives

This course is designed for anyone who needs to understand the fundamental features and uses of Adobe Illustrator CS4 and the best way to use these to create drawings, illustrations and other artwork.


Pre-requisites:

None other than a working knowledge of Windows or the Macintosh.


Course Includes:

A comprehensive set of reference notes covering course topics, follow-up telephone support and, for training on Transmedia premises, lunch and refreshments.


Course Outline


Basic concepts, overview and tools


· Vector and Bitmap images
· Using Panels. Customising the workspace
· The Illustrator toolbox: paths and points selection; drawing simple shapes and selecting objects
· Using multiple artboards
· Transformation tools and the Free Transform tool; Using online help
· Managing files with Bridge


Drawing


· The pen tool; controlling curves, creating and amending paths; splitting paths, manipulating anchor points
· Using Templates, Pencil, Erase, Smooth and Brush; using the Livetrace tool to convert Bitmap to vectors
· Drawing with the Blob Brush tool


Colours and fills


· Fills and strokes on objects and paths
· Process, Pantone and Registration colour
· Gradients, patterns
· Applying gradient transparency
· Editing gradients directly on an object
· Livepaint and objects; Live Colour


Brush effects


· Calligraphic, art, scatter & pattern brushes
· Editing existing and creating new brushes
· Scribble Effect; using the brush libraries


Typography


· Basic typography; the type tool; type on and in a path; type as outlines
· Character and paragraph styles


Text work


· Linking text boxes and using using circular text; text wrap around objects
· Typographic control including kerning, indents and baseline shift






Arranging your work


· Send to back/Bring to front; Group/Ungroup and group selections
· Cut/copy/paste & paste infront/ behind
· Working with Rulers, Guides and Smart Guides, Getting the best from Layers


Modifications and special effects


· Transformations including blending shapes and the Gradient Mesh tool
· Pathfinder panel and compound paths
· Effects, graphic styles and masks
· The Flare and Distort tools, including the warp and liquify tools, envelope distort and envelope mesh
· Using Live Paint to modify images


3D Toolset


· Rotate, Revolve, Bevel and Extrude


Working with patterns


· Simple patterns and artwork patterns
· Converting logos to symbols for reuse
· Using the symbol spray to instance symbols around page
· Update symbols, manipulate symbols


Using Illustrator to present data


· Graphs and graph types
· Graph styles such as pies and bars
· Representing qualities graphically


The Actions panel


· Using existing actions
· Using Custom actions for automation


Web Work


· Optimising for the web; flexible web vector export; converting to Flash format
· Slicing and CSS layer support to create entire web pages