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Illustrator File setup

Lesson 6 from: Basics of Adobe CC: Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign

Jason Hoppe

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Lesson Info

6. Illustrator File setup

Lesson Info

Illustrator File setup

Adobe Illustrator, we've talked about what it's used for, creating graphics, manipulating type, doing infographics, shapes, fills, logos, illustrations, that's what it does. I'm gonna run through really quick, show you some examples of stuff that I've created. By now, this spread should look very familiar to you. These three infographics that we have, not only as part of this class but also on my blog as well. But some other infographics that I've created over time. All done in Illustrator, shapes, graphics, data visualization, this fantastic recipe here: this is how you make chicken pot pie without using any letters or numbers, it's all graphics, all created in Illustrator. That was a fun one too. Very simple doughnut, we're actually going to create this in class today. And this bakery logo as well. All these things that we've created in Illustrator. So, we launch Illustrator, we need to get started. So, we need to create a new file. So we're going to go into the file menu, and we're ...

going to choose 'New', and it comes up with a new document, you can name it if you want, and choose your intent: I'm going to use this for print. But we can also have for web or devices, based on whatever your end result is going to be used for. We can set that profile that we want. And, I'm going to go in and set the number of art boards. This tells you what Illustrator is used for. Illustrator doesn't have pages, folks, it's not used for print publishing. Okay? So, multi-page documents it's not called pages, it's called art boards; creative illustration, artistic, not for page layout, they don't even call it pages. So don't say you have three pages in your Illustrator file. You don't, they're called art boards. And so, when we create it, it looks dangerously like a page, it isn't, okay, it's an art board. So when you set up a file here, this is our art board, ready to work with this, and we can create multiple art boards, and we can change the size of these art boards as well. Simple editing of the art board in our toolbar here, right above the hand, we have our art board tool. You click on your art board tool, allows you to go in and change the size of your art board, and your control bar up at the top of illustrator, will allow you to set the size, and width of height of your art board too, horizontal, or vertical. However you'd like. You can also create new art boards by clicking on the new art board button, resizing those. You can have as many art boards as you want, every one can be a different size, you can place them wherever you want to. Because they're not pages, you can do whatever you want to with 'em. I'm gonna go back to my selection tool. And you're gonna use the selection tool all the time. So I clicked back on my selection tool. Number one rule in Illustrator, if you wanna be able to do something, you gotta have it selected. There's your selection tool. If you're new to any of these tools, one of the best things to do, take your cursor, hover over these tools. When you hover over any one of the tools, it's gonna tell ya the name of the tool, and in parenthesis, it gives you the shortcut for that tool. The selection tool, just simply the letter V. You type V on your keyboard, you get the selection tool. The selection tool is like a fork, if you're gonna eat, you're gonna need a fork, okay? So with Illustrator, if you wanna do something, you're gonna need to select it. You wanna move it? Gotta select it. You wanna rotate it? Gotta select it. You wanna delete it? Ya gotta select it. You'll never guess what tool we use for that. You got it, the selection tool. Okay? There's a lot of tools in illustrator. As we go through, we have our main selection tools, and then we have all of our drawing and type tools down here as well, our transform, and our editing tools, gradient and color selection, as well as some fun stuff, charts, graphs, symbol sprayer, art board tool, hand tool, and a zoom tool. Illustrator has a lot of nested tools as well. When you see this little arrow in the corner here, when you click and hold, these are all of the tools that are nested together. Spend some time going through these tools, understanding where they are. To this day, I still forget where certain tools are because they should be in one place, and they're someplace else. That's my fault, not yours. But one of the things that makes Illustrator very nice, is that because we have all these nested tools together, you can click on any one of these nested tools, and use a unique illustrator feature called the tear off. Which I click and hold, move my cursor over to the far right-hand side, and I get a little floating panel of all these tools for the tools that I use the most. Very nice and easy, great to go ahead and have it right there. So, Illustrator's main function, creating graphics, shapes, fills, manipulating type. And that's exactly what we're going to do.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Color in InDesign
InDesign Basics
InDesign Images and links
Photoshop Basics Shortcuts
Photoshop Color Correction
Photoshop Layers
Photoshop Selections Basics
Photoshop Terminology
Shapes Paths Guides InDesign
Type in InDesign
Illustrator Shortcuts
Shapes & Pathfinder in Illustrator
Photoshop Assets
Illustrator Assets
InDesign Assets
Infographic

Ratings and Reviews

user 1398976626171314
 

Such an important overview that clarifies and simplifies each piece of software and its role in achieving a beautiful and organized end result. Love Jason's brilliant and funny style and I appreciate his going into the "whys" of the software design evolution so it's not just memorizing methods but truly understanding what you can do even with a eye to the future changes. Fascinating, fun and empowering! My first Creative Live purchase!

Corrine Radergraham
 

WOW!! Jason is a very engaging instructor. It's obvious that he knows the programs inside and out. He imparts a tremendous amount of excellent material in a very short time, he makes sense and he is well-spoken with a sense of humor and he doesn't get lost in the materials and have to bungle his way out, very well prepared. I've been using PS and IA for the past several years on and off and currently have 6 on my computer but looking at going to CC in the near future. Even with that experience, he provided tips and tricks for both that were very enlightening in using them more productively. I'm not so familiar with ID and I now feel that I have a working knowledge of all three programs. I've taken Adobe classes taught by other instructors and found them rather boring to drag myself through. Jason is not boring in the least! So if you aren't familiar with these programs or are even curious about them and want an excellent overview, I totally recommend that you take this class. You will definitely not be sorry and will get your money's worth. I took this when it was offered on air free of charge. The only down of taking it free is that there are downloadable materials that are only available by purchase which sound excellent and I would like to have them, but I want to take one of Jason's other classes and can't justify the expense of this class only for the downloads, because I am familiar with the programs and would be unlikely to actually watch the class again, and there is his interactive pdf class that I am really looking forward to......5 stars and all thumbs up for Jason's instruction!

Renee Hamilton
 

Enjoying this class immensely. Havent used illustrator properly for a while but this class is refreshing my memory. Its so awesome and it makes illustrator seem so easy! Wow wow wow! Thank you Jason and Creative live

Student Work

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