Digitizing with Illustrator: Step 3 - Overlay Vector
Lesson 8 from: Digitizing Hand-Drawn ArtLaura Victore, James Victore
Digitizing with Illustrator: Step 3 - Overlay Vector
Lesson 8 from: Digitizing Hand-Drawn ArtLaura Victore, James Victore
Lesson Info
8. Digitizing with Illustrator: Step 3 - Overlay Vector
Lessons
Planning Your Strategy
06:34 2Digitizing with Photoshop: Step 1 - Scan
03:57 3Digitizing with Photoshop: Step 2 - Adjust/Edit
07:57 4Digitizing with Photoshop: Step 3 - Layer
17:24 5James Victore's Workhorse Fonts
22:22 6Digitizing with Illustrator: Step 1 - iPhone Capture
07:29 7Digitizing with Illustrator: Step 2 - Live Trace
08:58 8Digitizing with Illustrator: Step 3 - Overlay Vector
12:10Lesson Info
Digitizing with Illustrator: Step 3 - Overlay Vector
now. What now? Laura? What if we wanted to put this over an image? What would we do? Well, James, let me just tell you what we're gonna dio. So let's see. Maybe we want to place an image that we already have. Like, I don't know this lovely image. Oh, it's huge. Let's make it. Let's make it what? Size it down. Just drag with option and shift keeping the proportions of it. That's goony rock cool image. Who's that cute man on the beach as sexy hunk of man is cute. Yes, that's good. Yes, put it right over right over that. Yeah. What I might do is, since you have, you can put these on two layers. So you can. Then you can easily kind of manipulate each layer without worrying about moving one while you're trying to do some work on the other one so you can select the type and copy, create another layer paste on their own, But then, see, maybe you wanted to cut that instead, but it's fine because it's fine. Just go back to layer one, and we're gonna delete that original Nellie pot. Oh, good. So...
and what you can do is you can lock that image underneath here. So you now you can't move it yet. You can't move it just in case. Okay, so now we're on layer Teoh. We're working with that's lovely logo type here, and we might want to make it small. We can kind of, you know, I don't know. Do whatever you want. Get it out of that angle. Tell me, James, that's what would you like todo straighten it up the way it was? Okay, that better? No, it's still in an angle, but I'll live with it. That's better. There you go, darling. What would you like to do with it now? Yeah, let's make it look like a vacation poster. I kind of like a jelly pot, Right? Like a ray ban ad. For some reason, I don't know why. Put load only about and it just, like, put some or type on there That just says, like the place to be Okay, so we go over to the type to a looks like goony island as goony rock. You could have another Portland, right? Call it goony rockets called something. You'd have another layer just for your type. You're right type in there the right time. Now we're gonna be looking from the right type. Which would probably be not that I wouldn't put Helvetica in this because this has got some strength to it. I would put something warm Like what we got Good. About what? About Hoffler Text Hofler Texas. Georgia Sarah Mom, get along with Do it. You like care Amman's. What would you like to say about this ad that studies the melody But the place to be making a travel poster? Yeah, it's tiny type right now. I don't have You can see it, but I will change it. What is it? Showing up? Okay. It's gonna be like the place to come back up here so it doesn't have an exclamation seen and probably metallic right to seem like we're moving vacation, right? Where would you like it? I know, I know. This is like a pleasant arrangement of shapes on the page. It can go anywhere there in place. You know, the only place that probably shouldn't be is the kind of correct place I don't know. There's so money. Like we could put it here. There's things here. There's so many things, you know, you might want to make be a right, a real good designer and put it Here's what hangs off thing a little bit. Um, you know, be funny. Toe. Like, just put it right over my head. Yeah. There you go. Look at that. That looks like that. That looks like a Christmas card that you would get from, like people who were traveling. So Excellent. Excellent. Fabulous. Any questions about that? What Laura has done with Victor Rising and for travel poster. Yeah. Melvin. Yes. All right. All right. Uh, when you first brought in nearly pot. Ah, and then you did. I can't remember that function, but the trace is a trace. Yeah. Is there a way to adjust the level of detail that shows up? There is? There is. Yes. Um, that, um yes. And I actually live with this new, um, this new version of Illustrator. I haven't been able to find it quite yet, but I know it's there. It's where there's an options panel. You can also exclude the white background by clicking a box. There you go. Fantastic. So there is. You can get a much more high level of detail. What? What will happen when you, um if you want to go for more detail and say you want to really preserve that line? Uh, this this chunky, Like each little turn of this line, then you can do that in the settings. And what will happen is you'll have more points. Okay, on that vector will make your file a little bigger, but that depending on what you're doing if it's a super detailed file and maybe and maybe a little bit bigger, But it will be, Yeah, do that. Excellent. Yes. So, um, let's say, for example, um, you have on exhibition coming up and you're gonna use the the words that we did in the fourth or something. They love thing. Yeah. And it's gonna be this huge poster now. Yeah, and I Well, I think that if you go into the image trace it kind off loses some magic, yet it gets, like, really flat. And what do you do? Because, like, the handwriting so unique And if you trace in your scale, it up for exhibition? Yeah. Yes. It's gonna lose something. No. Are you just gonna work with the cheap back and you skin it in like, massive. And I like this huge shaping Fallon, Or are you gonna work with it in Illustrator and yeah, try to, like video that it doesn't do so authentic. Yeah. I mean, there's always ways. Teoh. You know, there are always work arounds like, if our scan bed won't do it, we'd literally, you know, send it out and have someone do it for us. And there's trade offs of of of both. Quite frankly, it's messing with the huge file. I mean, there's a I think there's a piece to wish the there's a piece of mine. It was called the Beach Family was a post rated for SPH, just labored with images, has got a ton of images, and I like a boob, designed the whole thing in, um, well, in design in design Will Quark originally, um, and it was just a massive file in the first thing it did was was shut the printer down. They got the file and, you know, so there's, like, trade offs on all this stuff. Um and yes, taking. I don't care to have my work actually vector rise because it kind of loses something. Yes, Yeah. Um, yeah, but they're there. That's a great thing to bring up is that there is sort of an intermediary between, like, your scanner at home. Um, And what? Its capabilities are probably of the highest resolution that will go. And then, you know, there's always places that you can send it out to who have super big scanners who can make the resolution, like, as you know, as much as they can go. And, um, so there's always that option. Cool. Um, do we want toe move on and show? Yeah. Okay, so let's go back to the keynote and see, we I just did that. Yeah. So then the same way would you if you were saving it, it would just be very similar to Photoshopped. Good question. Um, actually, now so for Well, this is that's interesting, because, um, say you just want, um this No. Say you just want this nellie pot by itself as a vector because your client needs it for a logo or what Not. I would just save it by itself. Probably as what I would do is they might ask for a pdf version. You might ask for an e p s file. Um, but that's what I would give them, you know, if they're just asking for the vector of the logo by itself. If I were gonna do this lovely, beautiful poster that we've created and this was its own peace and, um, it would that again, it would kind of depend on where it was going to be used in the end. So if this was going to be a printed piece, um, then I would make sure that this, like this art board file the file size is the end file size that they need that my client needs. Right, So? So, basically, that's, um, this, uh, this image this photograph behind, um, would b would full bleed would go all the way to the edges of the documents, whatever size that they need. Right? Um does that make sense? You know, And if they say if your client wanted to take this and resize that they obviously they all they could do is make it smaller, because the photograph is never gonna hold. And then that we would have to actually trace that. Put that type into a vector so that could you know, a lot. Oftentimes we find we have to trace type before we before, you know, before we send it out. Yeah, that's that's a good thing to bring up. Because if you're sending out this file and say they don't have this typefaces, gear monde, adobe Herrmann pro will, you do? Just to be safe is you can click on it. And I believe that the type create outlines and that will see all these. Like, let me see if I can show you, Um, so will convert the type two the vector format so that when your client opens it up on the other side, then they won't get hit with some message. It says, Oh, you don't have this typeface. Sorry. We can't We can't open it up, okay?
Ratings and Reviews
Melville McLean
It is a mixed report. There should be a thumb neither up or down rating. James Victore is a talented, with a big, as in New York metropolitan area big, bold, self-promoting personality who presents a persona that defies conventions and hates rules. That is all fine although I have never worked with or met a designer who has his attitude towards fonts before. Let me warn others studying design that you might not like that attitude. But everything in his world sounds passionate, impulsive and experimental. I think it is a good thing to be introduced to someone who seeks out working outside the box and embracing the counter intuitive. In short he is an artist who relies on the exciting and chaotic flux of inspiration to happens to design for a living. His left, hand-drawn letters are an expression of that, making words into art. He says he primarily wants emotional responses and people to react like they would to poetry. If you are a little more familiar with New Yorkers and the business you will also recognize all of this as his pitch. It is entertaining. And this course is a performance. His wife Laura is his muse. But this approach will not suit a lot of students here. We are not potential customers hearing a pitch. We are here for educational reasons, mostly practical reasons although he is definitely an inspirational force. And IMO, there are limits to teaching when the instructor is incapable of taking a step back and being objective too. Moreover, he and his wife offer the least of any teachers on CreativeLive that I have seen in terms of sharing in-depth skills and knowledge. In fact, some members of this class knew more than they did and it was the class that answered many questions that the instructors did not know. Laura in particular who was using the software shared with us that she "is not a Photoshop professional." That is an understatement. It can be tedious watching their trial and error approach. Moreover, neither one could explain the difference or use between JPEG, PDF and PSD files. Yikes and double yikes! They send them out to clients in what sounded like an arbitrarily arrived decision. The class was surprised to also discover that neither knew the distinction between kerning and tracking. Worse is that questions like this, the most simple, fundamental ones seemed to catch them both off guard so they were not prepared with an answer--which astonished me. Furthermore, any discussion of resolution was incoherent. They knew bigger was better so they let others decide for them later. Right. Well maybe they can take a few classes here to learn all of these simple fundamentals before teaching their next class because this was unfair to those who turned in as well as those who bought the class. Incredibly, they were ill prepared to teach this course. The class was very loosely organized, often somewhat chaotic and disappointing a lot of the time. I read that James has taught for 30 years. It makes little sense to me. And not everyone will appreciate his novel approach which apparently has not been sufficient to give his wife what she needs to use, let alone teach Photoshop. If you are here to learn specifics to augment your skills and knowledge, this is probably not the best choice you can make. You might prefer Erica Gamet and Jason Hoppe for Illustrator and anyone else you can find on CreativeLive for Photoshop If you want to see two folks make numerous errors, rely upon heuristics, demonstrate they do not understand or seem to even have any curiosity about what is behind their technical decisions and yet still manage to pul off a a fine looking finished product in the end, then this is for you. You also might be inspired by their passion, enthusiasm and maverick approach seen here. What they share is their process, warts and all but they are creative dynamic duo. I liked them but accept that this is a different kind of course than you usually se here. It all depends upon what you are looking for.
Mary Thomas
I too am glad I can watch this for free before purchasing. It is unfortunate that the teachers do not have the skills to teach. They have great talent in what they are doing artfully, but teaching what you know is an art in itself. The time of the students is valuable and in my opinion this is totally a time waster. Sorry, but this gets a thumbs down here.