Illustrator Fundamentals Part 1

Illustrator is a graphic design tool used to allow the creation of custom illustrations for use in artwork. A similar program, such as Photoshop, is primarily used to adjust photos. However, Illustrator will open your creative side to develop logos, symbols, create artwork, and allow unique warping of text to create unusual effects. Artistic and 3D effects are commonly used to give your artwork a different look. This program will create vector graphics which are the mathematical definitions of lines, boxes, and circles. It will also teach important skills such as how to use selection techniques, text tools, drawing tools, and advanced formatting techniques. We are only offering the fundamentals course at this time. Once you understand style of the program, you will be able to continue the learning process on your own. Also, we will review the Intermediate features so you will be able to expand your knowledge at your own pace. The features covered in this class are very similar to Illustrator CS4 and CS5, so don’t hesitate to attend if you have an older version of Illustrator installed on your computer.

• Intro / Menu Overview – Raster vs Vector Graphics, Screen Layout, New Artboard, Artboard panel, Fit Artboard to object boundries, Artboard tool, Zoom tool, Navigator Panel, Workspaces, Preferences, New Document dialog box, Color Modes, Templates, Smart guides, Guides in ruler, Save document, Rulers, and Mac Keyboard commands.
• Basic Shapes – Drawing Modes, Selection Tools, Select similar Objects, Menu Selection, Line tools, Drawing Tools, Arrange, Copy the Image, Adjust Proportional, Shape adjustments, Transform panel, Grouping Options, Reflect, Custom Paths, Pin Tools, Anchor Points, Path Formatting Tools, Pin Tool with ALT, Direct Select tool, and Bezier Curves.
• Drawing Tools – Modes to view, Paint brush tool, Blob Brush tool, Drawing Tools, Path and Line formatting.
• Text – 3d Ribbon, Change Case, Text Type Tools, Text Formatting, Text Path Formatting Effects, Type on a Path Alignments Options, Character Panel, Other Character Formatting, Import Text, Threaded Text, Text Styles, and Typographic Characters.
• Customized Objects – Measure Tool, Align Panel, Distribution, Rotate tool, Linked images, Embedded images, Links Panel, Transform panel, Scale and Sheer tools.
• Customizing Artwork – Strokes panel, Fill tools, Appearance Panel, Brushes Panel, Graphic Style Panel, Swatch Panel, Symbol Library, Gradient tool, Gradient Style, Distort Text w / Envelopes, Create text, Select Text Box, Envelop Warp and Envelop Options.
• Begin Deployment  – Find, Replace, Spell Checking, Custom Dictionaries, Wrap Text, Hyphenation Text, Optimize Content for Print, Exporting, Optimize Content for the Web, Optimize Content for PDF Documents, and Create image using Artboard.