CSGD 306 Illustrator I

Illustrator I provides students with a basic working knowledge of Adobe® Illustrator® CC 2015 (version 19, June 16, 2015). Subjects covered include drawing, usage of bézier curves and basic color, gradients and typographic effects. Students will learn how Illustrator files are exported and used in other applications such as Photoshop and InDesign. Adobe Illustrator CC 2015 new features and best practices will be discussed, investigated and utilized throughout this course.

Prerequisite:A basic knowledge of computers is required for all computer classes.

Students are required to bring a USB or Flash drive to class.

Schedule at a glance (subject to revision)

September

October

November

December

The Adobe Illustrator Story

When Adobe Illustrator first shipped in 1987, the new product not only altered Adobe's course, it changed drawing and graphic design forever. See how Adobe Co-Founder John Warnock first conceived of Illustrator as a PostScript drawing tool and how PostScript's Bézier curves could be applied to the shapes illustrators painstakingly created by hand. – May 2014, video, 19:01

Learn more about the history of Adobe Illustrator

Knock Knock – Multi-screen Animation

Brunettes Shoot Blondes: Knock Knock – Slick animation using Apple devices and a whole lot o' creativity. Looks like a whole lot o' Illustrator too!

The X-Files 2016 Promotional Animation – Ask Yourself

The X-Files – Miniseries Premieres on Fox, January 24, 2016 : From Illustrator to Photoshop – graphics for animations like this can begin in Adobe Illustrator and be processed in Adobe Photoshop to create animated GIFs that can be emailed or posted on the Web.

Project One

10 Digital Drawings

Due: September 24th

Concept: Exploring Adobe Illustrator.

Project Brief: Explore Adobe Illustrator's shape and drawing tools and create 10 vector illustrations. Anything goes – be creative and have fun!

• Getting Started – Don't let the blank canvas syndrome interfere with this project. Just do it. This project is simply about playing with Illustrator's tools and features, it's not about creating masterpieces. Make new documents, cut loose and make a lot of marks, it's all good! Be sure to save your files to bring in for our next class.
• Inspire by Adobe – Inspire Magazine brings you profiles of some of the world’s most innovative artists—shining a spotlight on amazing work in photography, graphic design, film, type, illustration, architecture, and more.
• Illustrator Help / Workspace basics
• Illustrator Help / Tool galleries
• Illustrator Help / Drawing simple lines and shapes
• Illustrator Help / Editing paths
• Illustrator Help / About color
• Illustrator Help / Selecting objects
• Illustrator Help / Painting with fills and strokes

Specifications: 10 files, RGB color, Adobe Illustrator format

Project Two

Character Study

Due: October 1st

Concept: Develop a character (or more) in Adobe Illustrator.

Project Brief: Explore Adobe Illustrator's shape and drawing tools and create a vector illustration of a character. Use solid colors for fills, strokes, shading and highlights. Step outside your comfort zone and see how it feels!

How to Draw a Horse's Head – example of using simple shapes to create art

• Getting Started – Watch a cartoon or two for inspiration. Search the web for images of your favorite character(s) – look for images shaded with solid color versus gradients (we'll be covering gradients next week) as discussed in class.
• What is Illustrator? – video, 1:00
• Illustrator Help / Drawing basics
• Illustrator Help / Drawing with the Pen, Pencil or Flare tool
• Illustrator Help / Transforming objects
• Illustrator Help / Combining objects
• Illustrator Help / Creating shapes using Shape Builder Tool
• Bitmap vs Vector – video, 5:00
• Photoshop Help / Image essentials – info about bitmaps and vectors
• Photoshop Help / Raster & Vector
• Cartoon Fundamentals: Create Emotions From Simple Changes in the Face
• Create a Comic Character: Making a Character Sheet in Adobe Illustrator

Specifications: RGB color, Adobe Illustrator format

Project Three

Gradients

Due: October 8th

Concept: Use gradients to create rich, dimensional vector artworks in Adobe Illustrator.

Project Brief: Continue exploring Adobe Illustrator's shape and drawing tools and create an illustration using gradients, blends and transparency. Use gradients for fills, strokes, shading and highlights. Walk the edge and create something new for yourself!

• Getting Started – Observe your surroundings – gradients are everywhere. Subtle and harsh color transitions occur naturally with various light sources, angles of illumination, time-of-day, location, etc. Artists have challenged themselves for centuries with trying to recreate realistic color, light & shadows.
• Light & Shadow – search the Web for more information and images about light & shadow.
• Illustrator Help / Gradients
• Illustrator Help / Transparency and blending modes
• Illustrator Help / Blending objects

Specifications: RGB color, Adobe Illustrator format

Project Four

Typography

Due: October 15th

Concept: Create unique typographic examples in Adobe Illustrator.

Project Brief: Adobe Illustrator has a long history of being the go to application to create incredible typographic effects. Everything from type on paths to flowing text in unique shapes, decorative type to descriptive text and labels, Illustrator does it all. Be creative with Illustrator and make at least 3 unique typographic examples.

• Getting Started – Typography is all around us – everywhere – really, everywhere. Appliances in our homes, books and magazines, websites, email, ads on TV, movie and show titles & end credits, digital displays, posters, billboards, packaging, and the list goes on and on. Start to carefully look at type examples to see how it was crafted – most likely, any fancy looking type you see was created in Adobe Illustrator.
• Illustrator Help / Creating text
• Illustrator Help / Creating type on a path
• Illustrator Help / Scaling and rotating type
• Intro to the Touch Type Tool – video, 3:00
• The History of Typography – Animated Short – video, 5:09
• Touch Type – Selecting Overlapping Letters: Manipulating type with the Type Touch option may make selecting overlapping text really challenging, especially if you scale some type larger and some smaller. The solution is to select the letter that is overlapping the others and causing the selection issue (i.e. the easy one to select), use the menu, Object > Arrange > Send to Back. Now you can select the smaller letter and continue transforming!
• see additional links for Typography in sidebar

Specifications: 3 or more files, RGB color, PDF format

Project Five

Layout

Due: October 22nd

Concept: Create a layout in Adobe Illustrator.

Project Brief: Adobe Illustrator also has a long history of being used for page layout to create everything from business cards, postcards, posters, bumper stickers, product packaging, email campaigns, ads and more. Choose a subject and try your hand at creating a layout in Illustrator. Feel free to create more than one layout – the more you do, the more you learn!

• Getting Started – Again, all around us, almost everything and everywhere you look – Adobe Illustrator is hard at work. Start to carefully look at printed and digital works and see if you can figure out if it was created in Adobe Illustrator and how it was achieved.
• Scaling (resizing) Placed Digital Images in Illustrator – Illustrator allows you to easily scale placed digital images (i.e. Photoshop files and digital photos) by dragging a corner of the bounding box around the image with the Selection tool, using the Scale tool or using width and height fields in panels. It's best practice to place images at 100% of their original size or scale them smaller than 100% of their original size in order to keep the file's resolution needed for printing. Scaling an image larger than 100% will result in lowering the effective image resolution and could cause pixelation and disappointing printing results. Digital images should have a resolution of 300 ppi (pixels per inch) for everyday printing needs.
• Illustrator Help / Importing artwork files
• Illustrator Help / Place multiple files | Illustrator CC
• Illustrator Help / Importing and exporting text
• Illustrator Help / Clipping masks
• Illustrator Help / Working with effects
• Illustrator Help / Summary of effects (quick reference)
• Illustrator Help / Reshaping objects with effects
• bleed – Printed artwork or text that extends beyond the final trimmed piece to ensure ink is printed to the edge of the media.
• Illustrator Help / Setting up documents for printing
• Illustrator Help / Printer’s marks and bleeds

Specifications: RGB color, PDF format (include printer's marks & bleed if necessary)

Bonus Tip

Twelve Must-know Mac OS Keyboard Shortcuts for Special Characters

Digital imaging pros know their computers inside and out, including their keyboards and important keyboard shortcuts for special characters to get the job done! The following 12 shortcuts are part of everyday keystrokes, worth memorizing to allow you to be productive and type like the pros!

Double-bonus Tip: Links to additional Apple and Windows special characters.

Triple-bonus Tip: Use the menu,  > System Preferences… and select Keyboard in the second row to enable the Keyboard and Character Viewers in menu bar. You'll be able to use the Keyboard Viewer to see where special characters live on the keyboard so you can type them and the Character Viewer to select and insert special characters into your documents!

Quadruple-bonus Tip: The Apple icon () can be typed using Option + Shift + K (not available in all fonts).

Project Six

Logo Design

Due: November 5th

Concept: Create a logo in Adobe Illustrator.

Project Brief: Corporate brand marks (symbols) and logotypes are usually created in Adobe Illustrator. This is due to Illustrator's resolution-independent output. Illustrator files can be infinitely scaled while maintaining sharpness! Create black, white, Pantone+ Solid Coated, RGB and CMYK versions of your brand mark.

• Getting Started – Brand marks are all around us, on everything. Brand marks and branding have a long history, dating back to ancient Egypt to mark ownership of livestock. Branding has evolved over time to not only mark livestock, but to mark products, services, groups and individuals. Adobe Illustrator is usual application to create logos, due to the scalability of vector artwork (Adobe InDesign is also used to create logos as vector art. Design novices often create logos in Adobe Photoshop and quickly learn that bitmaps have limited scalability.). Start to carefully look at logos and see if you can figure out how it was crafted in Adobe Illustrator.
• The Story Behind the FedEx Logo
• The Cost of Famous Logos
• The Psychology of Logo Designs (infographic by Colorfast) – JPG 2 MB
• Logo Evolution of 25 Famous Brands
• Steve Jobs: "Don't Make It Cute"
• Illustrator Help / About color
• Illustrator Help / Selecting colors
• Illustrator Help / Using and creating swatches
• Pantone® – Pantone is the world-renowned authority on color and provider of color systems and leading technology for the selection and accurate communication of color across a variety of industries. Click to download 2015 catalog.
• Create Outlines – After saving your master Illustrator file, convert all type to outlines before making the black, white and color versions. This will convert your typography to shapes and not require including the font(s) with your files. You can convert live type to outlines by selecting your type objects with the Selection tool and using the menu, Type > Create Outlines or Command+Shift+O (PC: Control+Shift+O).

Specifications: Create the following versions of your logo design and save your files in the Adobe Illustrator format.

• Pantone+ Solid Coated – for brand identity & printing with limited inks
• RGB Color – for digital display
• CMYK Color – for 4-color printing
• Black – for printing with black ink
• White (also known as the knock-out version: as in knock-out to white, where white is the paper color) – for use over similar or competing color(s) and/or visually complex backgrounds

Project Seven

Pixels to Vectors…

Due: November 12th

Concept: Convert pixels to vectors in Adobe Illustrator.

Project Brief: Explore Adobe Illustrator's Image Trace feature and create a vector illustration from pixel-based digital images. Feel free to be creative and use any combination of techniques to add value to your art!

• Illustrator Help / Importing bitmap images
• Illustrator Help / Using image trace
• New Image Trace– video, 02:05
• Auto tracing and resolution – video, 06:00
• Photoshop Help / Image size and resolution
• Understanding resolution – video, 06:00
• Photoshop Help / Levels adjustment
• Release those Vectors! – Be sure to press the Expand button in the Control panel after using Image Trace. This releases the vectors from the digital image so you can make further edits to your art! You can also expand the image trace to vectors using the menu, Object > Image Trace > Expand.
• Note: This project is not considered Vexel art. Vexel art is pixel-based imagery, usually created in Adobe Photoshop, and has the appearance of vectors or art created in Adobe Illustrator.

Specifications: RGB color, Adobe Illustrator format

Project Eight

Patterns & Brushes

Due: November 19th

Concept: Working with patterns and brushes in Adobe Illustrator.

Project Brief: Pattern tiles (repeating elements) can be produced in Adobe Illustrator by simply dragging objects, including photos, to the Swatches panel. Complex pattern tiles can be created by selecting multiple objects in your file and using the menu, Object > Pattern > Make – this will add the pattern swatch to the Swatches panel and invoke the Pattern Options dialog. Pattern tiles can be customized using the Pattern Options to create a variety of tiles. Pattern brushes can also be made from objects and pattern swatches to enhance your designs. Have fun working with patterns!

Adobe Illustrator also features a suite of brushes that let you stylize the appearance of paths. You can apply brush strokes to existing paths, or you can use the Paintbrush tool to draw a path and apply a brush stroke at the same time. Illustrator has five different types of brushes: calligraphic, scatter, art, pattern, and bristle. Custom brushes can be created, allowing for endless possibilities in creativity! Be expressive and don't worry about making mistakes!

• Getting Started – You guessed it, more observation!. Patterns are used in textile design, art, architecture, etc. Wall paper & wrapping paper, packaging, floor coverings, borders, tiles, trim work, etc. Start to carefully look at patterns and see if you can figure out if they were created in Adobe Illustrator and how they were achieved.
• Illustrator Help / Patterns
• Illustrator Help / Create and edit patterns
• Illustrator Help / Transforming objects
• Transforming Patterns – Press and hold the tilde key (~), located to the left of the number 1 key at the top of the keyboard to transform the pattern fill, leaving the shape untouched.
• Transform Panel Menu – The panel menu in the Transform panel has options for Transform Object Only (default setting), Transform Patterns Only and Transform Both.
• How to Create an Illustrative Vector Pattern Design
• Illustrator Help / Automatic corner generation | Illustrator CC
• Adobe Illustrator Guide: How to use symbols, patterns, and graphic styles – PDF 1.1 MB
• Illustrator Help / Brushes
• Illustrator Help / Painting with fills and strokes – contains info on variable-width strokes
• How to work with brushes
• Use Brushes – video, 04:00
• A Look Inside Pattern Brush Borders in Adobe Illustrator CC – video, 08:25
• Create a Pattern Brush – video, 10:00
• DesignTuts+ – Adobe Illustrator Brush tutorials
• DesignTuts+ – A Huge Compilation of 60 Free Illustrator Brushes
• 40 Awesome Sets of Free Adobe Illustrator Brushes to Bookmark
• Pattern & Brush Libraries – Adobe Illustrator ships with additional libraries that can be accessed using the panel menus (top right of panels) or Libraries buttons (bottom left of panels).
• Search for Patterns & Brushes – Search for Illustrator patterns and Illustrator brushes in your web browser and in your Adobe Creative Cloud Assets > Market – you'll find an incredible amount of resources that you can download and use to your heart's content!

Specifications: RGB color, Adobe Illustrator format.