Adobe Illustrator CC

All courses are delivered by an Adobe Certified Instructor (ACI).

Course materials will be sent to attendees 2 days prior to the course. 

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Illustrator Intro - 2 days

£265

 

Getting started:

  • Preference settings

  • Creating and saving workspaces

  • The Tools panel

  • Getting around – zoom and scroll

  • 'Outline’ and ‘preview’ modes

  • Grids, guidelines and ‘smart guides’

  • 'Undo' and 'redo'

 

Creating a new document:

  • Creating files for print

  • Creating files for web

  • Modifying your document

  • Managing multiple documents

  • Using rulers

 

Working with Artboards:

  • The Artboard panel

  • Re-sizing artboards

  • Creating and copying artboards

 

The Layers panel:

  • Visibility and locking

  • Selecting objects with the layers panel

  • Sub-layers

  • Deleting layers

  • Grouping and naming layers

  • Changing the stacking order

  • Moving objects from one layer to another

  • Copying objects from one layer to another

  • Adjusting layer previews

 

Working with colour:

  • RGB vs. CMYK

  • Adjusting Illustrator colour settings

  • Process vs. global swatches

  • Using the swatches and colour panels

  • Strokes and fills

  • The Colour Guide panel

 

Selecting and Transforming:

  • The Selection tools

  • The Magic Wand tool

  • The Lasso tool

  • Selecting objects by attribute

  • Grouping objects

  • Isolation mode

  • Rotating and 'stacking' objects

  • Distorting and transforming objects

  • Repeating transformations

  • Reflecting and skewing objects

  • Aligning and distributing objects

 

Working with paths:

  • The Pen tool

  • The Curvature tool

  • Joining and averaging paths

  • Using the Scissors and Knife tools

 

Useful drawing tools:

  • The Line tools

  • The Shape tools

  • The Ellipse tool

  • The Scale tool

  • The Reflect tool

  • The Rotate tool

  • The Shape Builder tool

  • Creating a mask

 

Keyboard shortcuts

 

Working in outline mode

 

Working with type:

  • Point vs. Area type

  • Paragraph and Character Styles

  • 'Placing' text

  • Creating threaded text

  • Selecting type and choosing fonts

  • Adjusting type size

  • Leading

  • Tracking and kerning

  • Adding indents

 

Working with Symbols:

  • The Symbol Sprayer tools

  • Using the symbols libraries

  • Creating new symbols

  • Breaking a symbol link

  • Redefining symbols

 

Working with Images:

  • 'Placing' images

  • Embedding vs. linked images

  • Cropping images

 

Saving, Printing and Exporting:

  • Saving to legacy formats

  • Saving Templates

  • Saving for the web

  • Exporting your work

  • Illustrator in InDesign and Photoshop

  • Creating PDF files

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Illustrator Advanced - 2 days

£265

 

The Appearance panel:

  • 'Attribute stacking order'

  • Applying multiple fills

  • Applying multiple strokes

  • Adjusting appearance with live effects

  • Saving appearances as graphic style

 

Live Paint:

  • Using Live Paint

  • The Live Paint Bucket tool

  • The Live Paint Selection tool

  • Adding a path to a Live Paint group

 

Tracing images:

  • Auto-tracing

  • Embedding vs. linking images

  • Auto-tracing and resolution

  • Adjusting layer previews

  • The Threshold option

  • The Noise option

  • Expanding and simplifying traced paths

  • Flipping and fusing shapes

  • Scaling resolution-independent vectors

 

Drawing in perspective:

  • Defining a perspective grid

  • Drawing in perspective

  • Applying artwork to the grid

 

Creating 3D objects:

  • 3D Revolve

  • 3D Bevel and emboss

  • 3D Revolve

 

Infographics and Dynamic data:

  • Creating Illustrator graphs

  • Importing and editing data

  • Swapping between graph types

  • Changing graph settings

  • Selecting and colouring graph elements

  • Applying a design to a marker

  • Adding numeric values to a column graph

  • Designing your own graphs

  • Creating a 3D 'pie' graph

  • Designing an infographic project

 

Working with brushes:

  • Creating and editing a calligraphic brush

  • Creating and editing art brushes

  • Creating and editing a scatter brush

  • Creating and editing a pattern brush

  • Formatting and scaling brushed text

  • Editing a brush path

  • Expanding and filling brush outlines

  • Brushes meet text

  • Adjusting the bristles in a bristle brush

 

Envelope distortions:

  • Introducing Envelope Distort

  • Editing the contents of an envelope

  • Warping an envelope mesh

  • Creating and editing an envelope mesh

  • Blending an envelope into a background

 

Creating and editing gradients:

  • Creating radial and linear gradients

  • Applying a gradient fill to objects and live text

  • Using the gradient annotator

  • Editing multiple gradients

  • The blend point

  • Mixing gradients and blend modes

  • Adding transparency to a gradient

  • Drop shadows and dynamic effects

  • Assigning a gradient to editable text

  • Assigning a gradient to a stroke

 

The Gradient mesh tool:

  • Introducing the gradient mesh

  • Working with the Mesh tool

  • Adding colours to mesh points

  • Applying a gradient mesh to a shape

  • Converting a linear gradient to a mesh

  • Editing a linear gradient mesh

  • Converting a radial gradient to a mesh

  • Editing a radial gradient mesh

 

The Blend tool:

  • Creating a multi-colour blend

  • Editing blended paths

  • Adjusting the number of blended steps

  • Blending between levels of opacity

  • Applying a blend to a new path

  • Blending groups

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