Adobe Illustrator Cc for Dummies

Get to know your digital drawing board

Adobe Illustrator CC offers a vibrant tool for creating drawings and illustrations in a digital environment. It takes some practice to get a feel for the digital pens, pencils, paintbrushes, and erasers, though. Adobe Illustrator CC For Dummies offers the guidance you need to turn your ideas into real drawings.

Written by an Illustrator trainer and expert, this book walks those new to the tool through the basics of drawing, editing, and applying the unique tools found in this popular program. 

• Create illustrations using simple shapes
• Touch up images using pen, pencil, and brush tools
• Import your illustrations into other graphic apps
• Apply special effects and add type

This book is essential reading for new and beginning illustrators who are either adopting a digital tool for the first time, switching from an existing tool to Illustrator, or adding Illustrator know-how to existing Adobe knowledge.

David Karlins is an experienced educator and author as well as the creator of the online course SVG Graphics for the Web with Illustrator. Skilled in a wide range of communication design technologies, he is also the author of Adobe Analytics For Dummies and HTML5 & CSS3 For Dummies as well as other books on design tools and techniques.

 Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 3

Part 1: Creating, Navigating, and Saving Projects 5

Chapter 1: Navigating Illustrator’s Interface 7

Surveying the Illustrator Universe 8

Launching Illustrator 8

Using and Customizing Toolbars 10

Accessing and Arranging Panels 11

Using the Control Panel or the Properties Panel 12

Choosing between the Control and Properties panels 13

Options on the Control and Properties panels 13

Chapter 2: Creating, Saving, Exporting, and Printing Files 15

Creating Documents 16

Making basic choices for a document 16

Using presets 17

Defining color mode, artboard size, and raster resolution 18

Deploying Artboards 20

Defining artboards 20

Using artboards for a multidimensional project 23

Exporting, Saving, and Printing 27

Saving Illustrator files 27

Exporting files 29

Using artboards and assets for output 29

Communicating with your printer 30

Chapter 3: Placing and Tracing Artwork 31

Placing Artwork 32

Embedding and linking files 32

Placing text in a shape or path 34

Cropping rasters 35

Using clipping masks 35

Importing Sketches from Adobe Illustrator Draw 37

Tracing Raster Images 38

Chapter 4: Drawing Lines and Shapes 43

Building Graphics with Basic Shapes 44

Generating shapes 45

Clicking to generate shapes 46

Drawing shapes interactively 51

Applying Shape Properties from the Control Panel 52

Reshaping Shapes 54

Building Complex Shapes 58

Creating a compound path 58

Using Pathfinder to combine shapes 59

Drawing Shapes with Perspective 63

Applying Isometric Effects to Shapes 66

Chapter 5: Selecting and Arranging Objects 69

Selecting in Illustrator 69

Selecting with tools 70

Using the Select menu 75

Grouping and Isolating Objects 77

Editing objects as groups 78

Editing objects within groups 79

Aligning and Spacing Objects 82

Locating objects with rulers, guides, and grids 82

Aligning with SmartGuides 85

Using the Align panel 85

Arranging Objects Front-to-Back 87

Chapter 6: Organizing Documents with Layers 89

Using a Template Layer 90

Organizing and Arranging Objects in Layers 92

Organizing Content within and between Layers 96

Locating objects in the Layers panel 96

Arranging objects within and between layers 97

Styling with Layers 97

Targeting layers 98

Changing the appearance of objects in layers 99

Applying Layers in Real-World Challenges 99

Part 2: Drawing and Editing Paths 101

Chapter 7: Wielding the Pen and Anchor Point Tools 103

Editing Anchors 104

Selecting and moving anchors 104

Converting open paths to closed paths and vice versa 106

Editing Curves with the Anchor Point Tool 107

Drawing with the Pen Tool 109

Creating curved, combination, and straight anchors with the Pen tool 109

Adding and deleting anchors 111

Wielding the Pen tool with shortcuts 112

Honing Pen tool skills with a waveform 113

Chapter 8: Creating Artwork with the Pencil, Curvature, and Blob Tools 117

Drawing with the Pencil Tool 118

Setting pencil curve smoothness 118

Managing the many modes of the Pencil tool 120

Setting Pencil tool options 121

Ironing Out Wrinkles with the Smooth Tool 122

Drawing and Editing Curves with the Curvature Tool 122

Drawing curves 123

Editing curves 123

Drawing Filled Paths with the Blob Brush Tool 124

Erasing with the Eraser Tool 127

Creating Shapes with the Shaper and Shape Builder Tools 127

Creating shapes with the Shaper tool 128

Combining shapes with Shape Builder 128

Animating with Puppet Warp 129

Fine-Tuning beyond Drawing Tools 131

Chapter 9: Painting with Brushes 133

Unleashing Your Creativity with Brushes 133

Painting with the Paintbrush 135

Applying Brushes to Paths 136

Working with the Brushes panel 136

Navigating the Brush libraries 137

Creating DIY Brushes 139

Editing existing bristle brushes to create new ones 139

Crafting calligraphic brushes 144

Applying or designing art brushes 146

Defining scatter brushes 149

Creating pattern brushes 151

Using Brushes with a Drawing Tablet 155

Chapter 10: Improving Workflow with Symbols 157

Rationalizing Workflow with Symbols 158

Using Illustrator’s preset symbols 158

Adding symbols to a document 159

Managing symbols 162

Getting Creative with Dynamic Symbols 163

Creating dynamic symbols 163

Orchestrating dynamic symbol instances 164

Spraying Symbols 166

Setting Symbol Sprayer options 167

Managing sets of sprayed symbols 168

Part 3: Applying Color, Patterns, and Effects 169

Chapter 11: Designing in Living Color 171

Understanding Print versus Screen Color 172

Defining color for print 172

Choosing RGB color for screens 175

Understanding web safe color 176

Configuring grayscale 177

Managing the Color of Strokes and Fills 177

Apply color from the Tools panel 177

Apply color from the Control or Properties panel 179

Using Color Guides and Color Themes 180

Getting color advice 180

Styling with Adobe color themes 182

Managing Color Swatches 185

Adding colors to the Swatches panel 186

Changing the display of swatches 187

Creating and Merging Live Paint Groups 188

Creating Live Paint groups 189

Coloring Live Paint faces 190

Editing Live Paint edges 190

Controlling Live Paint faces and edges 192

Chapter 12: Bringing Graphics to Life with Gradients, Blends, and Transparency 197

Merging Colors with Gradients 198

Applying gradients 200

Unleashing linear gradients 201

Radiating radial gradients 207

Transforming gradients with Gradient Annotator 208

Using freeform gradients 209

Blending for Beauty and Productivity 212

Setting blend options 213

Working with blends 213

Applying Transparency 214

Defining and applying transparency 215

Clipping with opacity masks 218

Chapter 13: Designing with Patterns 221

Applying Patterns 222

Applying a pattern to a fill 223

Applying patterns to strokes 224

Applying patterns to text 225

Creating Your Own Patterns 226

Transforming Patterns 227

Scaling a pattern and object together 228

Scaling patterns and objects separately 229

Rotating and moving patterns 230

Moving a pattern within a shape 230

Stacking patterns 231

Defining Pattern Options 233

Chapter 14: Styling with Effects 237

Navigating the Universe of Effects 237

Getting your money’s worth from effects 238

Using Photoshop effects with care 239

Appreciating SVG filters 240

Choosing and Applying Effects 240

Managing Effects 242

Using the Appearance panel 242

Expanding effects 244

Saving graphic styles 246

Generating 3D Effects and Mapping Artwork 247

Mapping artwork 247

Using Adobe Stock images 248

Exploring 3D effects and mapping 248

Part 4: Designing with Type 253

Chapter 15: Formatting Area Type 255

Editing Area Type in Illustrator 256

Generating an area type box 256

Getting type from other apps 258

Using Illustrator’s proofing tools 259

Styling Area Type 260

Choosing type font and style 260

Sizing, leading, kerning, and tracking type 262

Sizing headlines to fit 263

Scaling area type 263

Using character styles 264

Formatting Paragraphs 266

Laying Out Area Type in Columns 267

Shaping Area Type 268

Placing area type in a path 268

Wrapping type around an object 270

Flowing Type from Box to Box 272

Converting Area Type to Point Type and Vice Versa 274

Chapter 16: Getting Artistic with Point Type 275

Understanding How Point Type Works 275

Creating and Editing Point Type 276

Contorting Point Type 278

Scaling point type 278

Rotating point type 279

Interactive Styling with the Touch Type Tool 280

Placing Type on Paths 281

Changing baseline shift on aligned type 282

Moving type on a path 283

Applying effects to type on a path 284

Sharing Fonts and Outlining Type 285

Sharing fonts 285

Outlining type 286

Part 5: Handing Off Graphics for Print and Screen Design 287

Chapter 17: Exporting Raster Files 289

Exporting in a Hurry 290

Maximizing Illustrator’s Export Options 293

Understanding the vector to raster journey 293

Orchestrating vector to raster workflow 294

Defining raster dimensions 295

Defining raster resolution 295

Navigating Illustrator’s Raster Output Options 296

Exporting to Specific Raster Formats 297

Exporting PNGs 297

Optimizing JPEGS 300

Handing off TIFF artwork to print 301

Relying on Your Team 303

Chapter 18: Unleashing the Power of SVGs 305

Understanding the Role of Scalable Vector Graphics 306

Defining an SVG-friendly environment 308

Exporting versus saving 311

Preparing Artwork for SVG Output 312

Simplifying paths for screen output 312

Reducing the file size with symbols 313

Applying Transparency and Effects to SVGs 314

Outputting SVGs with transparent backgrounds 315

Applying transparency effects to SVG 318

Applying SVG filters 321

Creating SVGs with Scalable, Searchable Type 324

Exploiting the value of scalable, searchable type 324

Optimizing type functionality by saving SVGs 326

Adding code snippets to SVG graphics 328

Exporting or Saving SVGs 329

Exporting SVGs for screens 330

Managing raster objects in SVGs 331

Saving SVGs for digital development 332

Part 6: The Part of Tens 335

Chapter 19: Top Ten Illustrator Resources 337

This Book’s Unofficial Website 337

Adobe Illustrator Official Documentation 338

Using Illustrator to Create SVG for the Web 339

A Unique Resource for Artistic Fashion Designers 339

Going Crazy with Illustrator 340

Style Tile Templates 341

Follow Jean-Claude Tremblay @jctremblay 341

Technical Drawing in Illustrator 342

Online Tutorials from Adobe 342

Illustrator CC Digital Classroom 343

Chapter 20: Top Ten Productivity Tips 345

Generate Layers 345

Use Shapes for Guides 346

Generate Guides from Rulers 347

Place Multiple Files 348

Import Photoshop Files 349

Edit Placed Objects 350

Import Word Files 351

Crop a Placed Image 351

Play Actions 352

Use Shortcut Keys 353

Index 355

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The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.