Course summary

This two-day Adobe Illustrator introductory training course will provide you with essential drawing skills and the knowledge needed to progress towards the Adobe Illustrator Course: Level 2. You'll be guided from the basics right through to designing logos, branding and graphics for advertising purposes.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• use the Adobe Illustrator application
• create custom paths
• enter text in an Illustrator document
• enhance documents
• proof documents to make them more accurate
• save images for web and print.

Content

Starting with Illustrator CC 1

• Understanding vector graphics
• Starting Illustrator in windows 8
• The welcome experience
• Opening an existing document
• The Illustrator workspace
• The status bar
• Understanding artboards
• Closing a document and exiting Illustrator

Navigating Illustrator

• Understanding panels
• Displaying and hiding panels
• Floating and docking panels
• The tools panel
• Working with the tools panel
• Understanding workspaces
• Working with workspaces
• Working with the control panel
• Navigating with the hand tool
• Navigating with the navigation panel
• Changing document views
• Using the zoom tool
• Creating and using custom views

Working with objects

• Understanding paths and selection tools
• Selecting with the selection tool
• Working with isolation mode
• Selecting multiple objects
• Making marquee selections
• Using the direct selection tool
• Selecting with the magic wand tool
• Understanding smart guides
• Moving objects
• Copying objects
• Grouping and ungrouping objects
• Locking and unlocking objects
• The alignment and distribution tools
• Aligning objects
• Distributing objects and spacing
• Inserting images
• Deleting objects

Setting up a new document

• Understanding templates
• Understanding document presets
• Adjusting units of measure
• Creating a print document
• Saving a new document

Working with a document

• Understanding artboard options
• Moving and resizing artboards
• Creating and deleting artboards
• Understanding grids, guides and rulers
• Displaying and hiding rulers
• Making guides
• Locking, unlocking and clearing guides
• Viewing and hiding the grid

Layers

• Understanding layers and sublayers
• Understanding the layers panel
• working with the layers panel
• Creating layers and sublayers
• Naming layers and assigning colours
• Grouping layers
• Reassigning objects to different layers
• Rearranging layers and sublayers
• Hiding and displaying layers
• Locking and unlocking layers
• Deleting layers

Shapes

• Understanding the shape and colour tools
• Preparing the workspace
• Creating basic shapes
• Creating polygons
• Creating other shapes
• creating lines and spirals
• Editing path segments
• Using offset path
• Understanding drawing modes

Colour, fill and stroke

• Understanding fill and stroke
• Understanding colour
• Understanding colour controls
• Applying colour using the colour panel
• Applying colour using the swatches panel
• Applying colour using the eyedropper tool
• Swapping fill and stroke colours
• Working with stroke weight
• Working with stroke width
• Applying dashes to strokes

Gradients

• Understanding gradients
• Applying a linear gradient
• Changing the direction of a gradient
• Changing colours in a gradient
• Colours in a gradient
• Adding colours to a gradient
• Applying a radial gradient
• Saving a gradient
• Applying a gradient to a stroke

Working with type

• Understanding type in illustrator
• Understanding formatting options
• Inserting and formatting point type
• Inserting and formatting area type
• Cutting and pasting text
• Formatting text
• Formatting paragraphs
• Copying formatting with the eyedropper tool
• Creating columns of text

Text and objects

• Typing on a path
• Converting text into editable path
• Working with character objects
• The touch type tool
• Styles

Introduction to drawing

• Understanding drawing in illustrator
• Drawing a straight path with the pen tool
• Drawing closed paths with the pen tool
• Draw curved paths with the pen tool
• Drawing objects with curved paths
• Adjusting curves created by the pen tool
• Drawing paths with the curvature tool
• Drawing paths with the pencil tool
• Add fill to closed paths

Saving and printing

• Understanding save and export options
• Understanding file formats
• Exporting an illustrator document
• Saving for a microsoft office program
• Saving as a pdf file
• Saving an illustrator document for the web
• Printing an illustrator document
• Packaging a document

Getting help

• Understanding the help menu
• Using help
• Searching for online help

Who this course is for

Suitable for anyone wanting to learn the basics of the Adobe Illustrator software.

Prerequisites

This introductory course assumes little or no knowledge of the software.

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught training using your own device
• Online training via the platform Zoom

Materials

Course materials are provided electronically using Dropbox.

What you need to do before the course

To participate in this course, you will need Adobe Illustrator installed on your device and an Adobe Creative Cloud account. If you do not already have an account, you can purchase one through the Adobe Creative Cloud website. Please bring your account login details with you to class.

• Recommended operating system: Windows or Mac
• Required software: Latest version of Adobe Illustrator
• AI features: Download the BETA version of Adobe Illustrator via your Creative Cloud app to access AI tools.

Face-to-face classes

Please bring your own laptop with all required software pre-installed.

Online classes

For the best experience, we recommend using a computer with a large monitor or dual screens/devices. Small laptop screens can make it difficult to follow the facilitator’s display while working in the software.

Course Brochure