Course outline

Introducing Adobe Illustrator

• Version history
• Vector vs. raster graphics
• The Illustrator environment
• Navigation and zooming
• Preferences

Draw Basic Shapes

• Rectangle and Ellipse tools
• Polygon and Star tools
• Create precise dimensions
• Select and move shapes
• Align and group shapes
• Duplicate shapes

Working with Colour

• Colour spaces and Gamuts
• The Swatches palette
• Mixing colours
• Using spot colours
• Creating and using gradients
• Apply Fills and Strokes

Manipulating Shapes

• Scaling and Rotation
• Shearing and Mirroring
• The Transform palette
• Transform and copy
• Creating compound shapes
• Editing compound shapes

Drawing Paths

• Straight segments with the Pen tool
• Drawing Bezier curves
• Editing anchor points
• Converting anchor points
• Redrawing paths
• The Pencil tool
• Smoothing paths
• Cutting and joining paths

Typography

• Create free type
• Constrained text
• Spellchecking
• Threading text boxes
• Character formatting
• Paragraph formatting
• Using Opentype fonts
• Text wrap
• Type on a path
• Creating outlines from text
• Type envelopes

Layers

• The Layers palette
• Creating layered images
• Manipulating layers
• Object transparency
• Transparency Flattener presets
• Blend modes

Working with Raster Images

• Supported file types
• Editing raster graphics
• Tracing templates
• Manual tracing
• Autotracing
• Live Trace

Brushes

• The Brush palette
• Apply a calligraphic brush
• Use a Scatter Brush
• Outlining with a Pattern Brush
• Real media with Artistic Brushes
• Exploring brush libraries

Outputting graphics

• Printing from illustrator
• Preparing for DTP
• The Link Checker
• Creating pdfs
• Save for Web