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illustratorOverview.doc rev -02/09/2012

Objectives:

• Show/Hide Illustrator rulers

• Choose between process and spot colors

• Define gamut

• Locate and use a panel menu

• Be able to determine the most appropriate method for creating rectangles and ellipses.

• Creating a perfect square/circle

• Use the Fill and Stroke tools

• Using Stacking Order

• Define and use gradients

• State when to use the Selection tool versus Direct Selection tool

• Define paths and anchor points

• Adding additional anchor points to an object

• Using the Direct select tool to modify a shape.

• Using the transform panel

• Blends

Review:

Color Models…CMYK, versus RGB… gamut

• Illustrator workspaces…use Essentials from now on

• Monospaced vs. Proportional fonts

• Defined and applied kerning, tracking, leading-- in Illustrator

• Creating new Documents

• Opening existing documents

Overview Illustrator

• How does it work

• Color Management

• Fills

• Strokes

• Drawing tools

• Positioning objects

• Using Smart Guides

• Aligning

• Scaling

How does it Work

We use it to create vector graphics

o Can resize without losing quality

o Place dots (anchor points)

o Connect the dots with paths

o Creates shapes

• Our primary reason for using Illustrator (in this course) is to create a logo for our client.

• Caution:

o Many times someone uses Illustrator to draw an ellipse, for example. Then, they go out to the web and find a raster image, a graphic, (a.k.a. bitmap): a photo, for example, or something created in Photoshop. Say you are doing something regarding nature and you find a picture of a tree and you place it on the ellipse---Now, you can’t resize properly because you have a mixed format shape.

• Say you want to use the logo you designed on a web site, so you resize and save for the web. Because it’s now a bitmap object, your saved logo won’t scale very well. Always return to Illustrator to scale vector objects and resave for web

• If you really want to include bitmap objects, convert them to vectors. Then, they retain their sharpness and clarity as you resize them.

Example:

[pic]

Versus

[pic]

Creating Shapes

• We use various tools to create the shapes, and then fill inside the shapes and maybe add a stroke (border) to each shape

[pic]

• Once we have the anchor points, can fill the resulting areas, push, pull the points and paths to change the shapes

• Start Illustrator and choose print document; units to inches, save the document as overview.ai inside InClass/Illustrator

[pic]

• What you see is called the artboard (drawing area)

The document (page) also has a scratch area, name is really a canvas ----store stuff there

Can even have multiple artboards in a given document, each a different size, orientation)…

[pic]

• Change workspace to Essentials, or reset Essentials by clicking it

Don’t see my Artboard

What if I can’t find the artboard?

Maybe you held down the space bar, clicked and held the left button and moved artboard so can’t see it anymore. Solution:

• View>Fit Artboard in Window

Might also try zooming out using Zoom tool (Or use shortcut key ctrl+ and Ctrl-)

Change toolbox to two columns, rather than one…personal preference: click tiny double-arrow top left:

[pic]

Basic Shapes

• Draw a red ellipse (circle). Choose the ellipse tool

• Hold down shift key to draw a perfect circle

[pic]

[pic]

Draw a small blue rectangle

[pic]

Adding Anchor points

• Click and hold on the Pen tool, choose Add anchor point Tool

[pic]

• Go ahead and add a few additional anchor points along a path

• Use the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) and pull and push the anchor points…look for the word anchor:

[pic]

Practice...Magic wand

• Add two yellow ellipses on top of one of your current shapes

[pic].

• Use the magic wand and click on either yellow ellipse—see what happened?

[pic]

Scaling and rotating

[pic]

And

[pic]

Example: Scaling

• Select the entire object

Method # 1

o Double click the scale tool and resize by 200%

[pic]

This opens

[pic]

Method # 2:

• Use the Transform panel:

• Select the entire object (drag over all of it)

• Open the Transform panel (Window>Transform)

[pic]

• Set width and height to 3” see above…look for link symbol:

Method 3:

• Make sure the Bounding Box is visible (Window/ Show/ Hide Bounding Box)

• Click and drag a corner while holding down the shift key (maintains aspect ratio …Width/Height)

Rotate similar…Choose the tool

[pic]

Drag and hold down the mouse:

[pic]

Typical Initial Setup:

Open the Swatches panel

[pic]

• Open the Transform panel

[pic]

• View>Smartguides

• The Swatches panel shows the document’s colors, gradients, and patterns. You can add additional ones from built-in libraries, or “mix your own” colors. Use the colors to fill in shapes

• Smartguides provide location information

• The Transform panel is used to precisely place and size objects, also use to rotate objects

• Use the Rectangle tool and draw a rectangle by dragging on the artboard

• Notice the Fill and Stroke tools and colors

• Your rectangle has a white fill, and a black stroke

[pic]

• Select the rectangle, bring the Fill tool to the top

• Open Swatches and choose a color

Panel Menus and Color Management

The Swatches panel, like most panels, has a panel menu…small arrow in upper right

[pic]

Panel Menu Example

Adding a new swatch library member ( Library: A group of related items)

• Click upper right corner, just below the “x”

[pic]

• Choose Open Swatch Library

[pic]

• Choose a library from the list (They are additional colors)

[pic]

• Click a library to add its content: I chose Nature>Foliage

[pic]

And Corporate

Choose colors that are indicative of the purpose; i.e. use Foliage colors for a wildlife project,

check Kuler, there is probably a them for nature

Process Colors versus Spot Colors

• Swatch colors can be process or spot. Spot adds in additional colors other than CMYK

• In general, stay with process colors-made with CMYK inks…cheapest …

Review: Gamut=number of colors a given color model can reproduce…Red Green Blue gamut on monitor larger than CMYK (paper) and Spot colors have larger gamut than process

Use spot only when:

• Publication needs a color that cannot be accurately reproduced with CMYK inks, such as precise color matching of a corporate or logo color.

• Need more vibrant colors than what CMYK inks produce.

• Project requires special effects such as metallic or fluorescent spot inks.

• Basically, spot colors are more expensive, try to not use them

To add a color to a shape-

• Select the shape to be colored (filled) using the Selection tool (black arrow)

• Pick a color from Swatches panel (which we just did)

or

• Use color picker (double click the Fill tool),

[pic]

• Click the Color Swatches button to see many more colors

OR

• Use the Color panel

[pic]

Fills and Strokes (good name for a band? A magician team…?)

• Objects (shapes) usually have Fill and Stroke properties

[pic]

• Set the Fill color of your rectangle to a medium blue swatch color

[pic]

• Click once on the stroke tool…brings its icon to the top, above the fill icon

o Choose black, 4 points…

[pic]

(Specify the point size in Control Panel)

[pic]

[pic]

Select the rectangle and delete it

Practice using anchor points, Fills, strokes and tracing objects

Open banana.ai (It should be in your Illustrator/Images folder)

Drawing Methods

• Will use the Rectangle tool and draw and fill a rectangle multiple ways. They include

1. Drag

2. Click once and enter width and height values

3. Draw from center out and drag

4. Draw perfect squares, circles

• Find the rectangle tool:

[pic]

You might need to uncover it:

[pic]

Note the small arrow on the tool, indicating more stuff!

Method # 1: Drag on the artboard (Can move the artboard via space bar + left-mouse button…try it)

• Click where you want the rectangle and drag to create it

• Starts at a corner of the rectangle

[pic]

• See if you can drag and hold to set the rectangle to exactly 3 “ wide, 2” tall:

o Not easy!

o Let’s resize the rectangle so it’s the desired size.

Resizing Shapes

• Select the rectangle

• Use Transform panel or the Scale tool

o Enter W:3 and H:2

[pic]

Or Scale Tool:

[pic]

• double-click the tool and enlarge to 150%

Changing the Fill color

• Select the rectangle

• Click the fill tool once and choose a Green swatch:

[pic]

Bring the stroke to the top and add a yellow 4 pt Stroke

[pic]

• Deselect (Select>Deselect or click away using black arrow (Selection tool)

Method # 2: Click once on the artboard and enter the width and height

[pic]

• You can choose the colors before you create the square, or afterwards.

• Practice: Make a 3”by 3” red rectangle with a blue 3 point stroke:

[pic]

Control Panel shows our decisions (Can make changes there also)

[pic]

Method # 3: Drag a perfect square (circles too)

• Shift-Drag to create a perfect square (same for ellipses)

• Draw a small perfect square

o 2” x 2”.CMYK Blue fill, CMYK Red stroke (5 pt)

• Reverse the colors : Fill and Stroke (look for arrow)

• Reverse again

Method # 4: Draw from center-out

• Alt-drag to draw a rectangle by drawing from the center out, rather than drawing from a corner. We will see a use for this later

Stacking Order

The objects on the page have varying locations relative to each other called stacking order

• Open Layers Panel

• Expand Layer 1

[pic]

• Note the stacking order (Yellow circle on top, red circle on the bottom)

• Drag one rectangle on top of another

• Note which is on top?

• Change the stacking order by dragging red ellipse to the top:

[pic]

• , and observe the difference

Drawing using Pencil tool

[pic]

• It draws using the current stroke color, and size

• Turn Fill off

[pic]

Draw a 4-point black line:

[pic]

• Look for anchor points

Click the white arrow (Direct Select)

• Click the line

• Find an anchor and drag

[pic]

Drawing using Pen tool

[pic]

• Click once, move cursor, click again to draw a straight line

[pic]

• Make a triangle

or

• Click once, Click again at another location but drag cursor to create a curve with handles

[pic]

Practice: Use the pen tool to create a shape like this:

[pic]

Viewing Smart Guides

if Smart Guides turned on , and you pause over a corner of a selected object, you will see the word anchor.

If you hover near the center of an object, look for center to appear

Same for paths

Try it

[pic]

Revisit Fill and Stroke

Fill

Can fill with a color or a gradient or a pattern

• Select the object

Fill with color

• Click Fill Color tool

• Choose a color

• Practice: Make red rectangle have a yellow fill

Fill with a Gradient

Gradual change from color to color

• Use the black arrow (Selection tool) to select any yellow circle

• Now click the Gradient Fill tool

[pic]

Not the larger gradient item in the toolbox

Result:

[pic]

• Now click the Gradient tool and manipulate the bar:

Just drag across the circle:

[pic]

• Try another gradient in the Swatches panel:

• Try the orange, green gradient

• Choose Fade to Black gradient again

Roll your own

• Double-click the Gradient tool (Not the gradient fill)

[pic]

Result:

[pic]

(Note: You can click and drag in any direction to apply the gradient)

• Move the middle diamond left and right to see the effect on the gradient fill

• You can drag the cursor to apply the gradient form any angle (Drag from right to left so darkest is on the right)

• The icons on the bottom of the horizontal bar are called stops There are two at the present time

• Can drag a color from the swatch panel to any stop, can add, delete stops

• Drag a red swatch to the leftmost stop:

[pic]

[pic]

• Add a new stop in the middle of the line (choose a new color)

• Pull down to delete a stop

• To change opacity: Double-click the stop

o Move opacity slider to desired value

[pic]

• The default gradient is a fade to black with opacity dropping to zero

OK, so those are the most often used fill options (There is a fill with Pattern, which we skipped

Strokes

• Color

• Size

• Variable widths

Select the Stroke tool again

[pic]

Specifying color and size

• Select a circle (Selection tool…black arrow)

o Switch its stroke to yellow, 5 point (Note: Can do this via Control Panel)

[pic]

o Or, can double-click the stroke icon to pop up the color picker , choose a dark blue for the stroke

[pic]

Using the Transform Panel…Precise Placement

• Can verify size (and location) of an object via Transform panel, which we opened at the beginning of this module.

• Select the rectangle and look at Transform panel values: Note the 9 references...center one is selected below…can also use the control panel reference object

Draw a rectangle and fill it with blue with black stroke

Open the Transform panel:

[pic]

• Select the rectangle and use the Transform panel to position its center at X=4, Y=4. Click the middle proxy :

[pic]

• Or use Control Panel

[pic]

Selecting Objects

• Use the Black Arrow (Selection Tool)

Selecting part of an object-

• Deselect everything first

• Use white arrow…called Direct Select tool

• Click a corner of any rectangle using Direct Select

• Pull the corner anchor point to deform the rectangle

[pic]

Note:

Look at corner anchor points…only the one you selected should be filled in…if not, click away (deselects), then click a corner anchor again click each anchor point and turn the fill color be hollow:

[pic]

Save your document (practice.ai)

Symbol Spray Tool

• Choose Window>Symbols

• Click on a symbol ( I chose grime)

• Find Symbol Sprayer tool on left side

[pic]

Spray away!

[pic]

Symbol Libraries

There are many collections of symbols. To see then, Choose Window>Symbol Libraries and choose a category

Here is the flowers library:

[pic]

• Drag one to the document and resize

Cropping

Maybe want a piece of your artboard for a web site you’re doing. Of course, the object then becomes a bitmap

The cropping tool is actually called the artboard tool

[pic]

It puts sizing handles around the artboard: try it

Here is mine:

[pic]

Crop and then save for Web

The Blend tool

• Use pencil tool and draw two lines with zero fill, 4 point stroke, two different colors

• Select both lines

[pic]

• Object>Blend>Make

• Another gradient!

[pic]

As long as we’re on blend, let’s blend a rectangle to a star (a morph)

• Draw an orange rectangle and a star

o Star tool is under Rectangle tool, just select and say OK, color it green

o Draw an orange square

• Select both: (Drag over both, or select one, then shift-click on the second object)

[pic]

• Object>Blend>Blend Options:

[pic]

Says to Blend in 8 steps

• Then, Object>Blend>Make:

[pic]

Back to basics…

Anchors and Paths

• Save

• Start a new document named AnchorsAndPaths.ai

• Recall there are two selection tools: Selection (black arrow) and Direct Select (White arrow). The Selection tool selects entire object. Direct Select: a part of an object

• Goal: Create this:

[pic]

• Set Fill to none, stroke to 1 point black

• Create a new rectangle 5” wide by 2”, (no fill), black stroke, 1 point

• Show rulers

• Click away

• Use the Selection arrow and select, then move, the rectangle:

[pic]

• The small circles are the anchor points

• Can resize/reshape the object using the anchor points

• Click on a path (Turn SmartGuides on to see the word “path”, indicating you did, in fact, select a path)

• a path connects two adjacent anchor points

Moving an Object

• Select the rectangle using Selection tool

• Move it

• Shift-Drag constrains to 45 degree angles.

• Alt-Drag makes a copy of the object being moved

Summary: We use the direct selection tool to select part of an object; the Selection tool to select the entire object

Add More Anchor points

Want to add two additional anchor points along the top path of the rectangle

Ctrl-Z to return the rectangle to its original 5” x 2” shape

o Show rulers (if not already showing)

o Drag out two vertical guides from the rulers

o To precisely position where we want the new anchor points

[pic]

Initially will be locked

To unlock:

View>Guides

Check the Lock Guides box

[pic]

Rearranging stacking order

o Open the Layers panel

[pic]

• Expand Layer 1…

[pic]

o The guides are on top, but we want the paths to be on top so we can add anchor points along a path…

Bring the rectangle to the top

• Method # 1: drag the Layer to the top: [pic]

• Method # 2: select the rectangle (black arrow)

• Select Object>Arrange>Bring to front:

[pic]

• Select the rectangle using the Direct select (White arrow) tool

Now, select the Add Anchor Point tool

[pic]

• Click where your guides meet the path: look for “intersect” via smart guides

[pic]

• Deselect all

• Select both by dragging over both with Direct Select tool (or select one, then Shift-click the second

• Make sure both anchors are filled-in (i.e. Direct selected)

• Anchor points are solid when selected, open when not selected.

• Pull down the path between the two new points

Hiding the guides

▪ View>Guides>Hide Guides

[pic]

[pic]

1 Save

2 Close the document and Illustrator

Summary:

• Illustrator plays "connect the dots" to create paths

• No pixels are involved.

• There are several drawing tools: rectangles, ellipses, stars, pencil, pen

• Objects are defined using anchor points

• We can add anchor points to existing objects

• Paths connect the points

• Objects have fills and strokes

• Objects can be resized

• Objects can be blended into each other

• Color Management is comprehensive

• We can use Selection and Direct Select tools

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