notes... · web viewillustratoroverview.doc rev -02 ... show/hide illustrator rulers. choose...

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

Illustrator overview

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 WorkWe use it to create vector graphics

o Can resize without losing qualityo 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:

Versus


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


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

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)…


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:

Basic Shapes Draw a red ellipse (circle). Choose the ellipse tool

Hold down shift key to draw a perfect circle


Draw a small blue rectangle

Adding Anchor points Click and hold on the Pen tool, choose Add anchor point

Tool


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:

Practice...Magic wand

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

.

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


Scaling and rotating

And

Example: Scaling

Select the entire object

Method # 1


o Double click the scale tool and resize by 200%

This opens

Method # 2:

Use the Transform panel:

Select the entire object (drag over all of it)

Open the Transform panel (Window>Transform)


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

Drag and hold down the mouse:


Typical Initial Setup:

Open the Swatches panel

Open the Transform panel

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

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 Illustrator overview

Panel Menu Example

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

Click upper right corner, just below the “x”

Choose Open Swatch Library


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

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

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),

Click the Color Swatches button to see many more colors

OR

Use the Color panel


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

Objects (shapes) usually have Fill and Stroke properties

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

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

o Choose black, 4 points…


(Specify the point size in Control Panel)

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:Illustrator overview

You might need to uncover it:

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

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

Or Scale Tool:

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:


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

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

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

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:

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


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

Open Layers Panel

Expand Layer 1


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:


, and observe the difference

Drawing using Pencil tool

It draws using the current stroke color, and size

Turn Fill off

Draw a 4-point black line:


Look for anchor points

Click the white arrow (Direct Select) Click the line

Find an anchor and drag

Drawing using Pen tool

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

Make a triangle

or


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

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

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


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 GradientGradual change from color to color

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

Now click the Gradient Fill tool


Not the larger gradient item in the toolbox

Result:

Now click the Gradient tool and manipulate the bar:

Just drag across the circle:


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)

Result:


(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:


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


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

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)

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


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:


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

Or use Control Panel

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

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:


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

Spray away!

Symbol Libraries

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

Here is the flowers library:


Drag one to the document and resize

CroppingMaybe 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

It puts sizing handles around the artboard: try itHere is mine:


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


Object>Blend>Make

Another gradient!

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)


Object>Blend>Blend Options:

Says to Blend in 8 steps

Then, Object>Blend>Make:


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:

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:

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 pointsWant 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

Initially will be locked

To unlock:Illustrator overview

View>Guides

Check the Lock Guides box

Rearranging stacking order

o Open the Layers panel

Expand Layer 1…


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 <Path> Layer to the top:

Method # 2: select the rectangle (black arrow)

Select Object>Arrange>Bring to front:

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


Now, select the Add Anchor Point tool

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

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

o Save

o 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
