Adobe Illustrator

Course Outline / Curriculum:

Getting to know the Workspace:

• Choosing a workspace
• Opening a file
• The document window
• Using Artboards
• Navigating multiple artboards
• Using the new Artboards panel
• Creating New Artboards
• Switching screen modes
• Changing your view
• Preview versus Outlines
• Zooming and scrolling
• Scrolling with the Hand tool
• Changing views with the Navigator panel
• The Tools panel
• Using tools and panels
• The Control panel
• Moving the Control panel
• Panel groups and the dock
• Custom workspaces
• Saving workspaces
• Using the Manage Workspaces dialog box

Illustrator Essentials:

• Using the shape tools
• Repositioning and visually resizing the rectangle
• Finding or changing the shape’s dimensions using the Transform panel
• Rotating and shearing using the Transform panel
• Constraining a shape
• Entering exact dimensions
• Selecting artwork
• Helpful keyboard shortcuts for selections
• The selection tools
• Using shape and transform tools to create artwork
• Using the transform tools
• Adding a fill color
• Viewing in Outline view
• Using layers when building an illustration
• Creating a new blank layer
• Cutting and pasting objects
• Moving objects from one layer to another

Adding Color:

• Basics of the Appearance panel
• Changing colors
• Adding Effects
• Creating a colorful illustration
• Using Live Paint
• Adding a symbol to your artwork
• Expanding the symbol
• Saving swatches
• What is a Global Color?
• Selecting the Same color
• Saving a set of colors as a group
• Creating a color group from selected colors
• Using the Color panel
• Adding Pantone colors

Working with the Drawing Tools:

• Working with the Pen tool
• Drawing straight lines
• Drawing curved lines
• Drawing hinged curves
• Drawing curved lines to straight lines
• Drawing straight lines to curved lines
• Shape Tools
• Using the Eraser tool
• Editing existing paths
• Adding and removing points
• Cutting and joining paths
• Working with Live Trace
• Expanding Live Traced artwork
• Working with Live Paint
• Combining shapes using the new Shape Builder tool
• Subtracting with the Shape Builder tool

Working with Text:

• Formatting type
• Paragraph formatting
• Formatting imported type
• Paragraph and character styles
• Text on a path
• Warping text
• Text in a shape
• Creating outlines
• Check spelling
• Find and Replace

Working with Symbols:

• Cleaning out the symbol library
• Creating symbols
• Editing symbols
• Importing a symbol library
• Using the symbol sprayer tools
• Editing nested symbols
• Replacing symbols 

Saving and Exporting:

• Saving using the AI file format
• Saving an illustration with layers
• Saving a layered PDF
• Integration with other applications
• Saving as EPS
• Save for Web

Whats New:

• Getting into perspective
• Defining the grid
• Changing the plane
• Using the Perspective Selection tool
• Creating shapes with the
• Shape Builder tool
• To combine shapes
• To delete shapes
• To divide overlapping shapes
• New Brush Controls
• Advanced drawing controls
• Artboard panel
• Touch Type Tool
• Images in Brushes
• Font Search
• Font Sync
• Multiple-file place
• CSS Extraction
• Colour Sync
• Area and Point Type Converion
• File packaging
• On-art free transform