Illustrator 2020 Essential Training

Learn the essentials of Adobe Illustrator. Find out how to use the 2020 version of Illustrator to create amazing artwork—from minimalistic logos to full-blown illustrations.

Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard in vector drawing—for everything from minimalistic logos to full-blown illustrations. This course teaches core concepts and techniques that can be applied to any workflow, including digital and print publications. Instructor and professional illustrator Tony Harmer explains the essentials of Illustrator 2020, including artboards, workspaces, layers, and shapes. Tony shows how to make selections, draw and build complex shapes using the Illustrator drawing tools, and precisely color artwork with tools like swatches and gradient fills. He also covers how to organize artwork into groups and layers, combine and clean up paths, work with type and effects, leverage CC Libraries, export your work, and much more.

Introduction

• Welcome to the essentials of Illustrator 2020
• How to send feedback
• Installing Illustrator

1. Quick Start Exercise

• Walkthrough setup
• Walkthrough

2. The Illustrator Environment

• Touring the interface
• Scaling the interface
• The Toolbox
• Panels
• The Properties panel
• Panning and zooming
• Using the Navigator

3. Selection

• The Selection tool
• The Direct Selection tool

4. Shape and Line Drawing Tools

• Drawing basic shapes
• Drawing polygons and stars
• Drawing with the Line tools
• Drawing with the Grid tools

5. Color

• Color models in Illustrator
• The Swatches panel
• Global swatches
• Spot colors
• Using tints
• Color groups
• The Color Guide panel

6. Strokes

• Stroke attributes
• Creating dashed lines
• Creating dotted lines
• Creating arrowheads
• Variable width strokes

7. More on Selections

• The Lasso tool
• The Magic Wand
• Saving selections

8. Alignment, Distribution, and Stacking

• Aligning objects
• Aligning points
• Distributing objects
• Using key objects
• Changing the stacking order
• Using the draw modes

9. Groups

• Working with groups
• The Group Selection tool
• Using Isolation Mode

10. Layers

• Using layers
• Targeting objects using layers

11. Transforms

• Using the specific Transform tools
• Using the Free Transform tool
• Using Transform Again
• The Transform Each command
• Transforms as an effect

12. Drawing by Construction

• Compound Paths and Shapes
• The Pathfinder panel
• The Shape Builder
• Clipping masks

13. Drawing Tools

• The Pen tool
• The Curvature Pen tool
• The Shaper tool
• The Pencil tool
• Drawing with the Eraser tool
• Improving paths

14. Using Guides and Grids

• Creating and removing guides
• Making guides from objects

15. Gradients

• Linear gradients
• Radial gradients
• Freeform gradients
• Gradients on strokes

16. Patterns

• Creating a pattern
• Pattern strokes
• Transforming patterns

17. Symbols

• Static symbols
• Dynamic symbols

18. Blends, Blending, and Transparency

• Using blends
• Replacing a blend spine
• Using blending modes
• Using opacity masks

19. Appearances

• The power of appearances
• The Appearance panel
• Illustrator effects
• Photoshop effects
• Editing or removing effects
• Graphic styles
• The Brush tool
• The Eyedropper tool

20. Type

• Using point type
• Using area type
• Character options
• Paragraph options
• The Touch Type tool
• Using Type on a Path
• Outlining type

21. Images in Illustrator

• Placing images
• Embedding images
• Cropping images

22. Pixels to Vectors

• Using Image Trace
• Using Photoshop with Image Trace

23. Modifying Artwork

• Recolor artwork
• The Puppet Warp tool

24. Artboards

• Working with artboards
• Arranging artboards

25. Output

• Packaging Illustrator files
• Export as other file types
• Asset Export
• Legacy Save for Web
• PDF files and Illustrator

26. Efficiency in Illustrator

• Creating your own workspaces
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Custom views
• Custom toolboxes

27. Beyond Illustrator

• Using Creative Cloud libraries
• Exporting an ASE
• Mobile tools and Illustrator

Conclusion

• Next steps