Illustrator CC 2015 One-on-One: Fundamentals

Learn how to create amazing works of art and designs with Adobe Illustrator. This first course of a series teaches the fundamentals: working with artboards, drawing, and painting.

Want to master the most powerful vector-based drawing program on the planet? It starts with getting the most comprehensive training available. With all-new movies and all-new exercise files, Illustrator CC 2015 One-on-One: Fundamentals is the first in a series of three courses by industry pro Deke McClelland. With these tutorials, you'll be able to create amazing works of art and design. You'll get exactly what you need to know, in the order you need to know it, whenever it's most convenient for you to learn.

Start watching to learn how to create multipage documents with artboards; how to draw anything you can imagine with the Pen, Pencil, and Curvature tools; and how to start adding color to your artwork with swatches. Deke also covers drawing shapes, adjusting strokes, formatting text, and painting digitally, with or without a tablet. Each chapter should leave you with a new set of skills—and a sense of accomplishment.

And as Creative Cloud evolves, so will we. Check back every time Illustrator updates for new movies, new feature reviews, and new ways to work.

Introduction

• Welcome to One-on-One

1. Working with Documents

• A first look at using Illustrator
• Opening from the Windows desktop
• Opening from the Macintosh Finder
• Creating a new document
• Points, picas, and other units
• The advanced document settings
• Modifying your new document
• Saving your changes
• Closing open documents on the PC
• Closing open documents on the Mac
• The Start screen and Recent Files panel

2. Working with Artboards

• Pages of any size, at any angle
• Using the Artboard tool
• Undo, Redo, and Revert
• Deleting and scaling artboards
• Creating and duplicating artboards
• Artboard tips and tricks
• Introducing the Artboard panel
• Autoarranging artboards
• Artboards and rulers

3. Getting Around

• Navigating your artwork
• Zooming in and out
• Using the more precise Zoom tool
• Animated zooming and GPU performance
• Scrolling (or panning) a document
• Specifying a custom zoom level
• Working with multiple open documents
• Panels and workspaces (important!)
• Cycling between screen modes

4. Drawing Lines

• Now, we draw
• Creating center guides
• Using the Line Segment tool
• Drawing straight lines
• Duplicating and extending
• Using the Move command
• Introducing the Scissors tool
• Joining your line segments
• Using the Arc tool
• Using the Rectangular Grid tool
• Using the Polar Grid tool
• Using the Spiral tool
• Adding a circular end to a spiral
• Adjusting the curvature of an arc
• Centering all artwork on an artboard

5. Drawing Shapes

• And now, we draw better
• Creating a time-saving template
• Using the Ellipse tool
• Live ellipses and pies
• Drawing two perfect circles
• Creating compound paths
• Using the Rectangle tool
• The dynamic round corner controls
• Adding some simple reflections
• Rotating your artwork into position
• Using the Polygon and Star tools
• Working with live polygons
• Creating the perfect 5-pointed star
• Repeating stars in alternating rows
• Introducing the Group Isolation mode
• Adding a drop shadow to a layer
• Using the crazy Flare tool
• The top-secret tilde key trick

6. Color and Swatches

• How color works
• The color modes: RGB vs. CMYK
• Hue, Saturation, and Brightness
• Selecting a color from the spectrum ramp
• Creating and applying swatches
• Working with global swatches
• Searching swatches by name
• Auto-deleting and adding swatches
• Using the Eyedropper tool
• Loading swatches from another document

7. Strokes, Dashes, and Arrows

• The rich world of strokes
• Adjusting the line weight
• How strokes align to path outlines
• Caps, joins, and miter limit
• Making practical use of caps and joins
• Dashes and arrowheads
• Variable-width strokes
• Numerically adjusting Width Points
• Custom aligning strokes to paths
• Creating a custom Width Profile
• Creating a classic round-dotted outline
• Drawing a quick-and-dirty gear
• Combining multiple strokes
• Offsetting strokes to simulate depth

8. Creating and Formatting Text

• Text at its best
• Setting up page margins
• Placing and flowing text
• Creating multicolumn text frames
• The Smart Punctuation command
• Working with point type
• Formatting display text
• Fitting headline and optical kerning
• Formatting body copy
• Creating a drop cap
• Wrapping text around a graphic
• Resolving widows and orphans
• Finding a character with the Glyphs panel
• Creating a paragraph style
• Redefining a paragraph style
• Creating type on a path

9. Building Custom Paths

• Join and the Shape Builder
• Using the Join command
• Using the Join tool
• Using the Shape Builder tool
• More ways to use the Shape Builder
• Creating a real-world project
• Creating an inset reflection
• Coloring a path with the Shape Builder
• Sculpting with variable-width strokes
• Converting text to path outlines
• Gap detection and path splitting
• Drawing with the new Shaper tool
• Combining paths with the Shaper tool
• Editing paths inside a Shaper Group

10. Using the Pencil Tool

• The world's best freeform drawing tool
• Drawing freeform path outlines
• The Smooth tool and Path Eraser
• Extending and connecting paths
• Drawing straight and perpendicular lines
• Creating a tracing template
• Combining the Pencil with a drawing tablet
• Coloring your Pencil tool art

11. Painting and Erasing

• The best tools for painting
• Painting with the Blob Brush
• Fusing path outlines together
• Introducing the Eraser tool
• Reassigning keyboard shortcuts
• Merging selected paths
• Releasing compound paths
• Erasing and smoothing lumps
• Painting with a few simple clicks
• Reducing the roundness value
• Painting with a drawing tablet

12. Using the Curvature Tool

• Drawing one point at a time
• Drawing with the Curvature tool
• Working with smooth and corner points
• Curvature tool curiosities
• Creating quick smooth shapes
• Tracing a custom path outline
• Drawing slender, organic forms
• Adding line art embellishments
• Creating a paint-splattered background

13. Using the Pen Tool

• The tool that can draw anything
• Creating corner points
• How smooth points work
• Drawing smooth points
• Creating cusp points
• Using the Anchor Point tool
• Real-world drawing with the Pen tool
• Drawing perspective edges
• Drawing a few distress marks
• Drawing a long perspective shadow
• Getting smooth results from smooth points
• Giving a letter a 3D beveled edge
• Combining curved and straight segments
• A preview of round corners

14. Drawing with Round Corners

• Making corners smooth
• The round corner widget
• Rounding off corner points
• Changing the corner type
• Rounding characters of type
• Absolute vs. relative rounding
• Drawing with rounded rectangles
• Drawing an iPhone
• Decorating an iPhone screen
• Drawing a leather smartphone case
• Colorizing a line art template
• Turning corners into organic curves
• Reshaping rounded paths

15. Making Screen Graphics

• Saving for devices and the web
• Aligning objects to the pixel grid
• Turning on pixel grid alignment
• Pixel grid "gotchas"
• Introducing the Save for Web command
• Scaling your art to suit its destination
• For devices and presentations, use PNG
• Saving an 8-bit graphic
• Saving a JPEG image
• Saving vector-based SVG files
• Assigning a copyright
• Using the Export for Screens command
• Using the Asset Export panel

Conclusion

• Until next time