A practical way to learn Adobe Illustrator?

December 21, 2005 7:38 AM

A practical way to learn Adobe Illustrator?

I'm having a tough time learning Illustrator. For whatever reason, all of the training materials I've tried have seemed like rewrites of the manual, where they walk you through the features like how to apply all of the settings, but you're not doing anything that resembles real life work. Just creating star shapes and then applying different ugly patterns to them. Are there any books or videos you could recommend that have you making cool looking logos as practice?

posted by andrewzipp to computers & internet (14 comments total)

What do you want to use Illustrater for? Seriously, some people use it for building ads, others for illustrating.

If it's the later, then the absolute best thing you can do is some basic still lifes. Seriously, you're learning a whole new medium and going back to some drawing basics should be a big help. Keep it simple at first, do some basic shapes, then some drapery and then human forms. Get in there and get your hads dirty!
posted by anonpeon at 7:48 AM on December 21, 2005

Anonpeon, did you have any specific books that you learned with, or did you just work at it untill you got it?

I'd like to see something that started with a sketch and ended up with something like this: http://tinyurl.com/8hqdt

I've used a couple of different tutorial books for Photoshop that have had reasonably cool projects, but haven't found anything I liked in Illustrator.
posted by andrewzipp at 8:06 AM on December 21, 2005

When I was younger I had a really, really hard time learning applications like this through reference books and text tutorials. I ended up going through all of the training videos I could get my hands on.
posted by prostyle at 8:10 AM on December 21, 2005

When I was younger, I'd ripe through the books that came with the application in a weekend or so. This was when I had an excellent memory (i.e. before experimenting with LSD and speed and not sleeping).

Then I'd do real life projects. SOmetimes, I'd just volunteer to do someting, but I wouldnt' recommend this as you should be getting paid for your work.

So no, I can't recommend anything specific. Ilustrater is a bit of mind bender it seems, lots of graphic artist never really quite get the whole vector illustration thing.

A couple thing to do is to do a sketch, scan it in and use the sketch as basis for the final illustration in the program.

Check to see if the Photoshop books or their authors have a similar book about Illustrater.
posted by anonpeon at 8:17 AM on December 21, 2005

You might like the Illustrator Wow book which uses the work of various Illustrator-using artists to, umm, illustrate the various tools and techniques.

I found it both inspiring and helpful.
posted by Futurehouse at 8:20 AM on December 21, 2005

The lynda.com digital tutorials are really, really excellent. The Illustrator CS2 course costs $150 and is well worth it.

Or, if you're unscrupulous, it isn't hard to find places where they've "fallen off the digital truck" so to speak.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:21 AM on December 21, 2005

Learn the pen tool. Seriously. It's the end all, be all of Illustrator. After that, I suggest the Pathfinder. Learn the keyboard shortcuts for Paste in Front & Paste in Back [Ctrl +F, Ctrl+B on PC]

Find some pdf tutorials - I know they're out there but don't have time to look them up - these allow you to trace over the shapes with exact placement of direction handles, etc.


Also, a Pen Tool Tip:
Click on the white arrow, then click on the pen tool. Hold down control/command and notice how the cursor switches to the white arrow. This lets you put down points and adjust their positions as you need them.
posted by Brainy at 8:23 AM on December 21, 2005

As someone who uses Illustrator daily (lots of technical lineart drawings are used at my place of employ), I second Brainy: you MUST learn the Bezier pen functions. They are really the heart of the program, which (IMO) is unduly encrusted with all manner of useless (the autotrace function is worse than useless) and semi-useless (using the free transform toolset is akin to sculpting butter with a chainsaw--it can be done, but why?) functions.

The best tutor is time--the steep learning curve is really worth it, especially if you need to want to create a seamless Adobe workflow (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator)...
posted by Chrischris at 9:04 AM on December 21, 2005

I'm a graphic designer and learned Illustrator as my first layout program. This is the opposite of most people's experience, for some reason.

I learned through the Adobe classroom in a book, which gets you up and running fast. I do remember getting really frustrated trying to figure out what a locked, placed eps was. There was some lesson involving tracing a 'locked, placed eps'.

It's simply putting a picture on the page, locking it temporarily so you can't select it, then tracing it with the pen tool.

Good luck. Many people I know think it's the most difficult to learn of the big three (Illustrator, Quark, Photoshop). It is extremely versatile and useful, even though I only use a tiny fraction of it's immense capabilities in the kind of work I do. This is the problem with most manuals, tutorials, etc.,... they try to teach you a little of EVERYTHING, even though you'll probably end up using a small amount of the program's capabilities in the long run.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 10:11 AM on December 21, 2005

I'll second Classroom in a Book and Lynda.com, and add one more option: Total Training. They offer DVD videos on the Adobe stuff (and now, thanks to the merger, Macromedia stuff as well), and they are fantastic. The videos tend to be 30-40 hours, and you'll get everything you need. The products for the latest releases are a bit pricey, but you can often get close-outs on the last version for a lot less, and either way, they are awesome and worth every penny. Also, since they are DVDs, you can either play them on your computer or on your regular DVD player, which is nice if you have a TV near your computer so that you can actually view the movie on TV and work in the program on your computer at the same time.
posted by robhuddles at 11:34 AM on December 21, 2005

Second on the Illustrator WOW book, as the best, most inspiring overview of what you can do with it, and “sort-of” how. The “Zen of Illustrator” section is really worth checking out, and it’s on the web. Also, the “Finger Dance” section provided a key insight.

Also second lynda.com; be sure to check out the benefits of subscribing: $25 or so for instant, month-long access to the entire video contents of ANY of their tutorials online; a life-saver if you’ve got hi-speed!

I also use ILCS2 daily for technical drawing AND use it for a lot of layout, too, finding it much faster and more intuitive than InDesign for 1-2 page projects. The key things for me to learn, besides the core pen-tool functions, were layers and styles, with occasional recourse to pattern brushes.

A “light-bulb” moment: Watching an old-hand user draw a simple object by throwing down a few generic lines and THEN arranging them as needed. Even tho I still don’t do this, seeing it finally weaned me of my “this is just a clumsy pencil” thinking about IL. Also, it’s wise to learn how much better the actual pencil tool IS, for certain kinds of imprecise, quick lines.

Finally, a plug for a plug-in that’s become essential to me: Stephen Vincent’s Kimbo. The mirror tool esp. adds what should be basic functionality...

Good luck!
posted by dpcoffin at 1:17 PM on December 21, 2005

Oh, and then there’s Luanne Cohen!
Her Illy books have great cook-book style how-tos, and they’re cheap these days; Design Essentials is esp. good.
posted by dpcoffin at 1:27 PM on December 21, 2005

And finally, I bet this one would be up your alley... It’s got a logo project.
posted by dpcoffin at 1:39 PM on December 21, 2005

The problem with learning to use illustrator is that the interface is crap. it's pretty much the same as it was ten years ago. it really is terrible. it sux. i don't have any useful advice.

adobe swallowed macromedia recently. i hope they don't lay off all the staff, rather, get them to overhaul the GUIs of their product line.

"I'm having a tough time learning Illustrator."
yes, that's normal.
posted by Tixylix at 3:27 PM on December 21, 2005