Inside Adobe Illustrator

The renovated Adobe Design Center has just launched.

Here you can find the best content to inspire and educate designers creating for all types of media.

Come check it out.

If you are an Illustrator customer, Brenda Sutherland, Adobe Illustrator Product Manager, is one person who has had a tremendous impact on your product during her tenure at Adobe. Check out this interview with Brenda by the Astute Graphics team when she visited their booth at the London International Technology show last fall, which includes questions from key figures in the design industry. Enjoy!

Read the full interview.

Introduction

Hello fellow vector fanatics, my name is Sharon Milne and I sometimes go under the moniker ChewedKandi. I’ve been interested in digital art for over a decade now but it wasn’t until five years ago that I got into vector art. Since then it’s been an addictive and scalable journey with Adobe® Illustrator®.

It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to share with you my process of putting together this Zodiac/Leo the Lion themed vector portrait which I created using Adobe Illustrator CS5.

This tutorial is full of helpful hints on using a variety of tools in Illustrator CS5 as well as some of the thought processes behind elements of the portrait. If you’ve any questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll be sure to help any way I can. So let’s get on with it, shall we?

Continue reading…

It’s Adobe MAX time again, and if you’re heading down to LA for the fun in October, be sure to check out these Illustrator-focused sessions and hands-on labs.

LABS

Adobe Illustrator: Creating Compelling User Interface Designs

Learn how to create compelling UI designs using Adobe Illustrator CS5 in this hands-on lab. See how UI design principles, along with tips and techniques, can be used to deliver a purposeful, engaging interface. Discover how the latest features in Illustrator CS5 can be used to create visually compelling websites and interfaces for your customers. Chevon Hicks, president/creative director at Heavenspot, a digital creative agency in Los Angeles, will share insights from designing for clients such as Disney, Warner Bros., and Motorola, and will share his knowledge as a UI design instructor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Monday, October 3, 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, October 4, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Adobe Illustrator: Rethinking the Essentials

Master core features and build art more efficiently with Adobe Illustrator CS5. Designed for experienced Illustrator users, this course takes a fresh approach to core concepts, such as paths, attributes, object hierarchy, groups, and layers. Mordy Golding shares advanced techniques such as combining multiple effects and customizing textures.

Tuesday, October 4, 8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. (Note: this lab instance is full and closed for registration)
Tuesday, October 4, 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 5, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Note: this lab instance is nearly full as of 8/12/11)

SESSIONS

Adobe Illustrator: Secrets to Working Faster, Smarter, and More Creatively

Learn expert tips and techniques to get the most out of Adobe Illustrator. Reduce the time you spend on mundane tasks and gain more time to focus on the activities that matter: the creative ones. Brenda Sutherland, Illustrator product manager, will show you how to work faster, smarter, and much more smoothly. Once you’ve tricked out Illustrator and made it the custom vehicle you’ve always wanted, you’ll experience life in the fast lane by shaving valuable time off tasks you perform every day.

Tuesday, October 4, 8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

From Pixar to Ramayana: The Art of Graphic Storytelling with Sanjay Patel

See how illustrator and animator Sanjay Patel uses images to craft compelling stories. From over 14 years of work at Pixar to his visually rich illustrations of the Hindu mythology of Ramayana, Patel will share his artistic methods, including how he goes from paper, pen, and pencil to highly detailed work in Adobe Illustrator.

Tuesday October 4, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (note: new session time just added!)
Wednesday, October 5, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

The Art of Sesame Street

Learn how the artists at Sesame Workshop create the digital assets for their world-famous Sesame Street Muppets using Adobe Illustrator as their primary tool. In this inspiring session, you’ll get an inside view into how these amazing character artists bring the magic that is Sesame Street to life through illustration. You’ll also gain an understanding of how Sesame Workshop’s outreach to children around the world helps them learn and grow.

Tuesday, October 4, 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Web and Interactive Design with Illustrator

Join Mordy Golding as he demonstrates an eye-opening approach to using this powerful, vector-based software to create wireframes and pixel-perfect graphics for web and mobile projects. Learn how to integrate with other web applications and to generate HTML5 and CSS3 content right from Adobe Illustrator. Think Illustrator isn’t used for web and interactive design? Think again!

Monday, October 3, 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Sometimes when we look at artwork, paths appear to be continuous, but when we modify the path thickness, we can see sharp edges where the path ends are near one another. It’s then that we realize that the path is not continuous, but is composed of multiple segments, or open paths.  In these situations, it can make perfect sense to connect, or join the open ends.

Adobe Illustrator CS5 delivers new capabilities for joining paths that simplifies the process and adds new options for the joins.

This post explores all the available ways to join paths in Illustrator CS5.

1) Pen Tool: If you want full control over how anchor points of the same path or different paths are to be joined, this is the way to go. But if the anchor points you’re trying to join are “overlapping,” don’t use the Pen tool, instead, choose another method outlined below. Joining paths with the Pen tool did not change in Illustrator CS5.

First, select the Pen tool, then click on the first endpoint to be joined. Now click on the other endpoint to be joined. When you precisely position the Pen tool over the other endpoint, a small merge symbol appears next to the pointer. If you click and drag after these clicks, you’ll get the control handles that help you adjust the path’s curve. If these endpoints are on separate paths, the final path will have the appearance of the last path clicked with the Pen tool.

2) Object>Path>Join (Cmd+J on Mac, or Ctrl+J on Win): Illustrator CS5 adds new functionality to this method, and makes joining two distantly-placed anchor points really easy. In fact, I now use this method for joining paths more often than the Pen tool.

The rule for using this join command is simple:

Select the objects to be joined (yes, objects, not the anchor points), then choose Object>Path>Join (Cmd /Ctrl + J). The nearest anchor points will be connected.

And if you want to join “preferred” anchor points? Simple. Just select the desired anchor points and press Cmd or Ctrl + J.

3) Join overlapping anchor points (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Opt+J): There is no change in this functionality for Illustrator CS5 except for the new keyboard shortcut. Using this shortcut will open a dialog to choose either a Corner or Smooth option. A Smooth join is possible only when the end-points are smooth (i.e. both have handles).

And finally, what does it take to close an open path? Well, try it for yourself.