Course Content

Description: This course provides a comprehensive introduction to Adobe Illustrator, focusing on creating professional business graphics. It is highly customized based on individual needs and industry requirements, led by specialists with 30 years of experience.

Who Should Attend: Individuals new to Adobe Illustrator who need to learn how to create and edit vector-based artwork for professional use .

Duration: 2 days.

Module 1: A Quick Tour of Adobe Illustrator

• Creating a new document.
• Drawing and editing shapes.
• Applying and editing colour and editing strokes.
• Working with layers and type.

Module 2: Getting To Know the Work Area

• Exploring the workspace and getting to know the toolbar.
• Working with the Properties panel.
• Moving and docking panels and changing the view of artwork.

Module 3: Techniques for Selecting Artwork

• Selecting objects using the Selection and Direct Selection tools.
• Selecting with a marquee.
• Hiding and locking objects.

Module 4: Working with Shapes to Create Artwork

• Working with basic shapes, rectangles, ellipses, and circles .
• Changing stroke width and alignment.
• Drawing lines.

Module 5: Transforming Artwork

• Working with artboards: editing, aligning, renaming, and reordering.
• Working with rulers and guides.

Module 6: Drawing With the Pen Tool

• Understanding curved paths.

Module 7: Working with Colour

• Exploring colour modes and working with colour.

Module 8: Working with Type

• Adding type at a point and adding area type.
• Changing font family, font style, and applying fonts.

Module 9: Advanced Type Formatting

• Changing font size, colour, and additional character/paragraph formatting.
• Creating columns of text.

Module 10: Organizing Your Artwork with Layers

• Understanding layers and finding content in the Layers panel.
• Reordering layers and content.
• Locking and hiding layers.

Module 11: Gradients, Blends, and Patterns

• Working with gradients and applying them to a fill or stroke.
• Applying gradients to multiple objects and working with blended objects.

Module 12: Working with Illustrator Brushes

• Understanding different types of brushes.

Module 13: Using Illustrator with Other Adobe Applications

• Placing image files, cropping images, and placing multiple images.

Course Content

Description: An intermediate-level course that dives deeper into advanced drawing techniques, shape manipulation, and professional workflow management. The training is industry-specialist led and customized to your specific workspace needs.

Who Should Attend: Users who have completed the Fundamentals course or have equivalent experience and wish to master advanced tools like the Shape Builder, Pen tool, and 3D effects .

Duration: 2 days.

Core Workflow Techniques

• Transforming artwork, creating/editing gradients, and placing images.
• Using Image Trace and aligning artwork.
• Working with the Shape Builder tool and presenting your document.

Workspace and Selection Mastery

• Switching/saving workspaces and using view commands.
• Zooming, panning, and navigating multiple artboards.
• Hiding/locking objects and selecting similar objects.
• Aligning/distributing objects, working with groups, and arranging objects.
• Selecting in Outline mode.

Advanced Shape and Path Creation

• Rounding corners and creating/editing polygons and stars.
• Working with drawing modes.
• Editing paths/shapes and joining paths.
• Cutting with Scissors/Knife tools and using the Eraser tool (straight line erasing) .
• Combining objects using the Pathfinder.

Transformation and Precision

• Editing the ruler origin and transforming content.
• Working with the bounding box and Properties panel positioning.
• Scaling, reflecting, shearing, and rotating objects.

Technical Drawing with Pen and Curvature Tools

• Drawing paths with the Curvature tool.
• Creating dashed lines and adding arrowheads to paths.
• Mastery of the Pen tool: drawing, converting smooth to corner points, and using the Anchor Point tool .
• Editing paths/points and managing anchor points.

Advanced Colour, Type, and Organization

• Custom colours, swatches, Colour Picker, and Live Paint Bucket tool .
• Type: converting area to point type, threading text, and fixing missing fonts .
• Resizing/reshaping type objects, sampling formatting, and creating text styles or outlines.
• Layers: creating sub-layers, moving content, duplicating, and pasting layers.

Creative Effects and Assets

• Gradients (lines mode), specified step blends, and creating/applying patterns .
• Brushes: Calligraphic, Paintbrush tool, Art, Bristle, and Pattern brushes .
• Appearance panel, Photoshop effects, 3D effects, and scaling strokes.
• Symbols and Creative Cloud libraries (assets) .

Integration and Project Sharing

Placing/cropping multiple images from other Adobe apps.

Packaging files and exporting for different needs.

Creating pixel-perfect drawings.