Illustrator Certification Jumpstart

• Course content

  Creating basic Documents

  • Explore the prebuilt Document Profiles
  • Shortcuts to navigate the Artboard effectively
  • Create custom Workspaces

  Drawing in Illustrator

  • Draw Paths with the Pen tool
  • Add
  • delete or adjust points along a path
  • Understand how Bézier Curves work
  • Freeform Drawing tools
  • Live Trace to transform images or hand drawn sketches
  • Into vector artworks that can be further adjusted
  • Create Logo using simple Shapes
  • Discovering basic Blends
  • Symbols in Illustrator & Symbol Sprayer options

  Modifying Objects

  • Lasso select and the other goodies in the Select Menu
  • Be precise using Smart Guides
  • Grids & Guidelines
  • Align
  • Group & Duplicate to achieve better results
  • Transform objects with Twirl
  • Bloat & other Warp tools
  • Layers palette: Hide & Lock Objects
  • Intro to Isolation Mode for effective editing

  Working with Colours in Illustrator

  • Difference between Swatches and Colour palette
  • Applying colour to Stroke and/or Fill
  • Adjusting Stroke attributes with Stroke panel
  • Introducing Gradients & Patterns

  Text in Illustrator

  • Point
  • Area and Type on a path
  • Import Body Type & fix Spelling Errors
  • Find and Replace Text or Insert Typographic Characters
  • Create Text Outlines to design your own fancy headlines

  Outputting your Artwork

  • Defining cropping area
  • Saving your artwork in vector formats
  • Save for Web & Devices

  Creating Complex Illustrations

  • Working with Compound Paths
  • Use Expand Appearance to modify individual elements
  • Keep your paths Simple & Cleaned Up
  • Outline Strokes technique & option to add
  • multiple Attributes to an Object
  • Share the appearance attributes with Graphic Styles
  • Create Custom Brushes: Calligraphy
  • Scatter
  • Pattern or Art – to place objects along a path
  • Graphs – use your artworks instead of a simple bars

  Modifying Artworks

  • Discover Envelope Distort
  • Utilize Clipping Masks for advanced design
  • Live Paint as an easy way to colour artwork
  • Learn about Transparency & Opacity Masks
  • Stylize with Drop Shadows and Outer Glows
  • Explore Gradient Mesh & its ability to add realistic
  • 3D Shading and highlights to 2D graphics
  • Learn the difference between Filters & Live Effects
  • Advanced Blending techniques

  Advanced Typographical Features

  • Character Palette – adjust the kerning
  • Baseline shift
  • Horizontal & vertical scaling
  • Paragraph Palette – Justification and Hyphenation options
  • Use the 3D feature to extrude text or other Illustrator objects

  Printing your Artwork

  • Simulate multiple pages in Illustrator using the artboard and document setup
  • Flattening Transparency for raster effects like drop shadows
  • Glows and blurs
  • Creating separations with Spot color vs. Process colour

  Enhancing your workflow

  • Live Colour for perfect Complementary / Analogous colours
  • Creating Smart objects
  • Dragging-and-dropping and exporting layers into Photoshop
  • Editing options for PDFs
  • Explore Links & Actions palettes
  • Release to Layers command for quick web animations
  • Get the best from Illustrator to Flash (SWF)

  Advanced Techniques

  • Working with Artboards
  • Creating templates
  • Drawing and transforming objects
  • Pen tool best practices
  • Brush types and the Blob brush tool
  • The Width tool and options with Strokes
  • Working in Isolation mode
  • Opacity and Clipping masks
  • Live paint
  • Recolour Artwork
  • Gradients
  • Tracing photographs and pixel images
  • Advanced type features
  • Working with Live effects and the Appearance panel
  • Graphic styles
  • Working with Symbols
  • Shape builder tool
  • Drawing in perspective
  • Preparing for Web and Flash
  • Preparing for print

  Adobe Certified Expert Preparation

  • What to expect on exam day and how to book an exam
  • Example questions
  • Practice Exam
  • Results
  • What next?