Illustrator Graphics in Illustrator Martin Constable February 17, 2018 RMIT Vietnam
Introduction Introduction Illustrator s Interface The Tools and Control panel The Pen Tool Stroke/Fill The Selection tools Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Other Tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics 1
Illustrator is a vector editor. Unlike Photoshop, which tries to serve (too) many communities, Illustrator serves (mostly) only two: graphic designers and typographers. Typography is addressed in the Typography lecture. 2
Illustrator s Interface Introduction Illustrator s Interface Important tools/panels The Tools and Control panel The Pen Tool Stroke/Fill The Selection tools Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Other Tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics 3
The following tools/panels will be reviewed in this lecture. Most others are of lesser importance: 4
Important tools/panels Most of the following tools/panels will be reviewed. The typography tools are addressed in the Typography lecture. Most others are of lesser importance: A Tools panel B Control panel C Selection tools D Pen tools E Erase/Scissors/Knife tools F Pathfinder panel G Align panel H Appearence panel I Layers panel J Character panel K Paragraph panel L Paragraph Styles panel M Character Styles panel N Type tool 5
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The Tools and Control panel Introduction Illustrator s Interface The Tools and Control panel The Tools panel The Control panel The Pen Tool Stroke/Fill The Selection tools Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Other Tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics 7
If you know PS s Tools and Control panel, then the basic function of these won t be a mystery. 8
The Tools panel The Tools panel is visually similar to PS s. The most important tools are at the top. The widget at the bottom is one of the many places that the stroke and fill of an object can be defined (more of which later). The Tools panel 9
The Control panel The content of the Control panel is contextually defined according to what tool is selected (just like PS s Control panel). Many of Illustrator s templates automatically come with Snap to Pixelgrid enabled. Depending on what you want, this might be annoying. Turn off in the far right edge of the Control panel. The Control panel 10
The Pen Tool Introduction Illustrator s Interface The Tools and Control panel The Pen Tool Pen tool and its variants Closed shape with the Pen Tool Open shape with the Pen Tool Sharp corners on a path Round corners on a path Broken cusp on a Bezier Sharp corners on a path Stroke/Fill The Selection tools Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Other Tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics 11
The Pen tool is Illustrator s most important tool. Despite its friendly name, it is actually rather tricky to use. 12
1 A good tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsppezj7dyy 13 Pen tool and its variants The Pen tool and its variants are available via a little fly-off pallet, from the Tools panel 1. Paths are drawn with the Pen tool (A). A path is defined by points which are added and removed with (B) and (C). The Convert Anchor Point tool is described shortly. The Pen tool and its variants
Closed shape with the Pen Tool Here a closed shape has been drawn with the Pen tool, point by point. To close the shape, the last point is drawn to meet the first. A closed shape made with the Pen tool 14
Open shape with the Pen Tool Here an open shape (i.e. a line) has been drawn. To leave the shape open, press the Esc key when the line is finished. An open shape made with the Pen tool 15
Sharp corners on a path Points are by default drawn as sharp corners... The default sharp point 16
Round corners on a path...just click and drag on the point with the Convert Anchor Point tool. This adds a bezier curve to the point. A curve added with the Convert Anchor Point tool 17
Broken cusp on a Bezier By default, the cusp point of a Bezier curve is smooth ( ease in, ease out ). It may be broken by Command-dragging on one of its end handles with the Convert Anchor Point tool. A broken cusp added to the bezier 18
Sharp corners on a path Clicking again on the point with the Convert Anchor Point will reset the point to its default pointy state. The default pointy state 19
Stroke/Fill Introduction Illustrator s Interface The Tools and Control panel The Pen Tool Stroke/Fill Stroke/Fill defined Swatches panel The Selection tools Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Other Tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics 20
All vector shapes can be stroked and filled... 21
Stroke/Fill defined...a stroke is the line that runs around the outside of a path. The fill is the colour inside the shape. A stroke (in blue) and a fill (in red) 22
Swatches panel The Swatches panel is where the colours of a vector object may be defined. They can also be defined in other places such as the Appearance panel. The Swatches panel 23
If you double-click on a single swatch, its colours may be defined in the Swatch Options pallet using cyan, magenta, yellow and black) CMYK values. The Swatch Options pallet 24
The little widget in the top left corner of the pallet defines whether the swatch applies to the fill or the stroke. The same widget may be found at the bottom of the Tools panel. Here it defines the fill... Stroke/fill widget 25
...here it defines the stroke. Stroke/fill widget 26
The no stroke icon is a swatch with a red line through it. In the case of a fill, it is equivalent to 100% transparency. The none swatch 27
The Selection tools Introduction Illustrator s Interface The Tools and Control panel The Pen Tool Stroke/Fill The Selection tools The two selection tools Selection via the Layers panel Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Other Tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics 28
The Selection tools are simple enough to use, but can be confusing for students more used to PS. 29
The two selection tools Illustrator has two selection tools: the Selection tool and the Direct Selection tool. Both of these can be found at the top of the Tools panel. The selection tools 30
The Selection tool selects the entirety of a vector shape. When it is selected, a box appears around the shape. Using the handles of this box, the shape can be transformed (embiggened, stretched, skewed etc). The Selection tool and a selected object 31
The Direct Selection tool comes in two forms: Direct Selection and Group Selection. In this lecture I will only address the Direct Selection tool. Using Direct Selection, a single point may be selected and moved. The Direct Selection tool in action 32
Selection via the Layers panel Shapes can also be selected directly from the Layers pallet, which I will talk about in a bit. Selection in the Layer pallet 33
Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Introduction Illustrator s Interface The Tools and Control panel The Pen Tool Stroke/Fill The Selection tools Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Appearance panel Align panel Pathfinder panel Layers panel Isolation mode Eraser/Scissors/Knife tools Other Tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics 34
Drawing with Illustrator is not like drawing with a pencil, or PS s Brush tool. A drawing made with Illustrator tends more towards being a diagram, with sharp edges and clean flat, colour. Here is described the drawing toolset of Illustrator. 35
Appearance panel Using the Appearance panel, the stroke/fill of a selected object can be defined. The parameters of any other style attribute will also be available. In the example below, the stroke and fill is indicated, as well as a drop shadow (applied through Effect/Stylize/Drop Shadow ). The Appearance panel 36
By dragging the preview widget onto an object, the appearance of a selected object may be transferred to another. The preview widget of tdfxvb he Appearance panel 37
Align panel Using the Align panel, selected objects can be aligned... Not aligned......left side aligned! 38
...and distributed. Distributing a collection of objects makes the gaps between them equal. Not distributed evenly......distributed evenly on the vertical axis! 39
Pathfinder panel The Pathfinder panel combines shapes to make new shapes. It has two rows of functions. The first is Shape Modes, using which two or more shapes may be combined into a single new shape. The end result depends upon their order in the Layers panel. The Pathfinders offer more elaborate functions, and I will not detail them here. The starting point......unite 40
Minus front Minus front, with layer order reversed 41
Intersect Exclude 42
Layers panel layers in the Layer pallet To a PS user, Illustrator s layers behave like a cross between PS s layers and PS s groups. The paths (A) shows a preview of each path shape, (B) shows a preview of a group, (C) shows a preview of everything within a layer. 43
The target indicator (indicated with red arrow) defines when an item is selected. More info on the layers pallet from Adobe 1 1 https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/layers.html layers in the Layer pallet 44
layers in the Layer pallet To a PS user, Illustrator s layers behave like a cross between PS s layers and PS s groups. The paths (A) shows a preview of each path shape, (B) shows a preview of a group, (C) shows a preview of everything within a layer. 45
Isolation mode Here a yellow arrow made as a group is located underneath a red star. 46
Double-clicking on the arrow will send you to Isolation Mode. In this special preview mode, the yellow arrow moves to the front of all other elements, which in turn go pale. This makes them easier to edit. You will also notice that the Layers panel reflects this change, as does a small widget in the top right corner of the window. 47
You may navigate back to normal view by clicking the widget s grey back arrow. Isolation mode is very useful for complex documents where many elements overlap each other. 48
Eraser/Scissors/Knife tools Using these tools a vector shape may be chopped up into smaller shapes. Using the Knife tool, a vector shape... 49
...is chopped into two sections. Notice how the layer pallet two shapes are now apparent. 50
See how the two parts are completely separate and can be pulled apart. 51
The Eraser tool behave pretty much as you would expect (see below). The Scissors tool I shall not describe here. 52
Other Tools Introduction Illustrator s Interface The Tools and Control panel The Pen Tool Stroke/Fill The Selection tools Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Other Tools Funky distorts Double stroking Blend tool Rotate tool Convert to paths and Mesh Distort Mesh tool Brush panel Symbol Sprayer tool Other tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics 53
Illustrator has some very powerful authoring tools, some of which I demonstrate on the following pages. Most of them would be of interest to graphic artists, especially illustrators. I do not go into detail on how they are used, but tutorials are easy enough to find, and consultations are easy enough to make. 54
Funky distorts Some funky distorts using the distort tools from the Tools panel. 55
Double stroking Using the Appearance panel, a path can be stroked with more than one stroke. Here two strokes combine to make a road map thing. 2 2 A tutorial is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbw_rluur6s 56
Blend tool The Blend tool can morph one shape into another. 3 3 A tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riee6eqnsx0 57
Rotate tool From a single petal shape (left) a simple flower has been made. This was done using a combination of the Rotate tool and duplicate (Control D). 58
Convert to paths and Mesh Distort This was made using a combination of Text/Create Outlines (which turns type into editable paths) and Object/Envelop Distort/Make With Mesh (which enables a free-form distort of an object). 59
Mesh tool A semi-believable apple made using the Mesh tool 4. 4 A good enough tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_mekvsxyrs 60
Brush panel Brushes are fancy strokes for a path. Illustrator has a very large brush library. It is also very easy to make your own brushes, as below. 61
Symbol Sprayer tool Using the Symbol Sprayer tool, small graphic objects may be sprayed into your image. Here the leaves on a dumb tree have been made with the Symbol Sprayer tool. 62
Other tools Object/Transform/ Reflect. Used for mirroring objects. Gradient tool. Useful for illustrators. Graphic Styles panel. This is where styles can be stored. Using the Appearance panel, drag the preview widget from a selected object onto this panel. 63
Snapping and Procedural Graphics Introduction Illustrator s Interface The Tools and Control panel The Pen Tool Stroke/Fill The Selection tools Illustrator s Drawing Toolset Other Tools Snapping and Procedural Graphics Procedural Design Guides Grid 64
Snapping and Procedural Graphics go together. They are very important in graphics. Less so in illustration. 65
Procedural Design Procedural design describes making a graphical design using a procedure. 66
Procedural Design This flower was made using Illustrator s paint brush tool. Making it was very intuitive and easy. 67
Procedural Design This flower was made using a sequence of gradient strokes. gradient fills, radial duplicates etc. This is a procedural approach. It requires a problem-solving mind. 68
Guides You will notice that the centre of the second flower was located at the point where two guides crossed. Guides can be dragged from the rulers located at the edge of the document. If rulers are not visible, then use Command r. By default, guides are locked after they are created. They can be unlocked via View/Guides/Unlock Guides. It is recommended that guides be locked manually in the layers panel. This prevents them being accidentally moved. 69
Guides Selected elements can be made to snap to rulers using View/Smart Guides. 70
Grid Grids are pretty much what they sound like. They are particularly useful for typography and layout. Elements can be made to snap to the grid using View/Snap to Grid. 71
Guides and Grids in Procedural Design In procedural design, guides, grids and snapping are often being turned off and on depending on your needs. 72
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