Adobe Illustrator

Adobe  Illustrator  is a professional quality graphic art program. Its applications are diverse, from creating print to web graphics and, for our purposes, posters.

Although the program is complex and requires a significant amount of time to truly master, it is quite easy to learn the basics and create work with a professional appearance.

Designing a poster does not require any special artistic talent or skills; it just requires having the patience to get acquainted with the program. As with most computer applications, I recommend using the trial-and-error methodology to figure out the intricacies of this program. You will make numerous mistakes, and frequently want to make changes. Thankfully Illustrator is equipped with an undo option. In fact, undo [Crtrl+Z] will become a very familiar action as you design your poster.

What will I learn?

CLASS 1 A- Essentials

1. Working with Documents
2. Working with Artboards
3. Getting Around
4. Drawing Lines
5. Drawing Shapes
6. Color and Swatches

Project Submission A 25%

CLASS 2 B- Maneuvers

1. Strokes, Dashes, and Arrows
2. Creating and Formatting Text
3. Building Custom Paths
4. Using the Pencil Tool
5. Painting and Erasing
6. Using the Curvature Tool

Project Submission B 25%

CLASS 3 C- Design

1. Layers and Groups
2. Swatches and Stacking Order
3. Strokes, Dashes, and Arrows
4. Gradients and the Gradient Tool
5. Seamlessly Repeating Patterns
6. Align and Distribute

Project Submission C 25%

CLASS 4 D- Applied

1. Pathfinder Operations
2. Live Paint and Interlocking Paths
3. Placing Photoshop Images
4. Printing a Document
5. Saving for the Web (and PowerPoint)

Project Submission D 25%