Adobe Illustrator

Hours: 32 / Access Length: 7 Weeks / Delivery: Monthly, Mentor Supported
Retail Price: $375.00

Course Overview:

Adobe Illustrator allows you to create artwork that you can use for web pages or any print or electronic media. This course will give students a good overview of the tools and features of Illustrator. Students will create artwork using the various tools including the pencil and pen tools. Students will learn the various ways to apply color to their artwork. Students will work with layers, the 3D effects, and symbols.

This course prepares a student to take the Adobe Graphic design & illustration using Adobe Illustrator certification exam.

Students will need to have a copy of the Adobe Illustrator CC software in order to do coursework.

Students will:

• Identify the features of the Illustrator screen.
• Create and edit basic shapes.
• Add color and patterns to their Illustrator drawings.
• Add text to their Illustrator projects.
• Work layers and masks in Illustrator.
• Use the Illustrator brushes to create and format drawings.
• Create freeform drawings with the Pen Tool.
• Use the Illustrator filters, effects and graphic styles in their Illustrator projects.
• Edit drawings using the Illustrator perspective tools.
• Work with symbols and importing graphics from other sources.
• Create a finished project in Illustrator.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1:  Getting Started

In this lesson, students will get comfortable with the Illustrator environment and look at some of the basic tools being used throughout the course. Students will also look at the differences between bitmap and vector graphics and why one might be preferable over the other. Additionally, you will spend some time getting comfortable with the Illustrator workspace and customize it to meet your needs. Lastly, you will explore the various ways you can select objects, use the align and distribute tools, and finally group and lock objects.

Lesson 2: Creating and Transforming Shapes

In this lesson, you will learn to work with some of the drawing tools Illustrator CC has to offer. You will draw rectangular and elliptical shapes as well as polygons and stars. Once you have drawn the objects you will learn to edit them by changing the shape of the objects, changing their fill, the stroke and using the transform tools to rotate, skew, sheer and otherwise distort the objects.  Additionally in this lesson, students will gain knowledge to confidently use the Pen Tool so they can create freeform objects as well. Once this lesson has been completed, students will have mastered numerous techniques that can be used within Illustrator CC to add life to an otherwise empty image.

Lesson 3: Working with Color, Text, and Layers

In this lesson, you will explore the color features in Illustrator. You will learn how to apply fill and line colors to your artwork and save colors used regularly into the Color Palette. You will create groups of color using the Color Guide panel and create patterns to paint your artwork. Students will also work with text within Illustrator CC. You will add various types of text: point, path and area, and learn how to apply character and paragraph formatting and styles. You will also learn about warping text and converting text to paths. Lastly, students will be working with layers to help organize projects. The benefit with using layers is you can add effects on top of one another much like when people used tracing paper and placed said sheets on top of one another. Specifically for this lesson, you will learn how to organize their projects in layers to control content displays; adjust layers as needed as well as the attributes of them.

Lesson 4: Blending and Brushes and Graphic Effects and Styles

In this lesson, students will create blends and work with brushes. These are unique touches to a photo which can further enhance the quality and beauty of images, documents, and even online elements. The Blend Tool is one of the focal points of this lesson as it allows you to create new shapes by blending existing shapes and allows you to copy shapes. Students will also add effects and graphic styles to objects drawn in Illustrator CC. One of the most important panels when looking at different effects and graphic styles is the Appearance panel. This will be discussed in detail within this lesson. Additionally, students will become familiar as to how to optimize their graphics so they can be used on the internet with little or no issue. A final topic that will be reviewed here includes Adobe Illustrator CC's 3D effects and capabilities.

Lesson 5:  Creating Outputs & Sharing Projects

In this lesson, students will gain knowledge on how to create images and media that are exported outside of Adobe Illustrator CC. For example, some of the most common exports as mentioned in the text are website applications. T-shirts are another common way that designers use Adobe Illustrator CC to publish their designs. Whether that is through a hot laminated press or machines that directly sew onto a garment, students must have a strong grasp of the software in order for outputs to come out successfully. The other part of this lesson focuses on how projects created within Illustrator CC can be shared with others - whether that is in the cloud or directly - and shared in other applications.

Lesson 6: Putting It All Together

You made it! You have now had a chance to work with most of the tools Adobe Illustrator CC offers. Now it will be up to you to practice what you have learned and apply it to the work you plan to do with Illustrator. This lesson will allow you to use the tools you have learned in this class to create a project of your own. You can edit what you currently have to submit as a final assignment or start on something from scratch.

All necessary materials are included.

Certification(s):

This course prepares a student to take the Adobe Graphic design & illustration using Adobe Illustrator certification exam.

System Requirements:

• Cable and DSL internet connections are recommended for the best experience.

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 2 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone (Webinar / Live Online sessions)

• Microsoft Windows 7 or 10 (Home, Pro)
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is denoted in the above course outline.