• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Illustrator

G

GVP

New Member
Greetings!

Ok, I admit it -I'm a big Corel fan. I find CorelDraw is easy, flexible and powerful. Illustrator on the other hand is my nemesis - I find everything counter-intuitive and a real struggle. But for the wide variety of files that customers bring in, I need to use Illy on occasion. I know its all down to what you're used to but...

My question is, then, can someone recommend a decent book / tutorial etc that will give me the basics of Illustrator - I need to learn to be more proficient - it takes me forever to figure out even the most basic things, like simply selecting something without picking up all the crap around it.

Help!
 
G

GVP

New Member
Thanks for the suggestion - I'm more old school, and just like a printed book for reference.
 
p3

p3

New Member
The best thing is simply...start using it. No tutorials, no books, just dive in and try to create stuff. As you run into issues of trying to figure out what it is you want to do, then google, youtube, etc. to find out how to achieve what you're looking for.

The reason I suggest going this route, is because you will be learning things more than once. If you learn something about a tool or new trick in a book as you go through a 13 step program, you will forget about it soon after since it won't be daily practice. I started this way. Talk about counterintuitive.

I would suggest with just starting with the pen tool, pathfinder tools, and object menu. That will get you through about 80% of generic jobs. If you ever need help with anything or have questions, I can make youtube tutorials or take screen shots to guide you through it.

How I started though was looking at football and baseball logos. These are very simple, solid color items. I traced them with the pen tool and I got pretty good at drawing and getting a feel for the curves. Then I went to drawing(tracing) from photos of real people. Then moved on to drawing sprint cars. Now I use some of Illustrator's data tools, meshes, advanced brushes, among other things.
 
WildWestDesigns

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
Classroom in a book is good. I tend to also like the dummy books. I also like to do Lynda.com (I know you were wanting written material), but I sometimes need that visual reinforcement as well. You may not need that.

I tend to suggest against first doing youtube or various online sources that anyone can create a tutorial first, because I know that the majority of youtube videos on embroidery digitizing have some very bad techniques being "taught" in them, so I tend to suggest something that you have very good odds of getting it from a reputable source first and that helps give you a reference for when you can vet the credibility of the person on a youtube video. That's not always the case mind you, but I see the proliferation of bad habits in digitizing and seeing what is being shown in the majority of videos on youtube, it leads me to wonder.

I don't know about you, but for me, just diving into something without any type of reference to even remotely make sure I have the slightest clue as to what I'm doing can lead to some bad techniques. I'm all for repetition, but I have to have something first, so I can be relatively "sure" that I'm at least doing something correct, instead of wondering if I'm doing anything at all correctly and assuming that something is correct when it really isn't.
 
sinetist

sinetist

New Member
Google "illustrator tutorials" ... there are plenty of sites with good info from basic to advanced.
 
phototec

phototec

New Member
rjssigns

rjssigns

Active Member
Find a local tech school and take an intro class.

Why? It gives you structure. You have to show up. Trying to learn something by yourself is difficult at best unless you are OCD about it.

Being in a classroom with a couple dozen others opens you up to new techniques and styles too.

Your work will be critiqued more likely than not on a weekly basis. Constructive criticism is always helpful.

There are more reasons, but you get the idea.
 
OldPaint

OldPaint

New Member
iam a COREL user from version 3........been at this since 1986..........and have had customers bring me stuff that was created in illy.....BUT I HAVE NEVER found anything......that COREL CANT DO........ that illy does)))))i to have tried numerous times to get used to illy....but so much redundancy...drives me crazy.....and back to COREL....
i also have ARTS & LETTERS 8.5........now it is more of a desktop publishing softwear good for the layers like illy uses.....
 
Baz

Baz

New Member
Back in the 90's i learned to work with Illustrator at he shop i worked for and i could get around pretty easily. It's like anything that if you take the time you will learn some things. When i opened my shop back in 2002 along with a nice new digital printer i had to learn Photoshop. I did not have the time to just casually learn it. So like GVP ... I to prefer having a book rather than learn through videos.

I purchased Classroom in a Book. Man was it easy. It whad nicely structured tutorials. As you progressed through the exercises you ended up going through all the tools in the toolbar. The greatest thing about it is i also learned allot more than i knew in Illustrator since working with the paths in Photoshop requires the same tools as Illustrator. That book was worth every penny.
 
ddubia

ddubia

New Member
It all depends on what you started with and use often. I started in CorelDraw5. Used it for about a year and got pretty good at it. Then got Illustrator. Illustrator. It was tough going but at the time I was convinced that it was the industry standard so I was determined to learn it.

I learned it the way p3 suggests, on my own. After a couple of years I got good enough with Illustrator to land a job in the prepress dept. in a large format printing company printing offset and screen.

Then one day someone gave my friend his copy of CorelDraw8. My friend asked if I could get him started in it and show him around. I jumped at the chance of working in a newer version of CorelDraw. I found I could do nothing in it. Everything had changed. I was both frustrated and embarrassed.

Point is, we all prefer what we get used to. There's no sense in the Illy/Corel wars that I see so often. We all like what we got. If we had the other we'd like that equally well.

As for learning a new program like these I prefer p3's method. Poke around until it starts to make sense. Most programs have a Help section that you can use when you get stuck and need some quick advice. Otherwise just keep at it until it gets comfortable. And it will.
 
nikdoobs

nikdoobs

New Member
The Adobe Illustrator WOW books are pretty good. I'm not sure what version of Illustrator you have but there is a different book for almost every version. You can find used ones cheap on Amazon. Do a few tutorials and you will catch on quick.
 
TyrantDesigner

TyrantDesigner

Art! Hot and fresh.
p3 said:
The best thing is simply...start using it. No tutorials, no books, just dive in and try to create stuff. As you run into issues of trying to figure out what it is you want to do, then google, youtube, etc. to find out how to achieve what you're looking for.

The reason I suggest going this route, is because you will be learning things more than once. If you learn something about a tool or new trick in a book as you go through a 13 step program, you will forget about it soon after since it won't be daily practice. I started this way. Talk about counterintuitive.

I would suggest with just starting with the pen tool, pathfinder tools, and object menu. That will get you through about 80% of generic jobs. If you ever need help with anything or have questions, I can make youtube tutorials or take screen shots to guide you through it.

How I started though was looking at football and baseball logos. These are very simple, solid color items. I traced them with the pen tool and I got pretty good at drawing and getting a feel for the curves. Then I went to drawing(tracing) from photos of real people. Then moved on to drawing sprint cars. Now I use some of Illustrator's data tools, meshes, advanced brushes, among other things.
Click to expand...


Pretty much this. In illustrator the 5 things you will need to learn is the pen tool and point manipulation, your Pathfinder and object menu options, layers and clipping paths and lastly your custom brush settings ... pretty much everything else is extremely simple or just not needed for normal graphics (unless you make websites in illustrator ... yuk ... or are linking to multi page documents in indesign) ... the rest falls into place.
 
Techman

Techman

New Member
The problem with illy tutors are few but ittitating.

There are too many illy tutors around that give excellent examples of what can be achieved. However following some of those tutors is a bit iffy at times. There seems to be one step left out under the assumption that the user knows by default what to do to fill in the blank. It is impossible to duplicate the lesson image.

And, the tutors in order to conserve space leave out icons or images on what button to click in following the lesson plan. That forces a user to search out a definition or look for the icon matching the terminology. This is just a couple of the irritations with using adobe themed tutors.
Too many Illy tutors are an attractive nuisance because of the skipped steps. The challenge is to find the lessons that do not leave out steps.
 
Baz

Baz

New Member
Techman said:
The problem with illy tutors are few but ittitating.

There are too many illy tutors around that give excellent examples of what can be achieved. However following some of those tutors is a bit iffy at times. There seems to be one step left out under the assumption that the user knows by default what to do to fill in the blank. It is impossible to duplicate the lesson image.

And, the tutors in order to conserve space leave out icons or images on what button to click in following the lesson plan. That forces a user to search out a definition or look for the icon matching the terminology. This is just a couple of the irritations with using adobe themed tutors.
Too many Illy tutors are an attractive nuisance because of the skipped steps. The challenge is to find the lessons that do not leave out steps.
Click to expand...

Adobe Classroom in a Book .... You won't have that problem.
 
ddubia

ddubia

New Member
The problem I've had with software books is that I know what I want to do but don't know what to call it. More specifically is that I don't know what they call it. That makes looking things up very difficult and frustrating for me. I have my own term for it but that's something I made up in my head and it rarely matches up with the proper term.

Videos are ok. I've used them. But for me, after learning from a video, I don't retain what I've just seen. I can do the lesson but forget it quickly.

I guess I'm a hands-on learner. Closer to the truth I'm a figure-it-out-for-myself learner. Once I've figured out what I'm trying to accomplish I don't forget it so readily. It becomes a part of my experience and knowledge.

That's not to say that I don't seek and find help from print or from a video. Often times it's one or two small steps that I'm struggling with and a quick look-up online can get me over the hump.
 
Rick

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
You can also ask here like for instance your selection problem...

Go to your ILLUSTRATOR menu on top... then go to

PREFERENCES > SELECTION & ANCHOR DISPLAY > and select "OBJECT SELECTION BY PATH ONLY"

I prefer LYNDA.COM
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top