Design Made Easy with Inkscape: A practical guide to your journey from beginner to pro-level vector illustration

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Discover quick and easy ways to make charts, diagrams, illustrations, and UX/UI mockups with end-to-end guidance using hands-on tutorials, tips, and tricks

Key Features

  • Get up to speed with vector illustration in no time
  • Explore hotkey charts and tips, with best practices developed over ten years of using Inkscape
  • Learn the fundamentals of vector illustration and efficiently leverage Inkscape's powerful toolset

Book Description

With the power and versatility of the Inkscape software, making charts, diagrams, illustrations, and UI mockups with infinite resolution becomes enjoyable, and if you’re looking to get up to speed with vector illustration in no time, this comprehensive guide has got your back! Design Made Easy with Inkscape is easy to follow and teaches you everything you need to know to create graphics that you can use and reuse forever, for free!

You’ll benefit from the author’s industry experience as you go over the basics of vector illustration, discovering tips and tricks for getting professional graphics done fast by leveraging Inkscape's powerful toolset. This book teaches by example, using a great variety of use cases from icons and logos to illustration, web design, and product design. You’ll learn about hotkey charts and take a best-practices approach developed over ten years of using Inkscape as a design tool in production. What’s more, this book also includes links to free graphics resources that you can use in all your projects.

Whether you’re a new user or a professional, by the end of this book, you’ll have full understanding of how to use Inkscape and its myriad of excellent features to make stunning graphics for your projects.

What you will learn

  • Understand the benefits of vector illustration and the reasons behind choosing Inkscape over other non-free alternatives
  • Navigate the Inkscape setup and workspace to make effective use of the software
  • Explore the wide range of tools from Inkscape to create amazing and infinitely scalable graphics quickly
  • Use real-world scenarios and practice lessons to learn how to create by example
  • Discover tips and tricks to make Inkscape an extension of your creativity
  • Trace Bitmap and practice free professional designing as you work with layers, shading, coloring, and more

Who This Book Is For

This book is for aspiring designers, developers, and anyone who wants to leverage the power of Inkscape for vector illustration. No prior knowledge of graphics applications or vector and raster graphics is required. This book simplifies Inkscape for dummies; all you need to know is how to use a mouse and keyboard.

Table of Contents

  1. The Inkscape Interface
  2. Moving and Styling Shapes
  3. Drawing Shapes with the Shape Tools
  4. Automatic Shape Alignment in Inkscape
  5. Node Editing – Modify Your Shapes with Nodes and Curves
  6. Fast Shape Editing with Booleans and Other Path Operations
  7. Using the Text in Inkscape
  8. Advanced Shading and Coloring
  9. Clips and Masks
  10. Automation with Clones and Linked Files
  11. Organization Using Layers
  12. Live Path Effects (LPEs)
  13. Filters and Extensions
  14. Vectorizing with Trace Bitmap
  15. Conclusion

Author(s): Christopher Rogers
Edition: 1
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Year: 2023

Language: English
Pages: 363
City: Birmingham
Tags: Inkscape; Vector Graphics; Vector Illustrations; UI Mockups; Scalable Graphics; Shading; Coloring; Clips; Masks

Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Part 1: Finding Your Way Around
Chapter 1: The Inkscape Interface
Technical requirements
Navigating the interface
The Menu bar
The Tool bar and Tool control bar
The Desk and Page areas
The Swatch Palette
The color indicators
The Layer Info Indicator
The Status bar
The Docking area and dialogs
The Commands bar
The Snap control bar
The Display Transform Control
Summary
Chapter 2: Moving and Styling Shapes
Technical requirements
Introducing shapes in Inkscape
Raster versus vector images
Drawing your first shape
Fill and Stroke
Using the Select and Transform tool
Selecting and deselecting individual shapes
Selecting multiple shapes all at once
Selecting everything
Fancy selecting with the Alt key
Selecting objects with the same attributes
Invert selection
Moving shapes
Cutting, copying, pasting, and deleting shapes
Resizing shapes
Resizing the height and width values with the Select and Transform tool
Resizing shapes with Paste Size
Scaling styles
Rotating shapes
Raising and lowering shapes
Grouping shapes
Flipping shapes
Summary
Chapter 3: Drawing Shapes with the Shape Tools
Technical requirements
Inkscape’s object properties
The Rectangle tool
The Circle, Ellipse, and Arc tools
The Polygon and Star tool
The 3D Box tool
The Spiral tool
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 4: Automatic Shape Alignment in Inkscape
Technical requirements
The Align and Distribute dialog
Text object alignment
On Canvas Alignment
Rearranging options
Grid arranging shapes
Circular arranging shapes
Automatic spacing and alignment with Smart Snapping options
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 5: Node Editing – Modifying Your Shapes with Nodes and Curves
Editing shapes with the Node tool
Adding and removing nodes
Curve handles and node types
Breaking and joining lines
Drawing lines and shapes from scratch
Line styles
Classical drawing tools
Advanced curves and line options
Making brush strokes with Stroke Shape
Try it yourself
Summary
Part 2: Advanced Shape Editing
Chapter 6: Fast Shape Editing with Path Operations and the Shape Builder Tool
Technical requirements
What are Booleans?
Exploring the Combine, Break Apart, Split Path, Fracture, and Flatten operations
Exploring the Inset, Outset, and Dynamic Offset Path operations
Fast Path operations with the Shape Builder tool
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 7: Using Text in Inkscape
Installing new fonts
The Text tool
Font collections
The Text and Font dialog
Understanding variable fonts
Text on a curve
Flowing paragraphs into shapes
Check spelling and other handy tools
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 8: Advanced Shading and Coloring
Technical requirements
The Gradient tool
The Gradient Editor
The Mesh Gradient tool
Pattern Fills
Using blur for complex shading
Color blending with Blend modes
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 9: Clips and Masks
Technical requirements
Clips and clipping groups
Clips inside clips
Masking with vector shapes and images
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 10: Automation with Clones and Linked Files
Technical requirements
What is a clone?
Cloning groups
Clones as clips and masks
Clone management using clones of clones
Leveraging linked image files
Try it yourself
Summary
Part 3: Inkscape’s Power Tools
Chapter 11: Organization Using Layers
Technical requirements
What is a layer?
Understanding the Objects and Layers dialog
Organizing projects using groups and layers
Layer transparency and Blend modes
Cloning layers
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 12: Live Path Effects
Technical requirements
What is a Path Effect, and why is it live?
The Path Effects dialog
Using Path Effects with single-path objects
Using Path Effects with groups
Stacking Path Effects
Limitations of Path Effects
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 13: Filters and Extensions
Technical requirements
Using filters
Making custom filters
Using extensions
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 14: Vectorizing with Trace Bitmap
Technical requirements
What is Trace Bitmap?
Vectorizing to black with the Single scan tab
Vectorizing to color shapes
Tracing parts of a bitmap with the Fill Bucket tool
Try it yourself
Summary
Chapter 15: Document Properties, Pages, Exporting, and Printing
Technical requirements
The Document Properties dialog
The Pages tool
The Export dialog
Save and export considerations
Saving for printed magazine adverts
Saving and exporting for email-friendly PDFs
Exporting for the web
Saving for CNC cutters and engravers
Exporting for print-on-demand websites
Printing
Summary
Index
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