The non-designer's Illustrator book

Contents......Page 7
SECTION 1 The Very Basics......Page 12
1 Before You Begin......Page 14
What is vector-based illustration?......Page 15
A few helpful settings before you start......Page 16
2 Before You Draw......Page 20
Create a new document......Page 21
Illustrator’s workspace overview......Page 23
The Application bar......Page 25
The Control panel......Page 26
The Tools panel......Page 27
Managing your workspace panels......Page 29
Working with artboards......Page 31
Guides to guide you......Page 35
3 Learn to be Selective......Page 38
Selecting objects......Page 39
What did you just select?......Page 42
Select similar objects......Page 43
The Group Selection tool......Page 44
The Select menu......Page 45
Save a selection to use again......Page 46
Bring to Front and Send to Back......Page 47
SECTION 2 Drawing Vector Art......Page 48
4 Drawing with Shape and Line Tools......Page 50
Drawing with shape tools......Page 51
Drawing with line tools......Page 55
Compound paths......Page 62
Try this!......Page 63
5 Drawing with Pen and Pencil......Page 64
Pen tool basic training......Page 65
Essential tasks with the Pen tool......Page 67
Drawing with the Pencil tool......Page 72
Customize strokes with the Stroke panel......Page 75
Try this!......Page 78
And try this!......Page 81
And try this too!......Page 83
6 Vector Brushes......Page 86
Vector brushes......Page 87
The Blob brush......Page 100
Try this!......Page 107
7 The Width Tool......Page 108
Go wild with the Width tool......Page 109
Try this!......Page 115
8 Draw with Live Trace......Page 116
Live Trace presets and settings......Page 117
Trace your way to great art......Page 119
Try this!......Page 123
SECTION 3 More Essentials......Page 124
9 Working with Layers......Page 126
The Layers panel......Page 127
Manage a document with multiple layers......Page 129
A few other features of layers......Page 131
10 Working with Type......Page 132
Basic typesetting......Page 133
The Character panel......Page 140
The Paragraph panel......Page 142
The Glyphs panel......Page 143
OpenType options......Page 144
Tabs and indents......Page 145
Paragraph and Character style sheets......Page 149
Modify type objects......Page 153
Try this!......Page 157
11 Color and Gradients......Page 158
Ways to apply color......Page 159
Select and apply color with the Eyedropper tool......Page 161
The Swatches panel......Page 163
Recolor your artwork with a click......Page 168
Try the Color Guide panel......Page 170
The Kuler panel......Page 171
Color gradients......Page 172
Try this!......Page 177
SECTION 4 Manipulate Objects......Page 178
12 Transform and Modify......Page 180
Rotate objects......Page 181
Reflect objects......Page 183
Shear objects......Page 185
Scale (resize) and distort objects......Page 186
Slice and cut objects......Page 189
Use an envelope to warp objects......Page 191
Pathfinder effects to transform objects......Page 193
Align and distribute objects......Page 195
The Appearance Panel......Page 197
Try this!......Page 199
13 Shape, Blend, and Mesh......Page 200
The Shape Builder tool......Page 201
Blend paths, shapes, and colors......Page 205
Amazing mesh objects......Page 211
Graphic styles......Page 218
Try this!......Page 221
14 Live Paint and Other Thrills......Page 222
Live Paint groups......Page 223
Work magic with opacity masks......Page 229
Mask art with clipping masks......Page 230
Try this!......Page 231
C......Page 232
H......Page 234
P......Page 235
S......Page 237
T......Page 238
W......Page 240