Illustrator essentials
At a glance
- 9.30am–4.30pm
- Workbook & supportSupport
- 1 day
- Accelerated learning
- See Team training for pricing
- Adobe CC2023
Course dates
Overview
If you’re new to Adobe Illustrator, our essentials course is a great first step into the world of illustration. During the training you’ll get to grips with the Illustrator interface, understand how the most frequently used features work and leave with the skills to create logos, infographics and more.
This course will be delivered through our Accelerated learning approach, allowing you to learn more information, easier and more efficiently than standard training approaches.
Target Audience
This course is for designers, marketers, developers or anyone looking to get into illustration.
What you will learn
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Accelerated learning
Our Accelerated learning approach at Certitec is unique within the Adobe training industry. Our focus is not on what you learn, but how you learn. Referred to as ‘Accelerated Learning’, this process allows you to digest a significant amount of information more quickly, and more easily than through other methods.
- Establish a firm understanding on the learning process before embarking
- Overcoming any learned helplessness by reframing what will be learnt upon completion
- Sessions no longer than 60 minutes each to maximise how we learn
- The use of course workbooks to strengthen memory retention (classroom)
- Finding a balance between new and recap learning
- Kinaesthetic (‘hands-on’) techniques
- Video of entire course upon completion (remote)
Find out more about our Accelerated learning process.
Outline
Each category below is 1 hour in duration
Introduction
- Interface and workspace
- Preferences
Create new documents
- Intent and setup
- The concept of artboards
Shape Basics
- Anchors, fill and paths
- Stroke attributes
- Bezier curves
- Bounding box - transformation
Colours and more
- Create colour
- Create gradients
- Create swatches
Create a logo
- Rings
- Output options
Using shape builder tool
- Shape creation
- Pathfinder
- Exploring
Pen tool basics
- Understanding the logic
- Creating paths
- Joining paths
- Deleting paths
Working with Brushes
- Brushes logic
- Creating brush effects
- Brush preferences
Type 101
CC Libraries
- Understanding CC libraries
- Saving to a library
- Loading from a library
- Workflow options
Exercise - explore type
S4 Images and trace image
S5 Symbols
S6 put it together
Create own logo and create print version and web version
Day one – Getting to grips with Illustrator
Essential Illustrator concepts
- What are vector graphics?
The Illustrator interface
- Exploring panels and workspaces
- Using the control panel
- Navigation
- Preview options
- Setting up your document
- Managing a custom workspace
Creating new documents for print or web
- Advanced document controls
- Modifying your document
- Changing units of measurement
- Working with grids
- Working with guides
- Smart guides
Working with colour
- Adjusting Illustrator colour settings
- Process or global swatches
- Basics of the colour guide panel
- The colour panel
- RGB v CMYK
- Defining swatches
- Working with gradients
Selection essentials
- The selection, direct and group selection tools
- The lasso tool
- Magic wand
- Select same
- Editing anchor points
- The bounding box
Basic Shapes
- Exploring the various shape tools
- Understanding fills and strokes
- Compound shapes
- Pathfinder options
- Duplicate objects
- Fill and stroke attributes
- Grouping
Transformation Tools
- Scale
- Rotate
- Shear
- Reflect
Alignment, distribution and spacing
- Aligning, distribution and spacing to selected objects
- Aligning, distribution and spacing to artboard
- Aligning, distribution and spacing to key object
Understanding the layers panel
- Visibility and locking
- Selecting via the layers panel
- Sub-layers
- Deleting layers
- Grouping and naming layers
- Changing the stacking order
- Moving objects from one layer to another
- Copying objects from one layer to another
- Adjusting layer previews
Object transformations and duplicating
- Moving and copying objects
- Rotating and scaling objects
- The transform panel
Basic text editing
- Creating point text
- Creating area text
- Text formatting
- Creating text threads
Placing images
- Working with images
- Using the links panel
- The basics of image trace
- An introduction to live paint
Working with artboards
- Working with different page sizes
- Re-sizing and modifying artboards
- Creating new artboards and copying artboards
- The artboard panel
Working with paths and the pen tool
- Understanding vectors - paths and anchors
- Drawing straight segments
- Adding curvature
- Working with open and closed paths
- Joining and averaging paths
- Adjusting control handles
- Using pathfinder
Working with brushes
- The calligraphic brush
- The scatter brush
- The art brush
- The pattern brush
- The bristle brushes
Graphic styles
- Exploring the appearance panel
- Creating graphic styles
Working with symbols
- What are symbols?
- Using the symbols libraries
- Using the symbol sprayer tool
- Creating new symbols
- Breaking the symbol link
- Redefining symbols
Introduction to Charts
- Creating charts and infographics
- Creating bar charts
- Creating line charts
- Creating pie charts
- Importing data from Excel
- Colouring your charts
Working with type
- Creating a grid with guides
- Working with point type
- Working with area type
- Formatting text
- Tracking and kerning
- Saving time with keyboard shortcuts
Working with images
- Embedding images into Illustrator
- Masking images
- Deeper into image trace
- Using live paint and fixing problems
- Clipping masks
Saving, printing and exporting
- Saving to legacy formats
- Saving templates
- Saving for the web
- Creating bitmap images
- Using Illustrator files in InDesign and Photoshop
- Creating PDF files
Classroom trainint
Advantages of classroom training
Classroom training has many advantages over other formats of training since in-person interaction and communication plays an extremely important part to absorbing information.
Classroom training allows you to get trained in a safe, quiet, clean environment, away from the noise and pressures of the office or home. The classroom environment provides the important “human touch,” which is often missing in technology-based training.
You can’t beat real life interaction when asking important questions and receiving immediate feedback.
Other benefits of classroom training include:
- Group interaction. People learn from one another as well as from the trainer
- Training groups can be large or small
- Classroom training also teaches us how to interact with one another in a professional, productive, cooperative way, which is something that other forms of training often don’t provide
Remote training
Advantages of remote training
Remote training introduces a virtually no-limits training option since it's extremely flexible. You can attend a remote training session anywhere in the world and has become increasingly popular over the last few years.
Remote training plays itself into your hands and you can harness technology to enable you to use traditional computers, tablets and even phones for complete flexibility.
You can see your trainer (webcam) and they will take you through the training session like you're actually attending a classroom training event.
Other benefits of remote training include:
- No travel to the classroom - you can attend remote training in your pj's if you wish!
- Training groups can be large or small and even split over multiple locations and even multiple countries at the same time
- You have the ability to interact with your trainer by talking, electronically raising your hand and even allow for them to see your screen (if you authorise)
- All remote training sessions are recorded - so you can play-back at anytime in the future and enhance your learning experience
More details
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Discounts for self funders and charities
You will save 15% off the course price if you’re a non-business delegate and includes the following:
- Self funding individual
- Charity
- Student
- Educational establishment
With the option to split the cost of your 5 day Adobe certified training course, our Flexipay payment plan allows you to develop your skills, without breaking the bank.
After your course, we don’t leave you high-and-dry. Our technical support is provided for a lifetime.
When it comes to classroom training - our training facility computers are better and faster than ever.
All our modern 27-inch computers have faster processors, expanded memory, larger storage and enhanced audio and video capabilities for an even better experience in the classroom.
We understand that before booking your course, knowing that you can have a free course refresher gives you that added insurance.
Located in the heart of London's West end ... our training facility at 60 St. Martin's Lane ensures the location is as exciting as our training!
We provide healthy snacks (high quality dark chocolate, walnuts, fresh fruit) and coffee, all of which have been suggested to improve focus in the sessions.
For lunch, we give you the flexibility to eat what you want and introduced a lunch voucher scheme that can be used at nearby outlets.
You can either subscribe to the entire suite (that’s all the applications) or just one application on a monthly basis. Adobe offers a free 7-day trial for each application if you wish to try before you subscribe.
Just visit the Adobe Creative Cloud page and see what might be the best option for you.
FAQs
What happens if I am unwell on the morning of my course?
This is just fine from a course perspective since you can re-arrange again (according to our course schedule) for no fee.
How do I actually book my course?
Find the course you wish and then click on the ‘book now’ button and complete the form.
Can I jump immediately to an Advanced course?
Delegates attending an Advanced course must already possess at least 80% of the knowledge of the (previous) Introduction course. This is so you are not out of your depth in the Advanced course and also so other delegates are not affected.
Do I need to bring my own computer (classroom training)?
We supply all computers (macOS and Windows) at our training facility. You can bring your laptop along if you wish for anything work related but due to Adobe guidelines - delegates must use our computers to ensure the software meets our requirements.
We start at 9.30 and finish at 4.30pm with plenty of breaks and 40 minutes for lunch.
Are refreshments and lunch provided (classroom training)?
Yes - we provide all refreshments (tea, coffee, water, biscuits etc) and also lunch (in the format of a voucher which can be spent at many nearby locations).
- Start 9.30am - Finish 3.30pm.
- Exam 2pm
You will undertake a practice exam just before lunch, then undertake the certification exam in the afternoon.
Should you not pass the first time, you can retake the exam for no charge when the course runs again in our schedule.
Will I get a certificate for attending?
Yes - your Adobe authorised training centre certificate of attendance will be emailed after your training course.
What is the dress format for attending training (classroom training)?
Anything goes since our training caters for the creative industry - so wear what you like (although please consider the training rooms are air conditioned).
Will I be able to work to my own agenda in the training?
Our courses are scheduled and run with the same outline and aims. Whilst our trainers can field some ad hoc questions along the way we are unable to provide specific information on your project.
If you did wish to cover your own agenda why not arrange a private training course.
Can I park at the training facility (classroom training)?
There are numerous NCP car parks close to the facility although you might find it more cost effective parking further afield and travelling into the city centre on public transport.
Course Enquiry
Interested in one of our courses but need a couple of questions answered first?
Use our simple form below to send a message directly to our consultant trainers. We value great customer service and will endeavour to get back to you within the hour inside normal business hours.
If you require an immediate response then please do not hesitate to call 0845 527 0768.
Course dates
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