Illustrator masterclass & Adobe certified
Course dates
Remote
- 05–09 June 2023
- 10–14 July 2023
- 14–18 August 2023
- 18–22 September 2023
London
- 10–14 July 2023
- 14–18 August 2023
- 18–22 September 2023
Overview
This Illustrator training course is your fast track option where you'd start your journey as a new or inexperienced Illustrator user and end by becoming Adobe certified.
You’ll begin by getting to grips with the Illustrator interface, before learning about shapes, infographics and other more common features. You’ll then progress to the advanced features like workflows, compound paths and raster effects before sitting the certification exam.
This course will be delivered through our Accelerated learning approach, allowing you to learn more information, easier and more efficiently than standard training approaches.
Our Adobe certified training team will be with you all the way, helping you go from a beginner to an Adobe certified professional. Afterwards you can publicise your certification with Adobe digital badges which provide a standardised certified outcome.
Target Audience
This course is for designers, marketers, developers or anyone looking to gain accreditation status in a short period of time.
Upon completion, you'll be able to:
- Navigate the Illustrator interface and understand both the core and specialist features
- Master colour, basic shapes and how to get the most out of the layers panel
- Take advantage of art boards, paths, the pen tool, graphic styles and more
- Create documents for web or print and learn best practises for saving, printing and exporting
- Use the pen tool, envelope distortions and the brush tool at an advanced level
- Get the most out of type, colour and how to adjust appearances
- Create infographics, 3D shapes and how to take full advantage of live paint
- Take on the certification exam and become an Adobe certified professional
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
What to expect from this course
The first two days of training will focus on the starter features, including shapes, logo’s and basic infographics. Days three and four are targeted towards the more advanced features such as workflows, custom brushes, transparency and more. Day five will be focused on the certification exam with the first half of the day dedicated to exam preparation, before sitting the exam.
You’ll leave the training course with a solid understanding of how Illustrator works and have the confidence to create logos, workflows, shapes and lots more… including an Adobe certified status that further promotes your skill level.
Day one – Understanding basic Illustrator concepts
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
Day two – Developing the understanding
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
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
Day three – Enhancing vector processes
Selecting and transforming objects
- Setting your selection preferences
- Using the direct selection and group selection tools
- Using the magic wand tool
- Using the lasso tool
- Selecting objects by attributes
- Resizing your artwork
- Rotating objects
- Distorting and transforming objects
- Repeating transformations
- Reflecting and skewing objects
- Aligning and distributing objects
Advancing the pen tool
- Understanding anchor points
- Drawing straight segments
- Editing a path as you draw it with keyboard shortcuts
- Inserting and removing anchor points
- Adding curvature
- Control handless
- Drawing perfectly smooth outlines
- Tracing a freeform, curvy path
- Converting an existing anchor point
- Working with open and closed paths
- Joining paths
- Averaging and aligning paths
- Using the scissors tool
Working with colour
- RGB vs CMYK
- Adjusting Illustrator colour settings
- Process or global swatches
- Creating spot colours
- Using the swatch groups
- Working with colour libraries
- Importing swatches
- Using the colour guide panel
- The colour panel
- Defining and using process colours
- Defining and using global process colours
- Defining and using spot colours
- Accessing colour libraries
Working with fills and strokes
- Working with fills
- Working with strokes
- Creating dashes and arrows
- Creating variable-width strokes
- Using width profiles
- Outlining strokes
- Creating and editing gradients
- Applying gradients to strokes
- Applying and editing pattern fills
- Creating your own pattern fill
Envelope distortions
- Introducing envelope distort
- Editing the contents of an envelope
- Warping an envelope mesh
- Creating and editing an envelope mesh
- Blending an envelope into a background
Creating shapes
- Understanding drawing modes
- Creating compound paths
- Creating compound shapes
- Working with the shape builder tool
- Working with the blob brush and eraser tools
- Working with the paintbrush and pencil tools
- Smoothing and erasing paths
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 and area type
- Placing and flowing text
- Threading text
- Selecting type and choosing fonts
- Adjusting type size
- Leading, tracking and kerning
- Baseline shift
- First line indents
- Paragraph spacing
- Creating paragraph styles
- Redefining paragraph styles
- The glyphs panel
- Spell-checking
- Creating text on a path
- Converting text into paths
Adjusting appearances
- Exploring the appearance panel
- The stacking order
- Working with multiple fills
- Working with multiple strokes
- Adjusting appearance with live effects
- Saving appearances as graphic styles
Day four – Pushing forward and consolidation
Tracing
- Converting pixels to paths with Image Trace
- Exploring the Image Trace panel
- Tracing photographs
- Tracing line art
- Auto-tracing and resolution
- Adjusting layer previews
- Cleaning up with the Threshold option
- More clean-up with the noise option
- Expanding and simplifying traced paths
- Flipping and fusing shapes
- Scaling resolution-independent vectors
Live paint
- Introducing live paint
- Stroking with the live paint bucket tool
- The live paint selection tool
- Adding a path to a live paint group
- Constructing the base objects
Working with images
- Placing images into Illustrator
- Placing an image to create a dynamic link
- Working with the links panel
- Embedding images into Illustrator
- Cropping images with a mask
- Best file types to use
Working with brushes
- Introducing the brushes panel
- Applying and editing a calligraphic brush
- Applying and editing art brushes
- Applying and editing a scatter brush
- Replacing an existing brush
- Creating and refining a brush
- Creating and editing a pattern brush
- Adjusting the bristles in a bristle brush
Printing, saving and exporting
- Printing your artwork
- Saving your artwork
- Saving in legacy formats
- Saving templates
- Creating PDF files
- Saving for the web
- Creating high-resolution bitmap images
- Using Illustrator files in Photoshop and InDesign
Charts and data
- Importing correcting and editing data
- Swapping between graph type
- Changing the graph type settings
- Selecting and colouring graph elements
- Creating and defining a design for Illustrator charts
- Applying a chart design to a marker
- Adding numeric values to a column chart
Customising graphics and 3D
- Designing your own charts
- Creating a 3D pie chart
- Rotating objects in 3D space
Gradient tool
- Creating gradients
- Applying a gradient fill
- Using the gradient annotator
- Editing multiple gradients
- Creating a radial gradient
- Adjusting the midpoint skew
- Making a transparent gradient
- Assigning a gradient to editable text
- Assigning a gradient to a stroke
The blend tool
- Using the blend tool
- Creating a multi-colour blend
- Editing blended paths
- Adjusting the number of blended steps
- Blending between levels of opacity
- Applying a blend to a new path
- Establishing a clipping mask
Gradient mesh
- Introducing the gradient mesh
- Working with the mesh tool
- Adding colours to the mesh points
- Adding a gradient mesh to a shape
- Converting a linear gradient to a mesh
- Editing a linear gradient mesh
- Converting a radial gradient to a mesh
- Editing a radial gradient mesh
Warps and warp brushes
- Introducing the warp tools
- Brush size
- Introducing envelope distort
- Editing the contents of an envelope
- Warping an envelope mesh
- Working with an envelope mesh
Drawing in perspective
- Defining a perspective grid
- Drawing artwork in perspective
- Applying artwork to the grid
Day five – Adobe Certification day
The final day of your course will be focused on the official Adobe Illustrator exam objectives.
Start 9.30am - Finish 3.30pm.
- AM is preparation and practice exam
- PM is undertaking the certification exam
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.
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
Adobe certified professional. Build a unique portfolio and gain a professional certification that communicates your advanced knowledge- that is what becoming Adobe certified is about.
Adobe certification masterclass
Become an Adobe certified professional. Save up to £1,000 with our Adobe certification masterclass. It will increase your chances of landing your dream job!
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
Remote
- 05–09 June 2023
- 10–14 July 2023
- 14–18 August 2023
- 18–22 September 2023
London
- 10–14 July 2023
- 14–18 August 2023
- 18–22 September 2023
Option to split dates when booking
Location
Spaces, 60 St. Martin's Lane, London WC2N 4JS
Reviews
5
23 reviews
91%
recommended the course
Very good course, tutor is well informed and very experienced with what he is talking about, friendly and accommodating. Well done
Adam Walker. 15th March, 2023
I decided to split attendance into a 2-day Illustrator introduction one month and then the 3-day advanced + certification part the month after. It really worked for me and I was extremely pleased with everything! Thanks
Shawn Trebor. 7th March, 2023
They got me through the certification exam on my first try
Emma Jenkins. 5th March, 2023
Steve was a great teacher and really helped to show the best way to use Photoshop.
Naina Imran. 1st March, 2023
A very good course, trainer is very knowledgeable and accommodating. Also providing convenience by doing the course at home as well
Bobby Crush. 2nd February, 2023
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