Learn how to draw and edit vector graphics using Adobe Illustrator. This course covers the basics and advanced features, including the Pen tool, effects, layers, masks, and more. Perfect for creating logos, icons, and packaging.
Begin your journey as a professional graphic designer by learning the essential skills and tools used by industry experts. Gain hands-on experience in Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, and create a stunning portfolio to showcase your talent to potential employers or clients.
Build professional-level Illustrator skills and earn your Adobe Certified Professional credential through hands-on classes, private tutoring, and real-world projects. This certification program covers everything from vector drawing to logo design, giving you the tools to succeed on the exam.
Part of the Adobe product suite, Illustrator is a software application for creating drawings, illustrations, and artwork using a Windows or macOS computer. Initially released in 1987, the software is continuously updated at regular intervals and is now included as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud.
With Illustrator, you can turn prompts into editable graphics, design illustrations with precision, create designs of any size and add text, build complex shapes, and make 3D artwork. Widely used by Graphic Designers, Web Designers, Visual Artists, and professional Illustrators throughout the world to create high-quality artwork, Illustrator includes many drawing tools that can reduce the time needed to create illustrations.
Now one of the most commonly used vector graphics design tools, Illustrator can create scalable designs like logos, branded merchandise, and product packaging. It also provides a user-friendly platform that can be mastered by both professionals and non-professionals aiming to build their online identities.
With expert-level skills in Adobe Illustrator, what you can create is seemingly endless. You could design a new font, custom wallpapers, high-quality icons, or bold graphics, helping you to establish your brand identity. Or, if you’re prepping for your next presentation at work, you could also create professional graphs and charts to wow your boss or develop infographics that help disseminate information.
Are you an aspiring or successful blogger? Creating templates for graphics in Adobe Illustrator can save time. All you have to do is open up a blog post template, add a new photo and text, save it, and publish.
If you own a local business, you can create posters and flyers for any upcoming events, promotions, or announcements that your community should know about. You can also use Illustrator to create social media banners that look cohesive and consistent across all of your social media accounts and add some personality to your website with customized buttons.
As you can see, with the right skill set, you can use Adobe Illustrator to bring all your creative ideas to life. Keep reading below to learn more about industries and jobs that use Illustrator, as well as the best classes available near you.
Adobe Illustrator is a widely used tool, so it comes as no surprise that there are nearly endless skills and techniques that you can learn. It’s vector graphics software, as previously mentioned, and you’ll see vector art used on everything from enormous banners to wallet-sized business cards, and everything in between. A versatile software requires a versatile set of skills, so below we’ve outlined the top general ones you’ll master in an Illustrator training course, including soft and hard skills.
Illustrator is a graphic design application, so you’ll master quite a few graphic design skills while in a training class. You’ll use Illustrator to create vector graphics and vector images. These are made of points, lines, shapes, and curves based on mathematical formulas rather than a set amount of pixels, and can be scaled up or down while maintaining image quality. Graphic design is equal parts creativity and technicality, so it’s important to have or develop an artistic eye. Mastering color schemes, layout, and design is essential to success with Adobe Illustrator. Whether you’re developing a flyer, graphics for a website, or a font for your business, graphic design skills and a creative eye will serve you very well.
Careers that use Adobe Illustrator, like Graphic Designer, are often fast-paced and involve working on many projects at once. You could have multiple clients at the same time, each with their own unique brand voice and identity. Time management, as simple as it sounds, will be key to your success. A quality Illustrator course will teach you how to plan out your projects and stick to deadlines, two things that will help you master time management and become an in-demand professional.
Illustrator can be used to design a variety of tactics, making it an ideal software program for marketing professionals. Anyone can make an ad, but it’s important that what you make connects with your target customer. From emails and online ads to printed marketing materials, you’ll need multiple touchpoints to move customers to action. While it isn’t necessary to be a marketing expert, it is helpful to know the basics of marketing strategy and the platforms or tactics typically leveraged.
Because Adobe Illustrator is frequently used to create graphics for web and apps, having a basic understanding of IT or software design can offer you a more holistic perspective. While Illustrator is a more creative-focused program, you will often be working with professionals who handle the more technical side of things, like coding and designing websites, apps, and their navigation. Most Illustrator classes will briefly cover the fundamentals of how to design your projects in Illustrator to function well with your back-end programming, fostering better relationships between creative and technical teams. Plus, the more knowledge you have of IT and software design, the more troubleshooting you can handle on your own.
Graphic Designers, marketing professionals, and various other roles that commonly use Illustrator tend to have one thing in common: collaboration. Creative roles inherently lend themselves to a collaborative work environment, so it should come as no surprise that having excellent interpersonal skills will be crucial to your professional success. Traits like active listening, charisma, confidence, and the ability to compromise are essential. If you plan to work with multiple clients, you’ll need to be able to negotiate things like project scope and rates. It’s vital that you develop the skills that help you present your work with confidence while fostering healthy relationships with clients and partners, and thankfully, most courses will provide some guidance on this.
The difficulty of Illustrator is dependent on several factors, the central one being previous experience with other vector graphics programs. If you have experience with similar software, like Adobe Photoshop or CorelDRAW, you may find that the learning curve is less steep. Your proficiency in Illustrator also involves learning graphic design principles such as color theory, composition, and typography. If you’ve already mastered these skills or are inherently artistic, learning Illustrator shouldn’t be too challenging.
Adobe Illustrator is known for being user-friendly, but like any software, the more advanced skills can be more difficult to learn. Skills like using the pathfinder panel, creating custom brushes, working with clipping masks, and mastering the perspective grid are all examples of advanced topics that may take longer to learn. Ultimately, mastering the basics of Illustrator is accessible to anyone with the right amount of passion and drive.
In addition to some of the previously mentioned advanced skills, there are a few more that are considered particularly challenging. The blend and gradient mesh tools enable you to create realistic shading and lighting effects. By using gradient meshes, you can achieve intricate and lifelike color variations within objects, while the blend tool creates smooth color transitions between two or more shapes.
Opacity masks allow designers to create complex transparency effects. By using grayscale images or patterns, you can control the opacity of objects, revealing or hiding portions of your artwork creatively. This technique can help create fades, blends, and artistic transitions between elements.
Illustrator’s variable-width stroke tool creates dynamic and expressive lines. Designers can create more natural and hand-drawn effects by adjusting the width of strokes along their paths. This technique is valuable when creating artwork that requires a more organic and fluid appearance.
These are just a few of the advanced skills you can master in Illustrator. With an eye for design and a brain for brand development, anyone can master even these more challenging skills, especially with the assistance of an Illustrator training course.
Luckily for novices, learning the basics of Illustrator can be done in only a few days. Bootcamps and entry-level training courses typically last around a week or less and cover all the fundamentals that a beginner needs to know.
However, students hoping to learn the advanced features or want to use the program professionally will need far more training. In-depth professional training courses that cover beginner to advanced skills can run for several weeks to a few months. And, even with more extensive training under your belt, you will need on-the-job experience to fully master Illustrator.
There are many factors to consider when answering this question. The first factor is what learning environment is best suited for you. Do you excel in a collaborative environment where you can interact with your peers and receive instant feedback from your instructor? Or, do you prefer a more solitary learning environment, perhaps one where you can learn at your own speed?
You’ll also want to decide how much time you can commit to your education and what level of flexibility your schedule demands. Are you looking to immerse yourself in an intensive program? Do you work full-time and require your classes to be scheduled for evening and weekend hours?
In-person training offers face-to-face interaction with both your fellow students and your expert instructor. This collaborative environment is available for both full-time and part-time classes and provides structure and accountability, two things that can help you succeed. Online courses may lack this in-person interaction, but they make up for it with increased flexibility. Live virtual classes still offer instant feedback from your instructor and interactions with other students, while on-demand virtual courses allow for the most flexibility since you can decide where and when you learn.
Because Illustrator is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, learning the other products is a great idea. If you want to edit images, Photoshop is the industry-standard. Tweaking photos isn’t all that Photoshop does: it’s also a graphics editor and, with Firefly integration, its AI photo editing capabilities are growing more powerful.
After Effects is a popular tool for visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing, and is also used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television, for tasks like keying, tracking, and compositing, and creating visual effects such as explosions and lightning strikes.
Adobe Firefly lets you employ text prompts to generate images using generative AI. It’s conceptually similar to other AI image generators but offers a wider range of applications, allowing users to generate text effects and color palettes, as well as images.
InDesign is a page layout tool that’s used primarily for print but also can be used in digital publishing. A standard tool in the publishing industry, it’s often used by Graphic Designers and Production Artists to create posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, presentations, books, and ebooks.
Lightroom is used for image organization and image manipulation. It’s a great tool for a photo studio or a Photographer needing to handle numerous images. It doesn’t have all the image editing features of Photoshop, but it does offer a simpler interface that’s easier to use for standard tasks.
Premiere Pro is used widely in the film and TV industry, as well as by YouTubers and marketing and design professionals. A comprehensive video editing tool, it’s based on a visual timeline and can edit everything from commercials and music videos to TV series and feature-length movies. Features like Auto Reframe, which applies intelligent reframing to your footage (keeping the action inside the frame for different aspect ratios, are useful, as is the ability to snap graphic elements to guides, to each other, or to tracked items.
Chicago is a cultural and economic hub in the Midwest, boasting a diverse population, a world-renowned art scene, and multiple successful industries. These industries, and countless others, rely on Illustrator professionals to develop business logos, website graphics, print materials, and so many more marketing and brand tactics. With such a high need across various enterprises, there are plenty of roles for you to pursue, several of which are covered in the next section.
With an established and varied set of specialties, strong distribution networks, a skilled workforce, and a wide variety of public and private support, the manufacturing sector is thriving in Chicago. Manufacturing is an important part of the city’s economy, supplying 200,000 jobs in 6,800 companies, including factory manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation, logistics, and warehousing. Illustrator professionals collaborate with companies like Boeing, Caterpillar, and Tenneco to create technical illustrations, instructional graphics, and branded materials that communicate complex ideas clearly.
Chicago’s transportation industry generates $24 billion annually in output and employs more than 260,000 individuals, making it the largest in the nation. There are more than 16,000 transportation, distribution, and logistics firms located in the metro area, which is the highest in the nation. Firms such as United Airlines, Navistar, and Coyote Logistics use Illustrator to produce marketing graphics, infographics, and signage that convey key information quickly and clearly. From route maps to fleet branding, Illustrator ensures that visual materials meet both functional and aesthetic goals.
Nearly 200 years ago, Chicago established its first banks and exchanges. Boasting one of the most diverse financial industries among U.S. metros, the city is now home to the third-highest employment in the finance and insurance sector. The finance industry generated $132.3 billion in 2022, with 325,000 employees across 13,776 businesses. In this dynamic financial sector—home to giants like CME Group, Morningstar, and Northern Trust—visual communication is critical. Illustrator is used to design clean, professional graphics for reports, presentations, and marketing campaigns. Designers use vector graphics to translate complex data into accessible visuals, helping clients and stakeholders better understand financial insights.
Over 40 national medical and health associations are headquartered in Chicago, including the American Medical Association, the American Dental Association, and the American Hospital Association, which use Illustrator to create detailed diagrams, medical illustrations, and educational materials. The city also has many colleges and universities, and 3,000 biomedical and engineering students graduate here annually. With a concentration of experts and the city’s advancements in medical manufacturing, Chicago is an ideal environment for innovation in healthcare.
Thanks to Illustrator’s versatility, several job titles commonly leverage the software for their design and marketing tactics. A few major roles are listed below with a brief explanation of each to help you decide the right career path for you. Think of Illustrator mastery as a way to open multiple doors to different career paths. All you have to do is decide which door to walk through.
There are many different careers you could pursue that require Adobe certification. You could become a Graphic Designer and use graphics, text, colors, and animations to develop branding, advertising, and messaging. Graphic Designers often use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator in their daily work, so it’s a good idea to become certified in these two programs. The average salary for a Graphic Designer in Connecticut falls somewhere between $55,000 and $65,000 for those relatively new to the field.
As a Drafter at an architecture firm, you could use Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Fresco to sketch out designs and develop detailed diagrams, maps, and schematics. Drafters create technical plans by gathering drawings, determining specifications, outlining material and equipment needs, and creating diagrams using computer-aided design (CAD) software. Drafter salaries typically fall between $57,000 and $72,000.
Working in architecture demands a lot of training and education, but Adobe Illustrator is one skill you might not think of boosting for this career path. Architects are responsible for designing all kinds of structures and working with city planners to ensure the safety of whatever they design. They can use Adobe Illustrator to display and easily update professional renderings of their designs. You can expect to make around $102,000 as an Architect in Chicago.
Adobe Illustrator is often used by Fashion Designers to design fabrics with repeated patterns that retain the quality of their intricate details. “Flats”—black and white drawings of a garment as if it were lying FLAT on a table—can be created in Illustrator. They include accurate construction and styling details (unlike more artsy fashion illustrations) and can be scaled to any size. The average salary for a Fashion Designer in Chicago is $92,482, well above the national average.
The Graphic Design Certificate from Noble Desktop offers face-to-face interaction through its live online format. This three-month part-time (or one-month full-time) training offers hands-on experience in Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, three essential programs for Graphic Designers. You’ll learn to edit and retouch photos in Photoshop, create vector graphics in Illustrator, and design page layouts in InDesign. Throughout the course, you’ll create a stunning portfolio to showcase your talent to potential employers or clients. Tuition for this course includes one-on-one mentoring, setup assistance, and a free retake. Payment plans and other forms of financial assistance are available for those who need them.
Noble Desktop also offers Adobe Illustrator Bootcamp, an online course that covers beginner and advanced skills. You’ll create various graphics using the standard drawing tools, the Pen tool, type, compound paths, effects, layers, masks, patterns, blends, colors, and more. Noble Desktop’s drawing templates make mastering Illustrator’s vector pen tool a little easier, which is often a challenging skill for students. Other topics covered include how to create complex shapes from basic shapes and how to use these techniques for any kind of graphic, for both print and the web.
If you’re looking to offer in-person or online training to your office or team, Noble Desktop can help. It offers a variety of corporate training programs, including in Adobe Illustrator. You can order vouchers in bulk at a discount, choose which courses are available to employees, and even let your employees choose their schedule. Plus, you can choose to have your training hosted at a location of your choosing, live online, or at Noble Desktop’s Manhattan office.
With a top-notch customizable curriculum and instructors who are experts in their industries, Noble Desktop’s corporate training is designed to cater to your business or organization’s needs. For more information or to schedule a free consultation, you can reach out to Noble Desktop at corporate@nobledesktop.com.
In the heart of the Midwest’s finance capital, there’s opportunity everywhere. From tech startups in Fulton Market to powerhouse Fortune 500 firms in the Loop, Chicago offers a virtually endless array of ways to level up your skills in tech, business, data, and design. The city thrives on bold ideas, making it the perfect place to grow a career that is not only lucrative but also makes a real impact. With expert instructors with decades of experience, you’ll learn more about the subjects you’re interested in, all while receiving hands-on training. These instructors live and breathe to explore and work within their field, meaning they don’t just teach; they mentor, guide, and connect you to the heart of Chicago’s many successful industries and direct you to the most meaningful path to help you achieve your goals.
Noble Desktop’s partner school, Practical Programming, has state-of-the-art facilities conveniently located in downtown Chicago’s iconic Hayworth Building at 29 E. Madison Street, Chicago, IL, 60602. It’s an easy-to-find location for students from across the city to attend. The campus is modern, equipped with the necessary tech and tools you may need, and provides resources like Wi-Fi, comfortable workstations, and expert instructors and staff ready to help you learn. Getting there is simple, whether you’re commuting from the Loop, River North, or surrounding areas. The school is easily accessible from the CTA trains and buses, with nearby stops for major lines like the Red, Blue, and Brown. If you’re driving, you can park nearby at various parking decks and metered spots within walking distance. The central location means you won’t have to stress about making it to class, and that your training sessions can fit into any schedule with ease.
Adobe Illustrator supports branding, illustration, and vector graphics work across Chicago’s creative industries. Instructors at Noble Desktop have years of experience showing students how to use shapes, paths, and advanced tools to produce clean, scalable artwork.
Henry Gonzalez is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with over 30 years of experience in the federal government, leading engineering, program management, and acquisition initiatives in naval warfare, air traffic management, and homeland security. A retired senior executive, Henry now serves as a part-time instructor in Chicago, where he teaches project and program management, leadership, and strategic planning to professionals of all kinds. He holds the highest level of federal certification one can hold for acquisition program management and systems engineering. In addition, Henry was part of the core team that updated the Project Management Institute’s Standard for Program Management. Henry is also a certified Balanced Scorecard Professional and holds a Bachelor of Science in Ocean Engineering from Florida Atlantic University, along with a dual Master of Science in Ocean Engineering and Ocean Systems Management from MIT.
Robert Simon is a highly accomplished financial management professional and educator with more than four decades of federal and private sector experience. As a Financial and Management Curricula Instructor at Graduate School USA since 2007, he teaches courses in financial management, federal travel regulations, and organizational leadership, both virtually and in person. Prior to his teaching career, he held senior roles at the General Services Administration, overseeing a six-state regional budget of approximately $100 million, and at the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Management Service, where he led national training initiatives on electronic banking. Robert’s background spans accounting, budgeting, and program analysis, holding certifications as a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Government Financial Manager.
Edward (Scott) Dillion is a seasoned financial expert with over three decades of experience in the Department of Defense, where he specialized in a range of financial management areas like budgeting and auditing, as well as performance-based management and cost analysis. He holds an MBA from Southern Illinois University and a B.A. in Business Administration from Grove City College. After retiring in 2014, Scott pivoted to a second career in education and consulting. He teaches project management and marketing at Graduate School USA and has also taught courses in federal budgeting. Additionally, Scott serves as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Management Concepts Inc., where he helps develop financial management course materials. He also has a lifetime membership with the American Society of Military Comptrollers, holds a Top Secret security clearance with the Department of Defense, and is a recognized Tier 2 instructor at Graduate School USA for his wealth of experience.