Discover the fundamental uses of Illustrator in this introductory course provided by VDCI CAD Teacher, which offers strategies for creating graphics and text designs. Gain valuable skills for navigating and utilizing Illustrator for professional advancement, creating images from icons and logos to posters and billboards.
Key Insights
- Illustrator Creative Cloud (CC) is a subscription-based application provided through Adobe's Creative Cloud, primarily used for creating graphic images. It is part of a suite that includes Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, and Lightroom CC among others.
- In this course, learners will engage with foundational strategies and tools necessary to create attractive artwork, including creating 16 different icons and designing a postcard using Illustrator CC.
- By the end of the course, learners would have developed skills to effectively navigate and utilize Illustrator, empowering them to create almost any desired image.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Welcome to the VDCI CAD Teacher Introduction to Illustrator class. In this course, we will break down the fundamental uses of Illustrator in addition to providing strategies for creating graphics and text designs. In this video, we will discuss the practical uses of Illustrator for your professional advancement.
So, let's start by talking about what Illustrator is. Illustrator Creative Cloud, or CC, is a subscription-based application provided through Adobe's Creative Cloud. In addition to Illustrator, Adobe also provides other applications through their Creative Cloud, including common applications like Photoshop CC for photo enhancements, InDesign CC for print and content editing, and Lightroom CC for mass photo editing, as well as many additional applications.
While there is some overlap in the functions of these different applications, each one specifically has its strengths and primary uses. In addition to these applications, Adobe Creative Cloud also provides access to different fonts, as well as cloud storage. So, what are the primary uses of Illustrator? Well, Illustrator is an application that is primarily used for creating graphic images—from icons and logos to posters and billboards, and everything in between.
Throughout this course, we'll go over the foundational strategies and tools necessary to create attractive artwork, while also utilizing the powerful features of Illustrator CC. So, let's go into the folder we've downloaded and placed on our drive, and we'll double-click to open it and see what's inside. As we can see, we have our hands-on quizzes, a couple of different JPEGs (or image files), a fonts ZIP folder, as well as two PDFs.
The two PDFs show a preview of the content we'll be creating throughout this course. So, let's open up the first one, Icons Preview*, by double-clicking it. As we can see here, we have a white background with 16 different icons.
Throughout Lessons 1 and 2, we'll be using Adobe Illustrator CC to create each of these 16 icons. Let's now close this file by clicking the X, and open up the second, Postcard Preview*. This Postcard Preview shows the postcard we'll be creating in Lessons 3 and 4. As we can see, it features a variety of colors, designs, and text. We’ll go through the process of determining how we make some of these design decisions, and ultimately, how we create an attractive-looking postcard.
Let's close this out. So, by the end of this course, we'll have created all of these materials, as well as learned valuable skills for navigating and utilizing Illustrator to create artwork. With a little Illustrator know-how and experience, there's almost nothing you won’t be able to do to create the image you envision.
So, welcome to the VDCI CAD Teacher Introduction to Illustrator course, and I can't wait to go through the adventure of learning Illustrator with you. In the next video, we'll begin navigating through the application interface. See you there!