Using Illustrator

Nice Typographic Sketch Effect

2009-06-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Using the Appearance Panel and the Scribble Effect, you can turn any font into a sketch-drawn look. Pretty cool!

30 Illustrator Video Tutorials

2009-06-09T06:20:00.001-07:00

These videos are a great collection that will get your vector on!

Recoloring Artwork

2009-05-18T11:37:00.001-07:00

Great tutorial by Mordy on Recoloring Artwork with Live Color.

Illustrator Key Object

2009-04-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

Aligning objects in Illustrator can be frustrating when the objects are dissimilar. Yes, the alignment options in the Control and Align panels are much better, but did you know that you can set a Key Object?

Select a range of objects and then single click on one of the object to set it as a key object. Illustrator CS4 will highlight the key object.
Then you can set the alignment of the other objects according to the key object.

Isn't that cool?

Illustrator CS4 Beyond-the-Basics

2009-04-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

Lynda.com has released a new title by my buddy, Mordy Golding, called Illustrator CS4 Beyond-the-Basics. It looks like Lynda.com is taking a more professional route in this series. There are some movies that show Mordy in a studio that are shot hi-def.

The title itself starts off with LivePaint and then talks more about Paths, 3D, Transformations and Effects, and more.

Cool Illustrator Plug-in: Xtream Path

2009-04-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

Xtream Path, by CValley Software, is a set of tools that allow you to work with paths a little easier than just the Direct Selection tool. There are demo videos on their site and I can think of a bunch of uses for these tools.

Multiple Artboards & Symbols

2009-04-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

In this video by Rufus Deuchler shows some techniques and advantages for using the new Multiple Artboards feature in Illustrator CS4.

He also shows how you can use Symbols as repeatable elements.

Graphic River

2009-04-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

I started selling on GraphicRiver.net. The site is a spinoff of FlashDen.net. Selling on Graphic River is very easy. You first have to read a set of instructions for posting graphics and trademarks, copyright infringement, etc. Then you take a test that is basically an overview of what you just read. Once you pass the test, you're ready to sell.

You can upload a variety of graphics into different categories. You don't get to set the price of the graphics you sell and graphic river takes a cut of the profits, but at least you can make money online, which is ideal.

Graphic River will review all of the materials that you upload and they actually turned down a few of the pieces that I sent them. It takes a while to figure out what they are looking for but for the most part, they are looking for original, trendy, graphic work.

If you've got the time and are willing to commit to their rules, it might be worth it to start submitting artwork to them.

Fun with Patterns

2008-12-16T09:13:00.000-08:00

Fun With Patterns

Creating patterns in Illustrator and Photoshop can be a blast. No, seriously. So, I was trying to come up with something that looked like a metal grid. Something like this:

I started in Photoshop, creating a new document that was a half inches wide, by a half inches high. I put two grid lines, one vertical, one horizontal, to find the center point. Then I drew a black circle in the middle with the Oval Shape tool. I copied the circles into the each corner, roughly centering each circles mid-point to the corners. Not easy to do, since Photoshop doesn’t allow you to see off-canvas objects. Then I turned off the background layer, and hit Command (Control) + Option (Alt) + Shift + E to isolate all of the vector shape objects onto a separate layer. I turned off all of the other layers and went to Edit to Define Pattern. Give the pattern a name and now I’m ready to go.

Unfortunately, when defining a pattern in Photoshop, it doesn’t preserve transparent areas. I created a new document and filled it with the pattern on a new layer. Hiding the background layer, I noticed that the black circles had a white background. “Tartar Sauce!”

So, then I figured, I’d take it to Illustrator. Even easier. In Illustrator, grab the Rectangle tool and click once. Set the width and height to a half inch. I need this square only as a guide, so I hit Command (Control) + 5.

Then I select the Oval tool and draw a black circle in the middle of the guide. Option (Alt) drag copies of the circle into each corner, registering the circles mid-point for each corner. In Illustrator, I need to clip the outside portion of the circles in the corners. So, I draw another square directly over the guide. This square needs no fill or stroke. Select that square and all of the circles in the corners, then go into the Pathfinder panel and choose Divide. Now, I can delete the portions of the circle I don’t need with the Direct Selection tool.

Finally, select the entire set and choose Edit to Define Pattern. Give the pattern a name and click OK. The pattern will appear in the Swatches panel. Draw out a larger rectangle and then click on the pattern to fill it.

Then I selected this rectangle, pasted it as a Smart Object into a new Photoshop file. I added a few Layer Styles and put in a ‘brushed metal’ background and got this:

Which is pretty cool, but not where I need to be. It turns out that the pattern I created in Illustrator needs to be reversed.

Starting the process all over again, I created the half inch square and set it as a guide. Then I drew in my black circles in the middle and corners. Then I drew a gray square over everything and sent it behind, Command (Control) + [. Selecting everything, I did a Pathfinder Divide again and then deleted all of the circles. Here’s what I ended up with:

Select what’s left over and then choose Edit to Define Pattern again. Create a new Rectangle and fill it with the final pattern. Select the rectangle and then bring it into Photoshop as a Smart Object. I added the following Bevel and Emboss layer style settings:

And then added a gradient overlay, from a medium gray to a light gray. Then I changed the background to black and Voila! I got what I was looking for.

Live Pen Plug-in

2008-11-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

Featured in the Print Regional Design Annual, Live Pen is a plug-in for Illustrator, which allows you to select from a set of pen nibs and tips for real pen-drawing feel. This will be a great addition to calligraphists and typographiles as well.

Find out more: http://www.01-lab.com/livepen.html

Multiple Artboards

2008-09-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

Illustrator CS4 now supports multiple artboards. I know, I know, Freehand had this capability for a long time, but now Illustrator finally can do it. But differently. It's not like multiple pages in Freehand or InDesign, it's very flexible. There's an artboard tool that allows you to modify or select each artboard. When you start a new document, you can choose how many artboards you want.

I think this is awesome, especially for someone who works in Illustrator for print design work. You can create collateral pieces now in a single Illustrator document, which saves a lot of headache's finding files, etc.

People Icon Symbol Library

2008-07-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

I added a new Illustrator Symbol library to the Adobe Exchange today. It should be available some time next week. It's a few illustrations of people icons - some doctors and a basic guy. Really simple stuff.

Enjoy!

3D Illustration

2008-07-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

So, It's been a while and I thought I'd put together a tutorial on using the 3D features in Illustrator to create an illustration. Keep an eye out for the tutorial.

Freehand > Illustrator

2008-01-24T10:13:00.000-08:00

Garth Bruner is posting some videos about Illustrator and how it's different from Freehand, for those migrating and those using Illustrator.

Tilde Key

2007-12-31T11:54:00.000-08:00

Did you know this? http://www.bittbox.com/illustrator/illustrator-the-tilde-trick/#more-324

Illustrator Script for Unique Swatches

2007-11-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

What do you get when Dr. Woohoo mashes up Adobe Illustrator CS3, Flickr and In The Mod: Color Analytics? A free swf Panel that runs inside AI CS3 that allows you to search Flickr & In The Mod, view the colors from each image or painting you select and then save them directly to the Swatches Panel in AI.

Download
AI CS3 + Flickr + ITM.

Article on Layers Magazine

2007-08-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

I've been published! My first article/tutorial has been published on Layers Magazine's website. The article is about using Illustrator and Flash and then introduces importing dynamic text with AS3. Getting Dynamic with Illustrator and Flash.

Illustrator CS3 & Dynamic Text for Flash CS3

2007-05-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

The integration between Illustrator and Flash has been hyped up with the release of Creative Suite 3. One of the things that is now possible to do with text in Illustrator is to make Flash text, or text that is ready to be used in Flash. Flash can create static, dynamic, and input text fields. Illustrator CS3 has the same capability and you can give the text fields instance names for scripting purposes.

So I tried creating a basic interface with buttons and some text fields. Then I saved the AI file and imported into Flash. When I test the Flash movie, I get the following error:

TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert flash.text::TextField@d18cef9 to flash.display.MovieClip. at flash.display::Sprite/flash.display:Sprite::constructChildren() at flash.display::Sprite$iinit() at flash.display::MovieClip$iinit() at menu2_fla::MainTimeline$iinit()

Even if I don't use any ActionScript to fill the dynamic text fields form an external text file, I still get this error.

If I just copy and paste ONLY the text fields from AI to FL, I do not get any errors and the ActionScript I wrote to fill the dynamic text fields works.

I have posted questions on several Adobe forums and asked others for help on this and so far, no response.

By the way, I have tried this on both Mac and PC platforms and the problem occurs on both. Does anybody have any ideas why this might happen?

Know How

2007-05-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

A new feature in Illustrator CS3 called 'know how' is a great little tool for getting contextual help from Adobe on Illustrator. With the know how panel active, you can click on a tool in the toolbox and the know how panel will give you information about that tool. If you need to know more, you can click on the search button and more live articles become available from the Adobe website.

Very nice feature indeed.

+ Freehand RIP +

2007-05-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, especially with the release of CS3, Freehand will go the way of PageMaker and many other products, as Adobe will no longer develop it. I've used Freehand, I've taught others how to use it and, honestly, I've never liked it.

It could be one of those things where I used Illustrator first and not Freehand and if it were the other way around, maybe I would've liked it. What I didn't like about it was that it just felt clunky. There were hundreds of palette's and features, but you had to seriously dig to find them.

I'm not going to miss it, will you?

CS3 30-day Trials now available!

2007-05-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.adobe.com/special/try_buy/trial_availability.html

Illustrator CS3

2007-04-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

Mordy Golding has a nice video podcast about the new features in Illustrator CS3. I'm really rev'd up about it now and can't wait to get my hands on it. There are some great features that are built-in to Illustrator that help people like me work with Flash. You can create symbols directly in Illustrator now, either graphic or movie clip. You can even create Flash text! Pretty amazing stuff.

Check it out.

IconFactory's Top 5 Pet Peeves with Illustrator

2006-09-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

iconfactory has been making some delicious icons for the Mac platform for years. I've used them in my own OS. They were creating these with Freehand, but have since moved to Illustrator and along the way, have run into som bumps listed in this article. Some of the things are usual things that Illustrator user's just deal with regularly, like making selections. My response to that peeve is to work in Artwork mode and zoom in tight. That's the best way to deal with difficult to select objects. The other peeve I can respond to is printing. I've never had trouble printing from Illustrator. I might've had to wait an eternity, but for the most part, my printing efforts have succeeded. I'm wondering if they are trying to print on inkjet or postscript printers as, of course, this would make a big difference. I find printing even to be better in CS2. Finally, I really don't think clipping masks are all that mysterious. It could be worse.

Snap to Point and Show Center Point

2006-08-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

I know, you want to get down to the point?!? Well in earlier versions of Illustrator, as I recall, any object showed it's center point with a small blue box that sort of looked like an anchor point in the center of the object. In CS2, that little blue box went up in smoke (or so I thought). It turns out that the option to show the center point appears in a palette that I never use: the Attributes palette:

Why is so important? Well when you want to align the center of a polygon or star to the corner of a rectangle, if you can't see it's center point, it gets really hard to do that. In the View menu there's an option, that's on by default, called Snap to Point. When this option is enabled, your cursor will change when your moving the center point of an object on top of an anchor point of another object. It changes from a black triangle, to a white triangle. This visual cue is an important aid in letting you know that you've achieved proper alignment.

Get the point?

Scale Strokes & Effects

2006-08-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

Applying transformations to objects that have strokes or effects applied to them can either just scale the object or scale the object and the strokes and effects. There's two ways to turn this option on. The first is a local method. Take a look at the Rotate dialog box:

At the bottom, there's an option for scaling strokes and effects. If you have an object that has patterns applied to it, you can turn off Object and leave Pattern on to just scale, shear, or rotate the pattern.

A global solution for scaling strokes and effects can be found in the preferences dialog box:

Turn on the Scale Strokes & Effects option and it will be turned on in any transformation dialog.