Welcome back my new design friends! If you read my last blog post, I gave you all a little homework assignment; check out the Adobe free trials on their website and see which application you wanted to get started with. For those of you that chose Adobe Illustrator as your current #1, I am right with you. Today’s blog post is actually going to be all about Adobe Illustrator and the wondrous magical things you can accomplish on this beautiful application.
All right, so quick recap: Adobe Illustrator is used to make seamless vector images that don’t lose their quality as you enlarge or shrink your work (thanks math!). Other common uses for Adobe Illustrator are all types of digital art; whether that be illustrations, logos, text manipulation, posters, and much more. Adobe Illustrator is the application I am most comfortable. It can be intimidating at first with it’s plethora of design tools, but once you sit down and just spend time familiarizing yourself with the layout, it gets so much easier.
No one is an expert right off the bat, I promise you. Most designers don’t start learning the programs until their 20’s at least. It’s not one of those skills that you need to begin at age five like dance or karate. There are those few who may have took design courses in highschool (rare) or participated in yearbook club and were introduced to the programs in a limited fashion there. But don’t be discouraged when you begin. These applications take time and patience, but that’s the beautiful thing about the design field; the challenges push you into a new realm of creativity. It may be a slow start, it really forces you to pay attention to details. Remember though, that everyone needs to start somewhere.
If you are a college student like myself and are worried about your lack of experience or portfolio work, please don't stress because everything you will need to know you will learn in your classes. If you aren’t in school and are just looking to gain some skills or knowledge, also don’t stress because with the amount of free resources we now available online for us to use is infinite. Some resources that I’ve really benefitted from are:
Lynda.com (a website that can teach you really anything and give you certifications)
GCFLearnfree.org (awesome youtube channel that teaches you the basics with cute animations)
Pinterest (offers thousands of ideas, inspirations, tutorials)
Learning these programs will be a snap for anyone who has the desire, drive, and passion for design. Notice I didn’t say talent or eye, that’s one of the things I love most about the digital art world. You don’t necessarily need a steady hand, an aptitude for art, hours of art lessons in your back pocket. Adobe programs are here to eliminate some of the limitations for us so that more people have the ability to express their creativity.
Alright, so back to the basics of Adobe Illustrator. Since it is used to make vector images (remember, the mathematical images), you have the option to save your file in many different formats. I am going to talk about the most common that you will end up using.
PDF: A type of file that illustrator can export. Since not everyone has the adobe programs, you won’t be able to share that file type with them. That’s where PDF comes in. It compresses your design (including any images or text) into a shareable format that can be share to any platform or software.
EPS: Stands for Encapsulated PostScript, and simply put it’s just a graphic file format for any kind of Adobe file. EPS is to Adobe Illustrator as JPEG is to any kind of photo.
SVG: Stands for Scalable Vector Graphics and is a file made up of XML (which stands for Extensible Markup Language File, and is just a text version of your file explaining the details of what it is) which allows you to scale your design to any size that you’d like.
There are tons more types of files types but starting out as a graphic artist these are the main types that I used. When or if you were to share your designs on a platform or with a client outside of the Adobe program that’s where we would typically use PDFs.
Where did Adobe come from and how did it start you may ask? According to AGI, it was first released in 1987 exclusively for the Apple Macintosh. From there it’s gone through many trials and tribulations, to get to the seamless interface it has now. It’s compatible with Windows as well, and typically if you want to share files between a Windows computer and a Mac you would send the file as an ai. (Illustrator file). The only differences between the usability on each computer are the keyboard commands, just slightly different but not significantly difficult.
Adobe Illustrator takes time to master like any other skill but is highly rewarding because you’ll be able to create beautiful digital works of art and express yourself online. It is never too late to start and there is always something new to learn. All the information I just shared with you are things that I was taught about Illustrator when I first started and the tidbits I thought were most helpful to know.
Keep an eye out for my next blog post!
Marina Parsons
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