Adobe Illustrator: Getting Past The Blank Canvas
by: AndrewWhiteman |
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Adobe Illustrator is often the least used member of the graphic design trinity which also includes InDesign (or QuarkXPress) and Photoshop. Its main use is the creation of print graphics, anything from a corporate logo or a map of directions to your office. It can also be used to build website layouts and web graphics include Flash animations. There are also several functions relating to page layout, such as the ability to link paragraphs of text and run text around images.
We often find that delegates attending our Adobe Illustrator training courses have difficulty in getting to grips with the program, finding applications for it and incorporating it into their workflows. One of the main reasons for this is what we sometimes refer to as "Blank Canvas Syndrome". The thing is: at first glance, Adobe Illustrator often seems a lot less enticing and inviting than, say, Photoshop. To many new users, Photoshop is like a big city with bright lights and lots of exciting things to do and places to go. By contrast, Illustrator can seem like a wasteland; there's just nothing there when you create a new document; it's up to you to create everything from scratch.
Adobe Illustrator training courses need to do more than simply teach delegates how to use the various tools and techniques. Delegates also need to learn how to get past that intimidating blank page they see when they create a new image. We've identified four main techniques for curing "Blank Canvas Syndrome". Firstly, to identify precisely what type of artwork you need to create. Secondly, to use Illustrator's Live Trace facility to generate useful vector content. Thirdly, to use scanned images as background elements within your drawings which can act as guides and points as reference for the artwork you create. And, finally, to base new elements you create on elements that already exist within your drawings.
The most successful Illustrator training courses that we run are for people who know exactly what they want to use the program for. It could be cartographers, technical illustrators or fabric designers; as long as they have a specific brief, we can show them the best techniques to solve their particular requirement. However, for a lot of delegates, Illustrator is something they feel they could and should be using but they don't really know where to start.
For those users who are not using the program in a very pointed fashion, we always try to emphasise that creating Illustrator artwork doesn't have to mean originating every single stroke from scratch. We show users how they can use imported graphics as a starting point for their own artwork. For example, keeping scanned images on a background layer and drawing over them using the pen tool or converting bitmapped images into vectors with Illustrator's Live Trace utility.
Illustrator's Live Trace function is a powerful built-in utility which converts bitmapped images into editable Illustrator vector images. It contains a series of presets for tracing specific types of image, such as colour or black and white logos, line art, charts or technical drawings. As well as these presets it is also possible to create your own customised settings. The artwork produced by the Live Trace function will almost always need to be cleaned up and modified before becoming useable as Illustrator artwork. However, it can be a huge time saver and can be a welcome alternative to drawing elements from scratch.
As well as tracing, it is also often useful to just keep an image on a background layer and constantly refer to it as you create your artwork. It can also be useful to reduce the opacity of the background image to about 40 or 50 percent so it doesn't become obtrusive. Sometimes you may manually trace around areas of these reference images. Other times, you may just use it for reference, so you can check the dimensions or shape of elements that you create in the foreground.
Another trick we always point out to delegates attending our Illustrator training courses is the ease with which you can create elements which are variations on existing elements within your drawing. Illustrator has powerful techniques for creating transformed copies of an object. It also allows you to place multiple strokes and fills on an object and to apply effects to each of them. Thus, for example if you need to create four concentric circles, you can just create one circle and give it four strokes, using the Offset Path command to position each of them.
In short, that blank Illustrator page can soon be filled with lots of funky stuff. The trick is to realise that, once you decide what it is you want to create, your can accelerate the process of drawing by tracing elements from bitmapped images, using images as points of reference and basing new items within your drawing on elements that you've already created.
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About the Author
The The writer of this article is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Illustrator Classes in London and throughout the UK.
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