Adobe Illustrator is a relatively new program for me, I have had experience in the past, but in the past few weeks, I've really dived into the deep end, creating a movie poster for my #DES101 class.
Adobe Illustrator is an industry-standard vector graphics software, used by millions of designers and artists (Adobe 2020). You can create logos, mobile graphics, icons, book illustrations, product packaging and billboards, and lots more. The use of vectors means that the graphics can be blown up without losing any image qualities, compared to raster based images which will become very pixelated, as there is a finite number of pixels (Urban Sign and Print, 2019)
The first thing I thought was great about Illustrator was the tutorials and lessons you can access, designed for beginners like me, to help you navigate to program and gain some simple skills, like creating lines and shapes, and manipulating them.
These are a series of short videos, that you can follow along with, by downloading the illustrator file that goes along with these tutorials.
I also like that you can create layers, edit their order, as well as lock and hide certain layers as well. Being able to lock a layer meant that there was no way to accidentally erase it, especially while I was still learning how to navigate the program. Being able to hide layers was also very useful to be able to work on the layer underneath, and see what you are doing.
For my movie poster, I used the 3D rotate effect, to situate my text on the faces of a cube, and distorted it to create several layers, making the text appear 3D.
Being able to connect other Adobe applications such as Adobe Colour and Adobe Fonts, within the interface was very handy, as everything you need was all there in one program.
However, with illustrator one thing that I don't like is that it can be hard and confusing to navigate, and there are so many different panels, and multiple ways to do the same task, like keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl + z,c,v,g) as well as the menu bar at the top, and panels down both sides of the screen. This is probably just my personal preference, it is not something that severely impacts my experience.
I had a great experience learning to use one of the most popular vector graphic software programs in the world. I hope that I continue to develop my skills in this program throughout my design degree.
References:
Adobe (2020) Illustrator https://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator.html?promoid=PGRQQLFS&mv=other
Adobe (2020) Illustrator tutorials https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/tutorials.html?promoid=599F8QXB&mv=other
Urban Sign and Print (July 3, 2019) Vector vs Raster Graphics: What is the difference https://urbansignandprint.com/blogs/tutorials/vector-vs-raster-graphics
Adobe (2020) Color wheel, a color palette generator | Adobe Color https://color.adobe.com/create
Adobe (2020) Adobe Fonts | Explore Unlimited Fonts https://fonts.adobe.com/
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