Creating an Illustrator document for VCP118-2
- 1. Creating a new file Illustrator
- 3. Restoring default preferences The preference fire controls how command settings appear on your screen when you open Adobe Illustrator program. Each time you quit Adobe Illustrator the position of panels and certain command settings are recorded in difference preference files. If you want to restore the tools and settings to their original default settings, you will need to delete the preference file. Adobe Illustrator will create a new one the next time you start the program and save. Adobe Illustrator CC Classroom in a Book
- 4. Restoring default preferences MAC USERS: As soon as the Application’s Icon is clicked, hold down the Shift, Control, Option, and Command keys. Continue holding until after the application is open. WINDOW USERS: As soon as the Application’s Icon is clicked, hold down the Alt, Control, and Shift keys. Continue holding until after the application is open.
- 5. Adobe Illustrator New Document Print presets After opening the application you are presented with a variety of options. At the top left of the screen you have two view options, Home and Learn. Home will show you recent files that you have worked on (if you have deleted your preference file, this may be empty). You have the option of sorting these by date, name, size, or kind. There are also a row of common preset sizes. Learn will offer you Hands-on tutorials and tutorials on the web. Some of these we will cover in this course. VIEW OPTIONS
- 6. Adobe Illustrator New Document Print presets Under Home and Learn areas are two buttons, Create new and Open. They are pretty self-explanatory, to start a new black document, you will select Create new and to continue working on a document, select Open. For now, select the Create new button. CREATE NEW & OPEN
- 7. TOP BARYou should see a screen similar to this. The Template area might be different since this is updated regularly. There are 4 major areas, the top bar, the Blank Document Presents, Templates, and on the far right, Present Details. BLANK DOCUMENT PRESETS TEMPLATES PRESET DETAILS
- 8. TOP BAR The top bar repeats the ability to to see your recent files and saved files along with preset groups. The groups are Mobile, Web, Print, and Film & Video. Each of these have a common size. For instance, Print, shown here, has letter, A4. legal, and tabloid as its presets.
- 9. These are the Print presets. The most common sizes in the US are letter, legal, and tabloid. You will need to know these three sizes. Letter is 8 ½ by 11, legal is 8 ½ by 14, and tabloid is double letter size or 11 by 17 inches. Most professional in-house personal printers can handle these paper sizes. BLANK DOCUMENT PRESETS
- 10. Templates are a good place to find inspiration. You’ll notice the on this screen, the three shown are free and these can be downloaded and modified. Others may be available, but cost. They can still provide inspiration for your own design. TEMPLATES
- 11. This shows the setting for the selected preset, in this case, letter size. Here is where you’ll set up your new document, picking the size, orientation, artboards, and bleeds. PRESET DETAILS
- 12. Since you’re not a professional graphic designer, you’ll probably not want to work in Points. Points were devised for type with 72 points to an inch. It’s great for small measurements like with type. You’ll probably want to switch this setting to inches instead. The other options are picas (another form of measurement used by graphic artist), Millimeters, Centimeters, and Pixels. If you were designing for Adobe After Effects or Adobe Premiere, you would probably choose pixel for your unit of measurement. UNIT OF MEASUREMENT
- 13. Here is where we decide the orientation of our new document. There are three choices although you only see two. They are Portrait, Landscape, and Square. Portrait orientation has the longer part on the left and right sides, Landscape has the longer part on the top and bottom. Square, of course is equal on all sides. When you choose a preset the width and height are automatically filled, but these can be changed to whatever dimensions you want. ORIENTATION WIDTH & HEIGHT
- 14. Artboards are like individual pages. They can always be added later in the document. In a later lesson, we will cover artboards in detail. For now, keep the setting at 1. ARTBOARDS
- 15. The bleed is the amount of area the extends beyond the document edge. It's difficult for printing equipment to apply ink up to the cut edge of a sheet of paper. So an extra .125" (3mm) margin is typically added on each side of the design, enabling the background color, graphic, or image to extend past (i.e., "bleed off") the paper's final trim edge. This extra bleed area will be cut off the printed sheet. BLEED The illustration on the left shows a page printed with bleed, before trimming. will be 8.75" x 11.25" before being trimmed to a finished size of 8.5" x 11". The illustration on the left shows a page printed with bleed, before trimming. When trimmed, the finished piece will have color or graphic content extending to the finished, cut edge on all four sides. The illustration on the right shows a page designed without any bleed. When trimmed, the finished piece will have an unprinted border on all four sides.
- 16. Whether you’re a designer or you’re getting a design, it’s important to know the difference between the RGB and CMYK color modes so you can plan and optimize each stage of the design process. That goes beyond just knowing what the letters stand for because it’s more about knowing which one is the best for your project. Depending on where and how the final result is displayed, one color space is always better than the other. Both RGB and CMYK are modes for mixing color in graphic design. As a quick reference, the RGB color mode is best for digital work, while CMYK is used for print products. But to fully optimize your design, you need to understand the mechanisms behind each. https://99designs.com/blog/tips/correct-file-formats-rgb-and-cmyk/ COLOR MODE
- 17. RGB (Red, Green and Blue) is the color space for digital images. Use the RGB color mode if your design is supposed to be displayed on any kind of screen. A light source within a device creates any color you need by mixing red, green and blue and varying their intensity. This is known as additive mixing: all colors begin as black darkness and then red, green and blue light is added on top of each other to brighten it and create the perfect pigment. When red, green and blue light is mixed together at equal intensity, they create pure white. Designers can control aspects like saturation, vibrancy and shading by modifying any of the three source colors. Because it’s done digitally, the designer manipulates how the light on the screen manifests to create the color they want. https://99designs.com/blog/tips/correct-file-formats-rgb-and-cmyk/
- 18. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key/Black) is the color space for printed materials. A printing machine creates images by combining CMYK colors to varying degrees with physical ink. This is known as subtractive mixing. All colors start as blank white, and each layer of ink reduces the initial brightness to create the preferred color. When all colors are mixed together, they create pure black. Use CMYK for any project design that will be physically printed, not viewed on a screen. If you need to recreate your design with ink or paint, the CMYK color mode will give you more accurate results. https://99designs.com/blog/tips/correct-file-formats-rgb-and-cmyk/
- 19. Sometimes you may use an effect in Adobe Illustrator, such as a drop shadow, and Illustrator will render it as a raster effect. This part will not be a mathematical element like most of Illustrator, but more like Photoshop using pixels instead. In this case, Illustrator needs to know what resolution to render these effects. You have three choices; High at 300 ppi, Medium at 150 ppi; and Low at 72 ppi. Generally, if you are going to print the design on a printer, you’ll need high. If you are going to only use the design on a screen, such as for web design, then low will work fine. The higher the raster effect, the larger the file will become. I usually keep it at high and adjust resolution on exporting the file. RASTER EFFECTS
- 20. The Preview Mode is who you want to view your document. You will mostly like not change it from Default. Later, if you wish to view you document in another mode, you can switch it in the application. PREVIEW MODE
- 21. If you select More Settings, you will see this screen. It is all the previous options on a single screen. Your final step would be to select Document.