The Graphic Design Hound

Art Instruction - An Illustrative Design Software

No matter where you go or what you do, you will always be surrounded by some form of graphic art.

From product labels to step-by-step diagrams, the possibilities are virtually endless. Designers use art materials to compose commercial illustrations, cartoons, and logos for professional or personal use in every day living.

One of the most popular tool to use for graphic design is Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator is a vector art program in use by many of today’s graphic designers; It allows for the creation of many designs you see throughout the day (not to mention that you can create original art for sale ). Included are features that make graphics designing easier and simpler.In this article we will cover just what Illustrator can do for you.

The New, Old Kid on the Block

Illustrator has been reviewed by many art schools in American as one of the best graphic programs for vector based artwork; And if you don’t know how to create a certain effect, there is a help button providing art lessons for the chosen topic.

Recently, it has been upgraded from Illustrator CS4 to CS5. With that upgrade, new tools and features have been integrated into the program.

A New Perspective on a Fine Art Instruction Tool

The Perspective Grid tool, the Perspective Selection too, and the Shape Builder tool are a few of the new and easy to work with tools introduced.

The Perspective Grid tool adds a default grid to the page that can be visually modified. Many of the normal drawing tools work in perspective when moving or scaling perspective objects with the Perspective Selection tool. With the Shape Builder tool You can work with selected shapes to merge and subtract the overlapping areas.

What Are Some of the Amazing New Features?

With Illustrator CS5 come variable-width strokes, quoted by many art instruction schools as “the best improvement to happen to strokes in a long time”.

The Width tool allows you to take a standard stroke and change the width dynamically by clicking on a stroke and dragging away from the center of the path.Compared to the old process of outlining a stroke, adding points, and then editing them with the Direct Selection tool, this tool is a huge time saver.

The often forgotten Brush panel gets a new, innovative type of brush: the Bristle Brush. This allows Photoshop-like brushes to be created and used with the paintbrush tool in Illustrator.

There are two new drawing modes now: draw inside, and draw behind. Draw inside draws inside a selected object (basically creating a clipping path automatically). Draw behind does exactly as it says and draws behind the selected object(s). If nothing is selected, it draws beneath all objects on a selected layer.

With the proper skill and/or training you could teach children’s art classes and have fun making graphics using a program you love. Even if you think you’ve “mastered” Illustrator, there are always plenty of new and intriguing art instruction videos online to help you get to the next level.

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