Beginners Adobe Illustrator CS5 Tutorial

Discover how to create an efficient, organized Illustrator workspace by configuring panels, palettes, and workspaces, and adjust preferences to boost speed and creativity for design tasks.

Create a new Illustrator document by configuring the artboard setup, document name and intent (print or web), and selecting color mode, bleed, raster effects, and pixel grid alignment.

Learn to set up the Illustrator workspace by arranging panels, using the tear-off type tool menu, hiding panels with the tab key, and saving a workspace.

Learn to minimize clutter by customizing Illustrator CS5 workspaces, remove unused panels, arrange essential tools, and save your preferred layout so you can return to it instantly.

Learn time-saving keyboard shortcuts in Adobe Illustrator CS5 by focusing on 12–14 core commands to speed workflows, and create custom shortcut sets, including a place command shortcut.

Learn to customize preferences to boost Illustrator efficiency, including nudge factor, keyboard increments with shift, tooltips, and handling plug-ins, scratch disks, and tabbed documents.

Explore how to select and align objects in Adobe Illustrator using visual methods, color or stroke weight, rulers, and space-based distribution, including key-object distribution.

Master the basics of selecting in Illustrator CS5 with selection, direct selection, and group selection tools. Learn to move, resize, duplicate with shift, nudge, and navigate groups and anchor points.

Explore the magic wand and lasso tools in Adobe Illustrator CS5, using color and stroke tolerances to select fills, strokes, and blending modes, then manipulate anchor points for precise edits.

Learn to align objects in Adobe Illustrator using the align panel to the artboard, to a selection, or to a key object, then distribute spacing and snap to guides.

Enable smart guides to reveal alignment lines, anchor point coordinates, and path labels, then tailor colors, object highlighting, and snapping tolerance in preferences.

Learn how to create basic shapes in Adobe Illustrator, including squares, polygons, and stars, with practical tips and tricks that enhance shape tools, such as holding shift while drawing.

Master drawing rectangles and rounded rectangles in Illustrator, adjust shape with shift for squares, spacebar movement, and arrow keys to fine-tune corner radii and anchor points.

Draw ellipses and circles with center-drawing and the shift key, create a donut by dividing objects, and adjust fill, stroke, and polygon sides with the appearance palette and arrow keys.

Learn to use the star and flare tools in Adobe Illustrator CS5, adjusting radius and points, using shift, alt, and ctrl to create proportioned stars and lens flares.

Learn to create and modify geometric shapes in Illustrator CS5, using line segments, arcs, spirals, rectangles, grids, and shortcuts to rotate, duplicate, and edit with the direct selection tool.

Explore illustrator's hidden math feature to scale shapes precisely using add, subtract, multiply, and divide with the built-in calculator, making polygons twice as big or 1.5 times smaller.

Learn a quick tip: the tilde key in the upper left of your keyboard lets you draw multiple copies of any shape or tool in Illustrator.

Discover how to create rounded corners in Adobe Illustrator by selecting the object, choosing effect, stylize, round corners. Turn on preview and adjust the radius for shapes and polygons.

Explore how Illustrator treats objects as an object oriented program with stroke and fill options. Learn to use the swatches panel to manage fill colors, gradients, and patterns.

Learn to use Illustrator's swatches panel to manage document-specific colors, merge colors from other documents, find and organize swatches, and save or share swatch libraries across Adobe apps.

Colorize vector objects in Adobe Illustrator CS5 by applying solid-color fills to selected shapes, controlling fill versus stroke with the swatch palette in the painting workspace.

Select a Kuler theme online, apply it to Squeaky the parrot in Illustrator, and let the software assign colors to selected areas via swatches and color guide.

Learn to apply Adobe Illustrator CS5 patterns by filling objects with decorative patterns from the swatch, and use transform options to control pattern versus object movement.

Learn to create custom patterns in Adobe Illustrator CS5 by designing simple patterns and clip-based patterns, and using an invisible clipping box to control how artwork tiles.

Learn how to modify existing patterns in Illustrator by dragging swatches to edit, ungrouping objects, adjusting color and size, and redefining patterns for greater design control.

Explore how strokes work in Adobe Illustrator, from creating dashed lines and varied cap styles to outlining shapes, adjusting gaps, thickness, and arrowheads to design maps and road graphics.

Explore creating and applying gradient fills in Illustrator, using linear and radial gradients, gradient sliders, and opacity to craft color blends. Save your custom gradients as swatches for reuse.

Create and save custom swatches in Illustrator's swatches panel by adding new colors or sampling from images with the eyedropper, then name and store them as user defined libraries.

Color a fish by turning swatches into global colors in Illustrator. Use the direct selection tool to select areas in a group and apply global red and blue.

Explore transformation in Adobe Illustrator by editing objects made of mathematical strokes and fills, which are resolution independent, using rotation, scaling, and the reflection tool.

Learn to transform objects in Adobe Illustrator CS5 using rotate and scale, including creating petals with gradients, roughen effects, and precise copies for a sunflower design.

Master the transform panel in Adobe Illustrator CS5 to precisely adjust width, height, x, y; set origin points, control pattern versus object scaling, and align to pixel grid.

Explore how transform each behaves differently for individual objects and groups, applying scale, move, rotate, reflect, and random options to create varied patterns, and try transform again for further effects.

Create a reflection of the word using the reflect tool, apply a linear gradient with adjustable opacity, and add gaussian blur for a soft edge.

Master the free transform tool to resize, skew, and move items with drag and modifier keys, and compare it to the selection tool and perspective grid with perspective selection tool.

Learn how layers organize objects in Adobe Illustrator CS5, turn layers on and off, and use the transparency panel for blending modes and opacity.

Explore how Illustrator's layers organize complex documents by toggling visibility and locking layers. Understand stacking order of layers and objects and how this differs from Photoshop's raster approach.

Create named layers for flowers, leaves, pretties, and background to organize a growing illustrator project. Move grouped objects between layers using color indicators to track the active layer.

Explore layer options in Illustrator CS5, double click to open options dialog, name layers, adjust guide box colors, and note that template layers don't print, with show/hide and preview controls.

Master layer panel options in Illustrator CS5, including creating and managing layers and sublayers, visibility and locking controls, clipping masks, isolation mode, and paste remembers layers.

Master copying with the layers panel in Adobe Illustrator by selecting a layer, using edit copy and paste, and dragging a layer to another document to create a duplicate.

Discover how opacity and blending modes function in Illustrator, applied to individual objects through the transparency panel, unlike Photoshop’s layer-wide approach.

Merge selected layers and flatten artwork in Illustrator to simplify your design, with the option to unmerge later. Compare Illustrator’s non-destructive layer control to Photoshop's limited merging.

Learn how Adobe Illustrator CS5 functions as a typesetting program, not a word processor. Build text containers, place type on a path, and adjust kerning and tracking in Illustrator.

Learn to treat text as a typesetting task in Illustrator, create and resize a type container, manage margins and overflow, and apply open type fonts like Miriad Pro.

Learn to work with point type in Adobe Illustrator CS5, including no margins, rotating and aligning text boxes, and switching to container text.

Convert shapes into type containers with the area type tool, turning ellipses into text boxes, and duplicate for preserving stroke and fill.

Learn to place and format type on any path in Illustrator, using the ellipse and pen tools, adjust line margins, overflow, and mirror text along a path.

Master the character panel in Adobe Illustrator CS5 to adjust fonts, size, leading, kerning, tracking, baseline, anti-aliasing, and language dictionaries for accurate typography.

Explore formatting text in Illustrator using the paragraph panel, learning left, center, right, and justified alignment, indentation, spacing, and hyphenation to shape each paragraph.

Learn to boost efficiency in Illustrator by creating and applying character and paragraph styles, enabling consistent fonts, colors, and spacing across headings and body text with a single update.

Connect two or more type boxes to create threaded text, manage overflow, and import Word text via place, paste, or drag, removing formatting as needed.

Explore text in Adobe Illustrator CS5, tackle area text issues, place text on paths and curves, use the eyedropper beyond color, and convert text to outlines for printing.

Demonstrates how the eyedropper in Illustrator moves color and text attributes—fill, stroke, transparency, and character/paragraph styles—across vector and raster content.

Place text on a circle in illustrator cs5 by typing on a path, then make top and bottom readable using either two circles or by cutting the circle in half.

Learn to create custom tabs and swap symbols in Illustrator CS5, using decimal tabs, leaders, the glyphs panel, and Find and Replace to convert dollar signs to pounds.

Convert type to outlines in Adobe Illustrator CS5 to turn text into objects with controllable shapes. Balance the trade-off of losing font editability and know when to convert for press.

Master the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator CS5 by learning to create anchor points, connect strokes, combine paths, and make shapes and masks.

Master the pen tool by placing anchor points to create straight and curved paths, close shapes, and manage anchors with add, delete, and convert functions using direction handles.

Learn how to manipulate pen tool objects in Adobe Illustrator CS5 by adding, subtracting, converting anchor points, using direct selection, spacebar for live anchor-point adjustment, and alignment to perfect shapes.

Combine paths to build objects in Illustrator by drawing shapes with the pen tool, cutting, reflecting, and aligning pieces, then apply gradients and shadows to imply depth.

Create a mask shape in Adobe Illustrator by starting with a rectangle, adjusting anchor points with add, convert, and direct selection tools to balance the sides and shape eye slits.