Adobe Illustrator for Non-Artists

OK! So, let's get started learning to use Illustrator by doing something. We'll begin with this fun HUD ring project which looks easy (and it is), but it also introduces you to a lot of tools and techniques you'll use frequently in Illustrator.
First - I'll show you what the resulting circle will look like and explain why we're going to be careful about alignment and spacing for this project. Then we'll make a new document, set up the fill color to use and create some rectangles.
You'll learn to use the Alignment tools to align the shapes and how to make a blend from two shapes. You'll see how to view what is happening in the Layers palette and how to expand objects like Blends to break them into their component parts. You will see how the Group Selection tool can be used to select a shape inside a group so you can do something with it. By the end of this lecture you'll have the beginnings of your HUD ring made.

Things are moving a bit faster now. We'll make some more shapes by copying the ones we already have and making minor changes to them. You will also learn a shortcut for repeating the last copy command - it saves a lot of time! You will see how to make a brush from the shapes you've made and how to apply the brush to a circle.
You will learn how to make your brush do double the work by duplicating and shrinking your circle and flipping the brush across the circle so the result is a much larger and more detailed piece of work. This lets you get more mileage out of your brush - saving you time and still giving you a great result.
You've done it! By the end of this lecture you know all you need to know to make your first HUD ring.

Two things to do! First you will learn to save a file in Illustrator. You'll see how you should save it (as an .ai file) and what options you need to focus on in the Illustrator Options dialog (HINT: none of them!).
Then, it's over to you. It's time for you to practice what you have learned so far and make your own HUD ring.

Gears are fun to make and they help you learn and practice rotation techniques. In this Lecture you will make your first gear in Illustrator. You will learn how to calculate a good rotation angle to use and how to rotate a shape multiple times around an object. You will learn how to align shapes so that one object doesn't move and all the others move to align to them - it's called a key object and you'll learn how to use them.
You will also learn to use the Pathfinder tool to do things such as cutting a hole in something and merging a series of independent objects into one object.
We'll continue to check out objects in the Layers palette as we make them - this is a key concept to grasp as understanding the Layers palette will help you when you make more complex art - so starting now is a great idea.
You will also learn what a compound shape is and how to recolor a shape.
Phew! there's a lot of learning jammed into this class.

Ok! Are you ready? There's a lot going on in this lecture. You'll start by using the Zig Zag effect to add some points to your shape. We'll do some math here to work out how to get the exact number of points you need. Don't worry if you suck at math - I'll give you some values to use. And, rest assured that in future you will practically never need to make exact calculations when using this tool - this project is a bit of an exception.
You'll learn to use the Appearance panel to determine some things about a shape and learn why and how you would expand the shape to bake the zig zag effect into the shape.
Other techniques you will learn in this lecture are to get Illustrator to make calculations for you, how to use the Shape Builder tool, and another rotation tool that is handy in some circumstances.

If you thought you knew everything there was to know about making gears - this lecture will prove otherwise. In this lecture you'll learn to make a triangle and how to round the points of a triangle. You will  learn to use a circle as a cutting line to round one side of a shape.  You will learn to use the Scale tool to adjust points on a shape together. You will see how to solve the problem when a shape loses its center point and when you need to know where its center is.
This lecture is packed with some handy Illustrator tools and techniques that build on your skill base. And, at the end, you have another gear shape. Can we say Steampunk anyone?

So, now you know some techniques for making gears, it's time for you to practice. At the minimum you should reproduce the three gears here so you practice what you've learned. Once you've done this, post an image of your gears to the Q&A section so I can review it.

Of course, if you have any questions, post them there too so I can help you out.

I think you are going to love this section - these ribbon lines are just so beautiful and you can make them any color you like. They are highly saleable designs - people pay money for these! And they are easy to make.

So, what you'll learn in this first part is how to use the Pencil tool to draw some wiggly lines - they aren't meant to be straight and the ribbons just won't work if they are straight! You will see how the Pencil tool will automatically smooth your lines as you draw.

Once you have some lines, you'll create a blend of the lines so you end up with a complex array of lines that look just great.

You'll then see how to expand your blend and break out the lines so they are all individual lines so you can do something with them.

So far so good, but wait! This is just the beginning - in the next lecture you'll recolor them with a beautiful gradient.

So, now you have made your lines, it's time to color them. You will learn how to turn the lines from stroked lines into filled shapes. I'll explain why and how to do this and how to ungroup the lines once you have done this.

Then you will see how to add color to the lines using a gradient. You will see where to find the gradients installed with Illustrator and how to edit them to make them your own.

You will also see how to Hide and Show the Edges to make working with the design easier and how to blend the lines using a Blend Mode so they are darker where they overlap.

The result of this work is a beautiful set of colored ribbon lines - I think you will love the result.

In this lecture you will see what happens when you add the ribbon lines to a black background. Well, the results are dramatically horrible as you will see! The lines are invisible.

You will learn what the problem is and how to solve it by isolating the blend effect you applied to the lines as between the lines and so the lines don't blend into the black background.

You will also learn how to add an outer glow to the ribbon lines so they look more striking on the black background.

In this section you will learn to make a pattern in Illustrator. Before you can make a pattern you will need something to make the pattern out of and that's where we will start. In this lecture you will learn to make a hexagon shape that has two strokes on it.

To do this you will learn to use the Appearance panel to add an additional stroke to the shape.

You will also learn how to create a set of tints for a color and how to make a Global Color.

Now we have our shape, it's time to make the pattern. You will learn how to access the Pattern Make tool and you will learn your way around the Pattern Options dialog.

You will see how to set up the pattern and how to make adjustments to it using the options available.

Once we're done with the dialog, you will see the pattern swatch created and you will learn how to put the pattern to use by filling a shape with it.

Once you have made your pattern you will want to save it so you can use it over and over again. In this lesson you will learn how to save a pattern so that you can access it at any time in the future.

You will also learn how to find and access the pattern swatch you saved so that you can use it in a new document.

In this lesson I'll show you how to make another pattern - this time using a Transform effect. You will learn to use the Transform effect and how to expand the result to get a series of individual objects.

Now we have a series of individual hexagons arranged in a grid you will see how to add the two strokes to the shapes as we did earlier and how to remove some of the shapes to create a more interesting design. 

You will also learn how to blend the remaining shapes into the pattern we created earlier using a blend mode and how to adjust the Opacity of the remaining shapes so that the look of the shapes is varied across the background.

This quick lesson teaches how to use the Magic Wand to make a selection of your shapes. You can click on a shape to target it and then use the Magic Wand tool by setting its Opacity option to select all other shapes that have that same Opacity. This is a quick way to find and select shapes formatted in the same way when you want to do something to them.

Now we have created a group of elements, let's put them together into an image. All these elements are thematically similar so they will go together really well.

We'll start out saving the background as a new file so we don't lose our original work. We'll check out the detail in the file and organize it neatly. We'll lock everything down and create a new layer. We'll add the gears we made to the file and size them, place them, recolor them, and blend them into the background.

In this lesson you will see how to add the ribbon element to the design. You will see how to place it and to adjust it's gradient fill so it blends better into the image. You will also see how to move a shape from a layer to a new layer in Illustrator.

Once the ribbon is dealt with, we will add the HUD ring and the original shapes that went together to make the brush. We'll place and blend these into the image too to add texture.

At this point we'll look at the design and see which elements we can duplicate - making copies of these shapes is a great idea as it lets us take one shape and make many element from it. It also helps give the entire illustration a more cohesive look.

Learn how to make duplicates, place them and blend them. You will also see how to adjust stacking of the objects and how to adjust colors as the illustration is coming together.

To finish up the illustration, see how to create a clipping mask to hide the elements which are over the edge of the artboard. This neatens up the design so it looks tidy. You will also see how you can work with this clipping mask to add some polish to the image.

Then see how to save the file as a jpeg image (suitable for use on the web or a Windows background) and an .ai file that you will need if you want to edit the image in future.

Thank you so much for joining me for this Illustrator course for non- artists. I hope you have enjoyed the course!