I have 24 hours to learn illustrator.

[K]

Well, not really. But I have an interview tomorrow with an agency that wants to put me forward for a design position. The advert said I needed to be awesome in Quark and Photoshop (Which I am), and pretty good in Illustrator (I'm not bad). But I just got off the phone with them and the woman pretty much just talked about illustrator the whole time.

So I'm now sitting at my desk with Illustrator running on one monitor and tutorials on the other.

I'm sure I can handle it, but I'm gonna see if I can't become an expert in 24 hours, including sleep and interview preparation time, which cuts it down to about 12, and if I'm honest about it.. i'll probably get bored after 6.

Here goes.

Anyone reading this that hopes to get into design eventually, you do need to learn at least a little bit of Illustrator (And i'd recommend Quark Xpress and InDesign as well). I know we got a lot of Photoshop Ninjas here, but besides Norro and Matzat I don't think we have many people on Illustrator.

So yeah, follow my lead and get cracking on those vectors guys

Started off as a proper beginner and powered through a pen tutorial. It's almost identical to photoshops, so I finished this in thirty seconds, piss easy if you can use shop

http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/illustra...s/ss/ai_pen.htm

Then moved onto text, little more involved, but still.. no more than two or three minutes work..

http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/illustra.../ss/ai_type.htm

And finally from about.com... the selection tool. Twenty seconds if you've used photoshop.

http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/illustra...i_selection.htm

[nufan]

if you have used photoshop you should be fine with illustrator.

is the job alot of freehand design? if it isnt you can do things and transfer alot of photoshop stuff into illustrator i beleive.

what kind of design is it? I do graphics at a small newspaper which is primarily quark and photoshop if you want to do something a bit special.

[K]

Your current job sounds exactly like the job I just lost. (Though you're in Australia so I'll assume you didn't steal mine )

To be honest I'm not sure exactly what this new job will entail so I'm trying to keep all my bases covered.

I'm pretty intuitive, I think I'll be aright, just like to be prepared.

Put those earlier tutorials to use and made some flowers..

http://pinkzap.com/?p=418

And then moved on and did this...

http://pinkzap.com/?p=264

Which is really useful.

[K]

So I went through and did all the beginner and intermediate tutorials on that pinkzap website, illustrator is more fun than I thought it'd be. Previously all I ever used it for was fixing other peoples works. I could get used to this.

Quick screenshot of my canvas after doing some of the tutorials.

[The Mask of Norro]

Not bad Keith, you're picking up steam.

Illustrator is a breeze to learn for the most part when you master the pen tool, but when you hit the more advanced stuff you sort-of hit your second road block after that. Gradient mesh, for example, is a bitch but when you get it down you're pretty much able to make 3D looking designs on illustrator. I myself haven't had nearly enough practice in it though, so hey.

[DeeJam]

Illustrator is awesome. I use it about 95% of the time at my gfx design job. Like Norro said, the gradient mesh tool can give you a bit of trouble, but it's worth it when you get it down. I also had a little trouble with the Live Paint Bucket tool when I first started learning the program, but it's now one of my favorite tools.

[Maxx]

I detest illustrator, cheated my way through the small part of class that involved it. We had to pick an image, trace it in illustrator so it'd be a vector image, then make a color separation with it. I attempted to do it in illustrator, it was a disaster so I just ran it through vectormagic.com.

I should probably make another attempt at learning it.

[The Mask of Norro]

I detest illustrator, cheated my way through the small part of class that involved it. We had to pick an image, trace it in illustrator so it'd be a vector image, then make a color separation with it. I attempted to do it in illustrator, it was a disaster so I just ran it through vectormagic.com.

I should probably make another attempt at learning it.

Yes, you should. I'm assuming your teacher probably didn't give you a passing grade on that assignment, and if they did then they should really be reevaluated, as that's just awful >_>

[Maxx]

Got an A for the class, my teacher was a fucking moron. (Y)

It was just a mushroom from Mario though, not exactly difficult to make a good fake of it.

I should also mention I'm Graphic Communications, not Graphic Design.

Edited January 14, 2009 by Maxx

[METALMAN]

Your current job sounds exactly like the job I just lost. (Though you're in Australia so I'll assume you didn't steal mine )

Unless Australia has become the new India and your job was farmed out there. Stranger things have happened.

[K]

Right illustrator guys, I went for an interview just now and brought the job spec with me. Apparently I'm going to need to know how to create tables and graphics (presumably charts) and stuff.

I saw the chart options earlier when I created that pie chart you can see on my board.

Anyone recommend some good resources for boning up on this stuff?

[Docpepper]

found 2 tutorials via google

http://www.duoh.com/varia/illustrator_charts/

http://illustrator.digitalmedianet.com/art...le.jsp?id=31554

I really hate vector art as a whole . when done right it can be amazing though

[K]

Cheers Doc, I covered most of that making my basic one earlier. Nice, I reckon I can handle all this.

[Gene Kiniski]

How'd this turn out, Keith?

[K]

Well I got real good at Illustrator real fast, by the company rescinded their need for a designer and didn't hire anyone

[nufan]

Well I got real good at Illustrator real fast, by the company rescinded their need for a designer and didn't hire anyone

Well aint that a kick in the pants, oh well at least you have 'fluent in illustrator' to add to your resume.

I have been looking at designer jobs lately but they all say tertiary education needed which shits me so much. We had a university graduated graphic designer at the paper and everyone was better than her.

Whats it like in America? (is that where ur from) if you haven't got a degree do you have any chance of getting the job?

[MalaCloudy Black]

He's in London.