Randomness: January 2007 Archives
Illustrator and I have never been good friends. You see, my first love was Freehand, and we worked well together. Everything clicked like it was supposed to, naturally you might say. Now, with Illustrator as my vector bedfellow, things are always awkward. So much so that I frequently find myself looking up tutorials and tips to complete what most designers would consider simple tasks.
One of the most easy to follow tutorials that I've ever come across while doing this legwork is offered up for free by the folks at N. Studio Design. Covering how to use tracing to your advantage to create portraits -- like they used this summer for promoting the uber-cheesy Herbie remake, they tell you step-by-step what to do and show you helpful example images and screenshots of menus along the way! Pretty sweet.
Other tutorials worth checking out include:
- Making 3D pie charts (and bar graphs)
- Designing background patterns--think like the gradient-heavy, Apple default desktop wallpaper style backgrounds
- Creating 3D objects
With tutorials like these that actually making working with Illustrator fun (and not all engineeringly complicated and scary like CAD when doing 3D work), I just may come around to liking this program! Speaking of 3D, test your skills at distinguishing between Pixar-worthy images and those by photographers over at Alias Wavefront's site. I can't believe I got two wrong! Hopefully you'll score better. (link via The Woodwork)
