Prof. Cameron Blevins

Introduction to Digital Studies
HIST 3260/5260 | COMM 3081/5081
M/W 2:00-3:15pm
North Classroom 1608
Office Hours: W. 3:30-4:30pm
TA Office Hours: M. 12:30-1:30pm

Today you will be continuing to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator.

Tutorials

You’re going to complete two tutorials to help familiarize yourself with Illustrator’s interface. A few notes about these tutorials before you start.

  • Both of these are available inside Adobe’s app. One of the advantages of doing them inside the app is that it will guide you to different parts of the interface. However, the videos are a little small and don’t have Closed Captioning for non-English languages. To access them through the app, navigate to Help -> Tutorials -> Get started with Illustrator.
  • Each will require you to download a .zip file to your computer that contains some files you’ll need to open in Illustrator. Download the .zip file and put it into the graphic-design folder on your computer that you created in the Graphic Design in Adobe Illustrator I tutorial. Then follow these instructions to unzip the folder so you can access the files. If you skip this step you won’t be able to follow along on the tutorials.
  • Complete the following tutorials:
  1. Get to know Illustrator (17 min.)
  2. Transform and edit artwork (19 min.)

Create a Course Flyer

Get your Raw Material

To put your new skills into practice, you’re going to design a basic flyer for this class.

  • Navigate on your computer to your intro-digital-studies folder you created in the Files and Folders tutorial earlier in the semester. If you haven’t done so already, create a tutorials folder inside this folder.
  • Make a new folder inside your tutorials folder named graphic-design
  • Download the following Adobe Illustrator file and put it inside your new graphic-design folder: course-flyer.ai.

Modify the Course Flyer

Open course-flyer.ai in Illustrator and complete the following:

  • Change the blue background to black
  • Add text for the course title, meeting place, and meeting time (get this from the course website) onto the white background and change the color and font to something other than the default.
  • Change the text size so the course title is the largest piece of text
  • Add text objects listing some of the skills you’ve learned in the class so far and place this text on top of the black part of the background
  • Move and resize the CU icon so that it is anchored to the bottom left corner of the flyer

Add Other Images

  • You’re now going to try and add several new images into your flyer consisting of icons of software we’ve used or will use in this class.
  • Download the following vector images to your graphic-design folder (you can right-click -> Save As…):
  • Use File -> Place to locate and add each of the three files you downloaded (they should all end in .svg)
  • Resize the three icons and move them around so that they’re scattered across your flyer

Export your Flyer

  • Your course-flyer.ai file allows you to edit the flyer in Adobe Illustrator. But unless someone else also has Illustrator installed, they’re not going to be able to open it.
  • Export the entire flyer as a .png file:
    • File -> Export -> Export As…
    • Choose PNG from Format dropdown
    • Check Use Artboards
    • Name it course-flyer.png
    • Export it to your graphic-design folder
  • Post your completed course flyer poster in PNG format to the #in-class Slack channel

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