Some of you may have experience with Illustrator, while I’m sure that others will have never used it. If you think you know how to complete the assignment already, give it a try, but I’d bet that watching the tutorials would be helpful even if you’ve done this before!

Assignment: Using Illustrator drawing tools (simple shapes and solid colours are fine) AND text, create a logo for Westwood Graphic Tech. (if you want to make a logo for something else, go ahead, so long as you’re coming up with an ORIGINAL design, not copying something that already exists! DO NOT USE A TEMPLATE or existing file!) It doesn’t really matter what size your document is for now, but for easy reference, I’ll make mine Letter sized (the size of a standard piece of paper), 8.5 x 11 inches

STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• The difference between VECTOR and RASTER images,
• how to draw using various tools (ellipse, rectangle, line, polygon)
• How to “constrain” to draw perfect squares and circles
• How to round the corners of a shape
• Combining shapes with the Shape Builder Tool
• OPTIONAL: Tracing raster images (we’ll do more with this later)

REFLECTION/QUESTIONS (click to open)

If you already know how to use Illustrator, or if you think you can pick it up very quickly, this tutorial is very quick, but might be a good reminder/start: Combine shapes to build a logo.

Here’s another excellent tutorial on how to create a logo

More in depth instructions for beginners:

WHAT IS ILLUSTRATOR:

For a good overview, click on Help, and go to Illustrator Help…

Click on Discover how Illustrator artwork is unique

There are many more tutorials that will help you to get to know the program. You can access those from the Help menu, then go into Tutorials…

If you’re looking for a good one to help you get started, click the link below:

Get to know Illustrator tutorial

Once you’ve done that, or if you don’t think you need it, you can explore the other tutorials on the left hand side