Introduction to Adobe Illustrator

Week Three Outline

Back to Week Two

Working with Fonts

The Type Menu

The Font List

Knowing whether it is legal to use a font in your project.

The Font (software) and the image of a Font, are not the same thing.

To be safe, test opening your final product on a computer which has no special fonts loaded to see the result.

Glyphs

Allows access to the full character set, including characters that are hard to get from the keyboard.

Smart Punctuation

Cleans up spacing, and replaces keyboard punctuation with font-specific punctuation. This can also clean up fractions.

Character Panel Options

Leading
Kerning
Tracking
Scaling
Baseline
Rotation

Manually adjust character placement

Select Text Element you wish to affect.
From the Type menu, select Create Outlines.

This converts the text into Anchors and Lines.
The characters are still grouped. You can double-click to select a specific character, or you can ungroup (Object Menu) the letters.

Creating the Atomic Travel Logo

We are going to make a logo that is to be used in print, as well as on the Web. Print images are generally a higher quality image, since printers run at much higher dpi that computer screens. Therefore, we will start with a print version of the logo.

Create a New Document

Name: Atomic Logo
New Document Profile: Print
Size: Letter
Click OK

Enable Rulers

View Menu > Rulers > Show Rulers

You can change the measurements by right-clicking on a ruler.
Since this is a Print Image, we will work in inches.

Create Background Box

Set the Fill Color to be a yellowish color
Set the Stroke Color to Black
Draw a box that is 4 inches by 1 inch.

Creating the Electron Path

Change the Shape Drawing tool to Ellipse
Draw a tall, skinny oval inside your yellow rectangle
With the oval still selected;

Change the fill color to none
change the stroke color to 'Blue'

Copy the Oval (Edit > Copy)
Paste a copy in FRONT of the original (Edit > Paste in Front)
Rotate the copy 90 degrees (Object > Transform > Rotate)

Note the preview checkbox
Do not worry if it is too close to the border of the yellow box right now.

Paste in another copy (Edit > Paste in Front)

Note: Since the last item we copied was the original oval, that is what gets pasted in.

Rotate 45 degrees (Object > Transform > Rotate)
If you want to add one more orbit, repeat the steps, but rotate 135 degrees.

Creating the Nucleus

Select the Ellipse drawing tool
Hold the Shift key, to restrain the object to a circle shape.
Draw a circle in the middle of the orbits
Change the fill color to red
Change the stroke color to none.

Repositioning the Atom inside the yellow box.

At this point, I could just move the box, but I want to show you some more powerful tools.

Locking the Box, to allow selection of everything else

Select the Yellow Box
Lock the Object (Object > Lock > Selection)

Now, we can draw a selection box around the atom, and it will not include the locked objects.

Grouping the Atom as a single object.

Draw a selection box around the atom
From the Object menu, select Group

Now you can move the Atom around as a single piece, and position it as you like.

Adding the Text

From the Type menu, set the following;

Font: Giddyup Std
Size: 48 point

Select the Text tool
Click in the Yellow box, and type 'Atomic Travel'
Select the text, and change the fill color to a lighter blue.
Use the Selection Tool, and position the text.

Adding the green Bar

Use the Line tool to draw a line below the text.

Remember, you can use the Shift key to keep the line straight.

Set the stroke color to Green
Adjust the Stroke thickness (5pt)
Using the Selection Tool, Position the bar so that it is just below the text.

Freehand Adjustment of Text

Select the Text
Object Menu > Arrange > Bring to Front
From the Type menu, select 'Create Outlines'
Double-click the 'A' in Atomic.

On the keyboard, press the down arrow key a couple of times, to move the letter A down.

Click the 'T' in Travel, and move it down as well.
Click each letter, and use the left-arrow key to move the letters over (tighten up the spacing).

The mode you are in is called 'Isolation Mode'. To get out of this mode, there is a button at the top of the screen to exit isolation mode. You can also simply hit the ESC key on the keyboard.