best way to learn adobe illustrator?

[anneleonard]

hi, i'm trying to learn how to use adobe illustrator 10 and wondered how other people learned how to use it? i've been trawling the net for free online tutorials but haven't found a particularly good one. which is the best book? has anyone used the visual quickstart guide, as i've got the php one of those and its ok. i haven't got a lot of money so i'm not up for paying £20 plus, really! if there's an online alternative i'd much rather that.

Anne.

[iGav]

I just sat down and opened it, and started using it straight away.... didn't really have any problems at all... it's typical Adobe... sit down and work functionality... Adobe are the masters of that!

Do you know Photoshop at all?? they share significant similarities, as do all of Adobe's app's... so it shouldn't be a problem picking up Illustrator in a couple of days.

Not sure about the books... maybe do a search on Amazon and see what has the best review!

G

[bousozoku]

The Visual QuickStart Guides are always good, no matter the subject.

I've used a combination of Adobe Classroom in a Book, Real World Illustrator, and class work to learn it.

The pen tool is probably the most difficult to learn. If you'd like, I could probably scan a few pages from the Classroom in a Book book for working with that tool.

[anneleonard]

thanks for your replies. i've got the hang of the basics of the pen tool (just about) now (see attached pic i did tracing a photo of a flower), and i wanna get used to the other aspects of using illustrator. a really good way of learning the pen tool were these free quicktime movie tutorials here (http://www.vtc.com/illustrator10.htm). i'm a visual learner, so that was great. i might have to part with my money and buy the rest of those tutorials on cd, i guess.

Anne.

[wdlove]

Originally posted by anneleonard
thanks for your replies. i've got the hang of the basics of the pen tool (just about) now (see attached pic i did tracing a photo of a flower), and i wanna get used to the other aspects of using illustrator. a really good way of learning the pen tool were these free quicktime movie tutorials here (http://www.vtc.com/illustrator10.htm). i'm a visual learner, so that was great. i might have to part with my money and buy the rest of those tutorials on cd, i guess.

Anne.

Nice job anneleonard, your flower looks great. Thank you for the link to the tutorial, put it in my favorites! I'm also a visual, hands on type! Need to actually work with the product!

[jelloshotsrule]

pretty darn cool looking flower


are you an artist (ie, drawer) by nature?

i wish i could draw well. it would open up some doors to me...

[eyelikeart]

u may want to grab a Visual Quickstarts book on Illustrator...

they're great books that have helped me out a ton over the years... ;)

[mactastic]

I've still got my visual quickstart book from Pagemaker 6.5, it was invaluable to me. I learned Photoshop from the Adobe Classroom-in-a-Book, and thought it was very much worth it. I would imagine the Illustrator one is just as good. I just last week got my hands on the Freehand MX Training From the Source book, and am about halfway through it (not that that will help you with Illustrator). It's pretty nice, I'm liking all the integration with the rest of Studio MX. Now if only I could learn Fireworks and Dreamweaver...