Using Illustrator for Precise Designs

Hi guys,
If anyone has any tips for the questions I have below it would be greatly appreciated. I know everyone's ways of working are different, but I am having a difficult time getting these answered despite the superflous amount of information regarding Adobe products
1) When I see professional logos or type the shapes (I mean the corporate ones) and especially curves are perfect. Is there a way to achive this? It's pixel perfect. It reminds me of designing with the old circle methods and french curves.
2) Is there a way to get some assistance with diagnol lines (so the points on the same angle), curve precision from one point to another diagonly? I know you can use the grid and then use move the handles by a pixel amount, but insuring one side of the
object is as thick as another part?
3) I think Typography is a great example and I have provided one below. Even after ensuring I know all the tips for anchor handles, ect it's almost impossible to get an even width or serif curve.
The image below shows a letter h and the top serif was cut out and illustrated with points.
Thanks so much for any tips, pointers, or how other industry insiders work!

Illustrator is not a pixel based drawing program. It is a vector path based drawing program. You should get to know the difference(s). It is possible to draw extremely accurately. But, you will have to master the drawing tools and your ability to manipulate paths and anchor points. I recommend you abandon your mouse for a pen tablet. Let me address each of your questions:
1. Yes. Most text is font based and then converted to outlines later in the production chain. Curves are better drawn large and then reduced in size further down the production chain, just like the old days.
2. Get used to the Command > M operation ( move ) and duplicating. If you want a certain angle, use the Rotate tool and input the amount of degrees of your rotation in the Rotate dialog. Like a lot of other things in Illustrator, there is more than one way to do things. You will learn the more you use it.
3. The sample you show has very little consistency because it is a script font. But, if you are drawing a letter by hand, you can use simple ovals and squares to help you maintain consistency. For instance, if your letter section is 1/16" thick, create a rectangle 1/16" square and use it as a guide. There are a lot of simple tools you can use to help yourself.
Remember this. A good, hand drawn text element can take hours, if not days to complete. Software is not an automated solution where you wave a magic wand at the screen and wha-la, it's done. Very seldom do designers have to resort to drawing text elements by hand. There are more typefaces available than ever. In some cases, you can use a font for a quick start and then modify certain letters to whatever your project calls for.

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Mylenium

Font usage (=fonts embedded in Illustrator)for stock design (=commercial purpose)

Hi,
I have a question concerning the commercial usage of the fonts incorporated in Illustrator. Is it legal to use them (after converted into outlines) for creating stock vectors and then selling them on stockphotos/designs web pages? If I have purchased the product itself, do I have to purchse also the embedded fonts separately in order to create files for commercial purposes? I would be grateful if you could provide me a clear and concreate answer. I have been searching for a month to get a response and I haven't found it yet. Thank you very much for your precious help.

I will assume that by “fonts incorporated in Illustrator” you actually mean fonts that are installed by Adobe as part of the installation of Illustrator. My response also applies for any other fonts licensed from the Adobe Type Library directly from Adobe.
You may use and embed fonts using Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop PDF and EPS output file formats without any restriction. That includes embedding them in files that you license to others. You don't need to outline or rasterize the text to remain legal. In fact, outlining degrades output quality since you lose “intelligent scaling” provided by the font technology and font definitions with result of overly bold and blotchy looking text at low magnifications and resolutions. Rasterizing is even worse since the results are tied to a particular resolution.
What you may not do is to sell artwork in .AI (Illustrator), .INDD (InDesign), or any one of the Photoshop formats with layers preserving live text and include the fonts as separate files. (You obviously could distribute such source files without the fonts and point your customers to where to license them!)
Clearly, the best option in terms of output of your artwork and designs for resale would not outlining or rasterizing text and saving or exporting as PDF (either PDF/X-4 or High Quality Print options) maintaining color management and live transparency (if used).
- Dov
PS: This advice with regards to fonts may or may not apply to fonts sourced elsewhere. You must read the EULA (End User License Agreement) associated with the fonts you plan to license. Some may allow embedding but require royalties for the distributed PDF or EPS files that have the fonts embedded. Some prohibit outlining or treat outlining the same in terms of restrictions as embedding the font itself. And some have similar restrictions on rasterization. Check such terms before you license a font!!! Yes, you must read the licenses!

Using illustrator for iOS graphics and frame animations (beginner question)

Hey there,
Just want to get some opinions and advice.
We are developing a sidescolling 2D game and I am creating 2D graphics in illustrator, ...so far so good, at this point in time I have a few characters designed.
Now for the character poses, positions and frame by frame animations.... hmmmm.
I have been searching for examples of ways to create character movements and positions in illustrator but as of yet have not found any good examples or explainations.
Would anyone care to share (or point me to some examples) of workflows you use to create different poses and character postions using illustrator...
(eg. should I be importing my artwork into flash to use the bone tool? Or should I create each variation in illustrator by copying my character and manipulating)

Though the people I have talked to are using solely illustrator to do just that!?
Maybe the people you've talked to just haven't taken opportunity to familiarize themselves with Bones. The artwork for cartooney walking animations can be done fairly easily in a drawing program, using Blends, Transform Again etc. So in many cases it's just not a big deal either way.
What is the advantage of using just illustrator to create animations, I'm guessing that its because the drawing tools available are superior to flash?
To me, it's not so much about "superior" drawing tools in a drawing program; it's more about a more complete set of drawing tools and commands. Flash has a Bezier drawing tool that works fine, so you can draw paths with control. But creating Blends on paths is just more convenient to do right on the page, without involving a timeline, keyframes, etc. Brushes and Transform Effect make it easy to repeat a series of objects. Flash's continual on-the-fly autotracing and auto merging of overlapping unselected and ungrouped objects can be cumbersome while drawing.
See this example. Then click the Construction Notes link below it to view a 2-page PDF that shows how the majority of the artworks was accomplished with just two very simple ArtBrushes used in combination with pathBlends. That kind of stuff is often just easier/quicker to do in a drawing program, release to layers, and then copy/paste or otherwise import to Flash.
Using Blends in AI for things like this experiment can save alot of tedium and time, as compared to working only with Flash's drawing tools. (Notes here.)
Some things just can't be done with only Flash's drawing tools. Envelope distortions, for example, can be blended to create frame-by-frame shape tweens that would be difficult to do with just Flash's native tools, as in this experiment. (The animation is embedded on Page 11 of the PDF; you may have to click "Trust this host one time only" in Reader and then click the middle of the page to get it to play, depending on your OS version.)
But as a general rule whenever using a drawing program in conjunction with Flash, avoid using more than ordinary flat fills and stokes in the drawing program before importing the paths to Flash. If you want to involve grads, shadows, transparency, etc., you'll generally be better off adding those things in Flash. Such effects are not the same constructs in different programs, and will most likley become rasterized in Flash (as is the case in the last example, above).
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JET

Use Illustrator for multi-page document?

I'm usually in the FrameMaker and, to some extent, InDesign areas, but a potential client asked me to work on a document for them.
They are doing a quick reference guide (I would assume either a single sheet folded into six panels, or several sheets folded and stapled into a booklet), and are planning to do it in Illustrator.
I've done these before in InDesign, but wanted to know if there is some capacity in Illustrator for doing the document there, for either of the formats mentioned above.
Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

Jagged:
Yes!
For that you use the artboard feature in Illustrator. When you create a new document, specify the number of artboards (aka pages) you need, and the amount of space between, etc. Once you have your document set up, zoom out and you'll see all the artboards laid out in the grid you specified. If you don't see them, make sure "show artboards" is checked in the view menu.
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Interesting tidbits:
If you open the artboard palette, you can name the artboards. When you export, say to outlined EPS, you can choose to "use artboards" and you'll get a separate eps file for each artboard WITH THE NAME from the artboard palette, plus a file with all the artboards together. Saving as PDF makes a multi-page PDF as you would expect. You can choose to output just one artboard.
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And finally, you can change the size of an artboard by using the artboard tool from the tool palette or by double-clicking on the artboard's icon in the palette, which will bring up a dialog box...
I am an InDesign lover, so I feel your pain. One of my clients is a manufacturer of retail items for which we design and prepare for print many packages/backer cards/etc. Before the artboard feature existed, we had a separate Illy file for each SKU. It has allowed us to be a lot more organized, and you don't get hit with seven gazillion files when you open up a folder. (I tried to get them to convert to InDe, but really, it's not set up for this kind of use, so I've had to learn the ins and outs of Illustrator and have come to appreciate it for many things. Alas, type manipulation isn't one of them, but it's designed to draw pictures, not set type.)
Good luck and best regards--D

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It upsets me to see that this was initially posted almost a year ago and there was no answer. There also seems to be no answer to various other questions about the same issue. Adobe do you care? I am already guessing that Apple doesn't. I know that Adobe has been at the top of this industry. Time for someone else to compete? This is a highly frustrating issue for UI and web designers.

Using Illustrator for sublimation printing.

My 12 year old son wants to use Illustrator to create patterns for sublimation printing onto socks. Is this the best Adobe software option? Can it convert .pdf to . ai if his customers send us a .pdf? Does it accept .jpeg and convert to .ai?

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Mylenium

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hi everyone
i'm new to the web design world, and i've came across Muse just this week while browsing for web design apps.
Seems like its a good place to start.
My question is, would it be really 'ok' if someone made website professionally with the help of Muse? I dont really know how to explain this, so i'll try my best.
Lets say the website looks great, functions as needed etc etc, so aesthetically and functionality are as client wants.
But if the client comes to know that it was not done by coding, but rather by using an aiding program, wouldnt that make you look less professional?
I think its a bit like driving a manual transmission car vs an auto. When its manual it automatically gives you the impression that the driver must be better
(which is not the case, since i myself drive both but prefer auto for pure commodity) but maybe the comparison helps you understand better what i mean.
thnks

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Using Illustrator CS5 to design for printing on DVDs

When using a DVD/CD template to do a design to print onto a DVD/CD even though the template shows the circular shapes of both the outer circumfrance and the central hole etc if I paste a square design onto the circular template the design is not restricted to the printable area of the DVD. How do I achive a design that is just printed onto the printable are of the disk?

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Mylenium

Using tables for my design

hey.
Ive been making this website today, trying to base it around
other fansites..
I cannot put anything in the middle, unless i use ap div
which i dont want 2 use because there handy but cr@p.
refer to my site,
www.habboradio1.com/test
as you will see there is nothing in the middle, i cant really
explain but hopefully you should get me

That's not where OP wants the text, though, I don't think.
The question was
regarding content in the white area in the middle of the
bottom table, no?
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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"(_seb_)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:f8ss8v$3vb$[email protected]..
> Murray *ACE* wrote:
>>> I cannot put anything in the middle, unless i
use ap div which i dont
>>> want 2
>>> use because there handy but cr@p.
>>
>> Not when used wisely/properly.
>>
>> Make your table containing the navigation have three
columns instead of
>> two. Place your content into the center column.
>>
>
> what about using <td align="center"> ?... that
would center your text in
> the blue bar.
> if you will have several navigation buttons in that bar,
make a new column
> for each, and use
> align="center" in each td, or style your table td
(assuming the blue bar
> is its own table) as such:
>
> .navTable td{
> text-align:center;
> }
>
> and apply the class to your table as such:
>
> <table class="navTable">
>
> --
> seb ( [email protected])
>
http://webtrans1.com | high-end web
design
>
> An Ingenious WebSite Builder:
http://sitelander.com

Using illustrator for technical documents, heavy text

Hi,
First, apologies for the total noob question. I'm sort of at a loss.
A technical writing instructor recommended Illustrator to me for creating all of the technical documentation for my company. Essentially we have documentation in many forms, but mostly already on our website. I'm trying to migrate this material, mostly text, from the site and into an Illustrator document (essentially copying and pasting, formatting later). Well, I am sure I don't have to tell anyone here, but it's a struggle to get text into an artboard, muchless to the point where it's easy to manipulate.
Can anyone point me in a better direction? I have a lot of books, and have been googling all day, but so far I'm not having any success. I feel like I should be able to figure this out.
Did we buy the wrong software for the job?
My sincere thanks for what I can only assume is a somewhat irritating post.

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
Did we buy the wrong software for the job?
For text-intensive documents of more than a few pages length, yes.
function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
Essentially we have documentation in many forms, but mostly already on our website.
LM, this doesn't help. What does that mean? What "forms"? When you say most are "already on our website" do you mean they are merely posted as downloadable links, or are the web pages themselves the documents?
For anyone to advise you correctly, they would need to know what kind of content you are dealing with. Instead of creating guessing games, can you post a link to the website?
For example: Did you know that Adobe Acrobat Pro can automate the creation of PDFs directly from a web site, including functioning links?
JET

Any begginers make money using photoshop for logo design etc?

For example, on fiver, elance etc?

Hello,
I'm not a web designer, but I would recommend looking at Lynda.com as a resource. They have a number of free video links. If you subscribe to their (vast) video tutorial library, it is pretty reasonable on a month-to-month basis.

Using Illustrator for Precise Designs

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