Jacquelin Vanderwood May 1, 2001 As the cover states, in this book you'll learn "industrial-strength production techniques" to rival any professional in the design field. Once you have mastered the skills gleaned from reading and practicing what you've discovered in Real World Adobe Illustrator 9, you are then only limited to what your imagination can produce. This book is 839 pages in length and covers every single aspect of the program. Also included are some color samples in the interior of the book to help you visualize items detailed in the chapters. Deke McClelland is an incredible teacher and Sandee Cohen accomplishes illustration to help direct us in the appropriate steps to take. If you are just a beginner, start from the beginning and read through. If you've been at this awhile, Deke can still show you some techniques and shortcuts that will assist you in producing those wonderful graphics that you are designing. I've been working with Illustrator for a while and I always learn new skills from reading Deke's books. In this book you are introduced to Illustrator and how it fits into the scheme of things. It explains what Illustrator is and does. You'll learn about every menu, palette and icon that it contains. There are tips on how to save your work. If you think drawing is to difficult to learn, Deke shows you the way to do it using the various tools available. If you seriously read this book, you should be a skilled artisan with the pen tool by the time you are finished reading. Also covered in detail is a variety of ways to produce text effects. If you work with graphs a lot, you'll be a graph-nerd in no time. You'll know more about it then you even thought you wanted to know. Every tool item is highlighted, and their functions and shortcut keys. The various chapters show you how to set up guides, create groupings, layers, locking, nesting, and veritable array of other items. Other chapters include transformations and how to accomplish them, special effects, rasterizing, the science of color, how to produce fills, multi-fills, and fab fills, strokes and brushes, transparency, blends, masks, and ink-pen fills. Web graphics and animation are presented as well. We are shown how to work smarter and faster, and how to set up for printing our creations. It's a very detailed book but well worth the time invested to become a master Illustrator 9 wiz. Deke is a prolific writer and speaker and has won numerous awards for his books. You can find some of his books at www.peachpit.com or check out his homepage at www.thunderlizard.com. This is an excellent source of information and all the topics are easy to find. I recommend it highly. Copyright 2001, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved |
