Illustrator - Basic Learning

Illustrator is the software that we will be using to create our dig-pack. By playing around with basic tools on the software, I am slowly becoming aware of how to use it.

                                            

To begin with, after adding the template of a digipack off the internet I needed to remove parts of the template such as the 'important' notice at the top, the pre existing writing etc. Doing this involved removing it from sight by clicking the little eyes where appropriate in the 'layers' section located on the right.

After removing things that were needed from the template, i then added a black background by drawing a rectangle of the template in the colour of black. the whole template was then covered in black. I had to put the black rectangle behind the template. I did this in the layers by dragging 'your artwork' to the bottom of the layers.


       The colour of anything drawn can be changed using the colour picker. Which is located on the tool bar down the left side. There is an option of filling the object with colour of adding colour to the outline. Objects can me moving around and selected using the selection tool located at the top of the tool bar.

After this I then wanted to add a photograph. To do this I had to go to 'file' then 'place' which then let me choose the photograph from my documents. after doing so using the selection tool I moved it into the correct position. I also wanted to change the size. I did this by pressing the shift key on my keyboard and downsizing the photograph using the little arrows in the corners of the photograph. The photograph however was too large in comparison to the area I wanted it in. I managed to crop the photo without changing and ruining the shape of the photograph by drawing a rectangle over where I wanted the photograph to be. After doing so, I selected both the rectangle and the photograph using the selection tool, right clicked, and chose 'make clipping mask'. The then cropped the photograph to the right shape.  

I then learnt to add text to go over my photograph. I did this by clicking the 'T' (text tool) within the tool bar located on the left of the screen. By doing this I could then create a text box that I could add relevant text into. I can then change the font, size and style of the text using the bar at the top of the screen.

A vital technique for creating our dig-packs is making photos and logos have a transparent background. Once the logo is placed onto illustrator, the picture of the logo needs to be image traced. There is a tool on the top bar ('image trace') that allowed me to do so. Once this has been selected, the 'image trace' button will change to 'expand' which then needs to be selected. once then has been done, the picture needs to be ungrouped which can be done by right clicking on the image and the option of 'ungroup' should appear. After the image has been ungrouped, the parts of the images that need to be deleted can be deleted by selecting them and backspacing. This then leaves you with a transparent logo. The image then finally need to be 'grouped' together so parts of the image aren't separated. Grouping can be done by right clicking on the image and selecting 'group'.