9 Illustrator Tactics To Boost Your Graphic Design Skills

1. – Own The Pen Tool

This is definitely the core tool in illustrator to conquer, if you don’t learn anything else make it a priority to master the pen tool. All other tools basically stem from it and enhance it. Mastering it will tighten up your graphic design skills and make your illustrator game a more efficient one, especially if you already know a few shortcuts.  I know a few designers who can absolutely ‘crush it’ with their pen skills almost as good as they can draw or write.

2. – Shortcut Skills Pay Bills

All fundamental and basic stuff here that will save you time and money. Amazing to see how some designers who have been in the industry for sometime now are still fumbling around with basic functions. Not for nothing but you should at least know your shortcuts for the basic tools. You will be surprised at how much your level of speed in illustrator will increase by making use of your keyboard commands. Start using them today and over the next 30 days.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-6426a.html

3. – Develop A Graphics Arsenal

There are a set of core design elements that each designer employs with every project, whether it be icons, patterns, gradients or color schemes. It kind of makes sense to stock and organize these assets as a collection for future reference. Over time you will have stacked a considerable amount of design elements to choose from that will enable you to be more effective when working on tight deadlines/timelines allowing you to improve and raise your productivity.

4. – Layer Up

The best way to keep order with all objects and design elements is by using your layers. Doesn’t get any easier than this, you can group, organize and set a name and color for each layer. When working on complex designs your layer palette is a key part of your work flow, by simply hovering over an object which triggers the layer to be highlighted you can determine whether to select, deselect, lock or even hide a layer. Bringing layers into your design equation can definitley improve and speed up your work flow.

5. – Grids & Guides

In the past when it came to positioning and aligning various graphics I would just freestyle and wing it for the most part. Not sure at what point I started using guides but ‘ctrl R’ just comes naturally and out of habit now. It’s all about precision for me personally, and having a well balanced and evenly scaled composition. Especially if you are working on a design from an amplified perspective or that communicates some kind of depth of perception. Grids are excellent if you ever have to scale your work or if you are producing a large piece, but for the most part i stick to the guides.

6. – Blend It

Add some gusto and versitility to your graphic design skills with the blend options. Here you can take several design elements and blend one into the next, of course there is some tweaking involved with the options to gain the overall effects desired. After you have selected your objects, from the drop down menu go to Object > Blend > Make and you will notice the blend options as well. From the shortcut key simply
‘atl-ctrl-b’ or click W and double click the blend icon to bring up the blend options.

7. – Outline Everytime

One of my all time faves and because I’m a huge type fan and enjoy designing tees that incorporate some type of lettering or phrases, so the outline feature is a must. It’s almost too easy that you will likely forget to use it sometimes, if you are working on a print project or some other form of graphics which require output for offline use. Outlining your fonts allows for added flexibility with every design.

You should also hide the actual fonts used as backup in the background somewhere incase you ever need to make changes. Also saves time when sending files for production, and permits your production guy to view all fonts without ever physically needing them on his computer. Right click on your fonts or wording in your design (make sure they are not grouped with any shapes) and just click ‘create outlines’ or from your shortcut key ‘shift > control > O’.

8. – Pathfinder Persuasion

Illustrator without a doubt has a collection of powerful tools that you probably won’t ever use a third of but when it comes to the pathfinder palette, it holds a weight of influence thats top ranking. The palette is made up of a group of tools utilized for creating, merging, dividing and manipulating multiple to even a wide array of shapes. Each of the pathfinder options essentially work with two or more shapes, some options may be a little tricky as they produce similar actions. But take time to view the icons, experiment and explore the options because the tools in my opinion are pretty straightforward with their capabilities.

9. – Live Trace

Many individuals overlook the Live Trace tool feature which comes in handy at times and can achieve some decent effects in a short period of time. The Live Trace tool is used to change any image/photograph or bitmap file into a 100% crisp vector format within seconds. Because all images range in color, quality and size adjusting and playing with the settings and options are needed to get the ultimate effect you want. Live Trace effects are great for creating typographic elements, silhouette’s on tees, icons and logos. This has to be the easiest way to add some panache to your graphic design skills with minimal effort. If you are importing your image from photoshop, just create a new RGB document and go to ‘file’ in the drop down menu and click on ’place’. Once your image is placed in Illustrator you will see the Live Trace button appear in the options bar at the top of the page.