ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR:

GRADE 9 GRAPHICS

Glenlawn Collegiate
Mr. Sobering
 WHAT IS ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR?
Adobe Illustrator is program from the Adobe Creative Cloud. This program is
used to create illustrations or drawings. Although Adobe Illustrator and Adobe
Photoshop look very similar, Illustrator differs from Photoshop because it does
not have the photo-editing capabilities that Photoshop has. However, the main,
and most important difference between Photoshop and Illustrator is the
type of image the program creates.

• Adobe illustrator creates images that are vectored, meaning the image is
created from smooth, curved or straight lines. This means that the image is not
created by pixels.

• Photoshop creates images that are rastered. This means that the images
created in Photoshop are made up of thousands of tiny little dots of color.
These tiny dots are called pixels.

That may sound confusing.

Program: BelowUse:
Program is a chart that may
Image clarify: Image
type:
Composition:
Adobe Drawings/ Vector Smooth Lines,
Illustrator: Illustrations no pixels
Adobe Photo Editing Raster Pixels
Photoshop:

Vector VS. Raster:

The image to the right is a visual of a

rastered image (pixels) vs. a vectorized
image (smooth lines, no pixels). The
benefit of having an image created by
vectors is that a vectorized image can be
enlarged as big as you want and it will
never become distorted as you may have
seen happen in Photoshop.
WHAT WILL YOU PRACTICE DURING
THIS LEARNING PACKAGE?

Throughout the duration of this learning package, you will

experiment with the following:
• Working with Layers and Sub-Layers
• Use of the Pen Tool
• Use of Image Outlines

• The above three components are vital skills to learn for any
Adobe Illustrator project. This will be an excellent starting
point for Grade 9 students beginning to familiarize
themselves with this new program.

Lets Begin!
 ASSIGNMENT #1: NAME
ILLUSTRATION

Explanation of the Project:

For this assignment, you will sketch your name on to a piece of
printer paper and then transfer it into Adobe Illustrator. While in
Adobe Illustrator, you will re-draw the image, add colors,
gradients, effects, and more. This will be a great project to start
with in order to be successful for the second assignment.

Follow the step-by-step tutorial on the following pages to

successfully complete this project.
Step 1: Draw Your Name

1. Take piece of printer paper and sketch a design of your name but
also incorporate at least three items of your interest. For
example, Mr. Sobering likes skateboarding, snowboarding, and
hockey so he incorporated those interests into his drawing.

Note: do not spend too long on this. This assignment is simply for
you to practice in Adobe Illustrator.

Things to try:
• Different styles of writing (bubble letters, regular letters, box
letters, cursive writing)
• Designs inside the letters
• Making your interests be part of your letters. For example:
• Soccer ball as an O
• Hockey stick as an L
• An M&M as an M
• $ as an S
Be Creative!
• Banana as a J

2. Once you have a solid design that you like, scan the newly drawn
picture using the app called CAMScanner:

Cam Scanner App:

4. Scan the image and then email it as a JPEG

to your school email.
5. On your computer, open your email and save your
image.
Step 2: Import and set up your image.

1. Open Adobe Illustrator

2. Create a new project by clicking “Create New”. A new screen will pop up.

3. Set page dimensions to Width: 8.5, Height: 11. Make sure your dimensions
are set to inches. Choose the orientation that works best for your design.You
will likely need to choose the landscape option (horizontal), rather than the
portrait option (vertical).

4. Import your image by clicking: File → Open, and then select your image.

5. Adjust the image so that the letters of your name are centered, and so that
it fills the whole page nicely. Next, use the crop image option
located on the right to remove excess white-space in order to make it fit on
your art board properly.

4. If you need to rotate your image, place your mouse cursor near the
corner of the picture and the mouse cursor should turn into an arc . Click
and hold, and rotate your image to 90 degrees.

4. Choose the Adobe Illustrator layout called “Essentials Classic”. You

should note that the view that is chosen doesn’t really matter.You can still
access all of the same tools and functions no matter which view is chosen.
However, Essentials Classic is a view that is most similar to Photoshop, and it
is quite easy to find the tool adjustments that are necessary for this project.
The next page shows examples of different layouts.
 “Painting” layout

“Essentials Classic” layout

“Essentials” layout
Step 3: Begin Editing your image.

Now that you have chosen the Essentials Classic layout, lets
begin editing the image.

1. Select your image and change the opacity to about 30%. This will help you
identify any lines that you add on top of your image.
➢ Depending on the view you have chosen, the opacity adjustment will be in
different spots but typically, you can find the opacity adjustment towards the top
of your screen, or on the right hand side of the screen under “properties”.

Layers and Sub Layers

If the layers menu is not located on the right
hand side, you may need to access your layers
by clicking on an icon that looks like this:

With every custom shape that you draw, you

create a new “sub layer”. The sub layer can be
located by clicking on the down arrow of Layer
one. Sub layers can be arrange just like
regular layers. If you draw a shape that you
want to be underneath an existing shape, all
you need to do is rearrange your sub layers.
Here is an example of the sub layer menu →
 Step 4: The Pen Tool

Before you begin using the pen tool, here is some information about it in order to
be successful.
➢ The pen tool looks like this→ and not like this → . The second tool is called the
curvature tool and it will not be as user-friendly as the pen tool.
➢ The pen tool draws perfectly straight lines by clicking at a starting point, extending a
line, and clicking at an ending point. With every click you add an “anchor point”. However,
you will notice that after every click, the pen tool wants to continue drawing lines. If you
have drawn a line or a shape and do not want to add more lines, press the “Esc” button
located in the top left of your keyboard.
➢ The pen tool can also draw curved lines. To do this, hold the left click button of the mouse
and drag your cursor away from your anchor point. This is tricky and it takes a lot of
practice.
➢ If you do not like making curves as suggested above, you can create a bunch of anchor
points clicking many times along the line you’d like to create.

1. Use the pen tool to outline your letters.

2. The custom shape that you create may automatically be filling in with a color
while you are drawing, and therefore cut off the view of your letter as seen
below. To remove the fill, locate the fill color on the right hand side, click and
select “no fill”. Now you will be able to see the rest of your letter to make sure
you are outlining it accurately.

2. Add a stroke color so that it is easier to see the lines you are drawing.

3. Add in any other details that are inside your letters before you fill in the color
of your letter. You want to do this because if you were to fill your letter with a
color, it will hide all other details below it.

4. Once you are happy with your lines, add a fill.

3. Notice that when you open the fill
colors (aka swatches) there are a
few cool designs at the end of the
swatch options.

4. If you were to select one of the Wallpape

gradients, you can edit and add rs
more colors to the gradient Gradients
located below the swatch menu.

7. If you create a custom swatch that you may want to re-use, you can add it to
the swatch menu so that it is saved so that you do not need to re-create it.

Click and Drag

Gradient Selected

Editing Colors
 Adding Filters:

Just like in Photoshop, you can add

cool filters to your designs.
However, Adobe Illustrator calls
these “effects” rather than
“filters”. Add filters/effects if
you’d like by clicking on Effects →
Effects Gallery. A new screen will
open where you can choose, and
edit effects.

Continue outlining your letters and designs, fill them with color, add outlines,
gradients, effects, etc.

Add a background by using the pen tool and clicking on the four corners of the
page. Make the background as you’d like, and then right click and press “send to
back”. The background will now go behind all of your shapes you created.

When you are all done, you should have something similar to the image below: