Customer Reviews

Adobe(R) Illustrator(R) 8.0 Classroom in a Book

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book very useful since I know very little about Illustrator. It is not an easy to master application. The book covers all the basics. Examples are easy to follow. The level of this book is Beginners to Intermediate. I didn't encounter any technical problem when installing the CD. Like all Classroom in a book, there is no colourful illustration or picture. Everything is in black and white. It is a bit dry when compared to the Illustrator 8 Wow Book. However the Wow book is not as comprehensive as this one.

This book taught me the basics of Illustrator fairly well- but having compared this version to the older Illustrator 6 or 7 books, this book is practically the same. You might be better off finding one of the older books at a half-price book store or used. You'll learn the same techniques and save enough to buy the Illustrator 8: Visual Quickstart Guide from Peachpit Press - which is definitely a MUST HAVE book and of course available at Amazon.com

This is an excellent book for first time illustrator users. If you are thinking about taking a class on illustrator this is the book to buy. This book covers more than I have found most instructors to cover. Yet, I find it falls short for most advanced illustrator users. I have yet to find a book that doesn't fall short but I am looking.

The book should have been spiral bound at the top with an inbuilt cardboard copy holder, so you could just flip the pages. As it is, you have to break the back of the book to have it lay flat.

Basically, the book is just about manipulating artwork provide on CD. It isn't a real, building, step by step procedure.

You will probably need another book after you finish with this book.

Adobe's In A Classroom series is definally a good line of books. They are not perfect though.

Before I read this book, I really didn't know much about Illustrator but I am a Photoshop professional. I had no problem getting into the software but this book helped out a great deal.

The tutorials in this book are simple and easy to follow. The only problem I have with the tutorials is that in fact they are too simple and do not go into more advance techniques that can be done with Illustrator. For example, the chapter on the uses of using the Gradient Mesh tool could of went into more about that tool. I found when using it, I can create detailed illustrations like a face for example. Also, I found myself skipping chapters because I was already familar with the tool since I knew how to use it in Photoshop. Some chapters I just skimmed and worked at a faster pace. Some of these tutorials read very slow and if your the kind of person that just likes to see what the tool is used for and then you use it the way you need to, you'll be skimming chapters as well.

This book also has a whole chapter on using Illustrator to create websites, buttons, rollovers, and links via using Illustrator. The sample website the book goes over is what anyone will need if you're interested in using vector art on the web. What is sad is this book never covered using Illustrator and Macromedia Flash together, which is very possible.

The CD included comes packed with very nice vector art which is used in all the chapters. Nicely organized too and shows off what you can do with Illustrator.

Overall, this book definally helped me out since I never used Illustrator before I purchased the book. If you're an advanced Illustrator user, you don't need this book at all. If you're a beginner, I definally recommend this book. It helped me become for familar with drawing vector graphics, the difference between raster and vector art, and printing issues using CMYK and RGB palettes.

I've been using Illustrator lightly for years and always wanted to learn more about it but was studying other stuff. I'm an Internet consultant usually working around programmers and network engineers but sometimes, I need a fresh graphical look when we do not have anybody to do it.

This book definitely gave me a great insight of a lot of "How-to" with Illustrator. If you look at an image and wonder "How did they do that?". Well the answer could most likely reside in Illustrator and this book will explain how.

I would recommend this book to any Internet beginners that wants to know how to design nice design without taking a one-way trip to hell.

I bought Fundamental Illustrator 7 for beginners last year. The examples in that book is not good at all. I switch to I8 Classroom in a book and it does help me to master the bascis.

This book is very good for beginners who want to learn the basics in a step by step format. However it's a bit dry to learn without colourful pictures and special tricks/techniques. Illustrator 8 Wow Book is a not as dry as this one (but it is not comprehensive enough).

I have been using Photoshop for a while and wanted to get a good overview of Illustrator. This book did a great job of going over all the basics. Each lesson provided good examples that were easy to understand.

Don't buy this tutorial if you have a previous version of Illustrator. I have Illustrator 7, but this tutorial is constructed so that previous versions of Adobe Illustrator will not open the files on the tutorial CD. So you can't use it with anything except Adobe 8 or more. I looked on Adobe's website for technical support on this issue and could find nothing. It might be a wonderful tutorial, but if you have anything less that 8.0, you will need to find something else.

This book is the required text for all the Adobe Illustrator classes at my college. I found the techniques and tips in the book very helpful for completing my class projects, and for becoming more familiar with Illustrator. This book is good for all experience levels: It has easy step-by-step directions for new users, and helpful tips you may not have thought of, for those who are more familar to the program. The sample projects in the lessons are a good way to see the kind of projects you can make using Illustrator.