The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS Web Graphic Techniques [Paperback]

Steve Kurth (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0782141587 | ISBN-13: 978-0782141580 | Publication Date: October 17, 2003 | Edition: 1

"This book offers most everything the new or intermediate Illustrator user needs to make the most of Illustrator CS web graphics."
—Andy Barkl, Technical Reviewer

Unleash Illustrator's Power to Make Dynamic Web Graphics—Fast

Adobe Illustrator is a powerhouse web graphics tool. The problem is most people don't really know how to use it. That's where this book comes in. Step by step, The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS: Web Graphics Techniques teaches you to use everything Illustrator CS has to offer, helping you understand the new features, stop stumbling over the tools, anticipate problems, and get better, cleaner results. This is a valuable and easy-to-use resource for all Illustrator users ready to take their art to the web. Traditional print designers and students will benefit from its clear explanation of core web concepts while web professionals will soak up the advanced instruction, including in-depth coverage of SVG, web animation, and interactivity. Here's just a little of what you'll learn:

• Mastering essential Illustrator tools--and choosing the right one for the job
• Setting up your work environment
• Integrating your work with other applications, including GoLive, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and ImageReady
• Using information in existing web pages to optimize images
• Building common web buttons and banners
• Setting up and exporting CSS layers from Illustrator
• Using Illustrator to build complete web pages
• Creating and using web page templates
• Setting up animations in Illustrator
• Understanding SVG and using it for interactivity
• Creating 3D animations using new Illustrator features

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Excellent coverage of Illustrator's feature set [with] clear and concise coverage of features required for web page creation." -- Mario Georgiou, KickStartNews.com

"Offers most everything the new or intermediate Illustrator user needs to make the most of Illustrator CS web graphics." -- Andy Barkl, Technical Reviewer

From the Back Cover

"This book offers most everything the new or intermediate Illustrator user needs to make the most of Illustrator CS web graphics."
—Andy Barkl, Technical Reviewer

Unleash Illustrator's Power to Make Dynamic Web Graphics—Fast

Adobe Illustrator is a powerhouse web graphics tool. The problem is most people don’t really know how to use it. That’s where this book comes in. Step by step, The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS: Web Graphics Techniques teaches you to use everything Illustrator CS has to offer, helping you understand the new features, stop stumbling over the tools, anticipate problems, and get better, cleaner results. This is a valuable and easy-to-use resource for all Illustrator users ready to take their art to the web. Traditional print designers and students will benefit from its clear explanation of core web concepts while web professionals will soak up the advanced instruction, including in-depth coverage of SVG, web animation, and interactivity. Here’s just a little of what you'll learn:

• Mastering essential Illustrator tools—and choosing the right one for the job
• Setting up your work environment
• Integrating your work with other applications, including GoLive, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and ImageReady
• Using information in existing web pages to optimize images
• Building common web buttons and banners
• Setting up and exporting CSS layers from Illustrator
• Using Illustrator to build complete web pages
• Creating and using web page templates
• Setting up animations in Illustrator
• Understanding SVG and using it for interactivity
• Creating 3D animations using new Illustrator features

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; 1 edition (October 17, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782141587
• ISBN-13: 978-0782141580
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,873,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illustrator CS: Not Just For Print Anymore, February 22, 2004

By 

Tom Shackle (Anchorage, AK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS Web Graphic Techniques (Paperback)

Adobe Illustrator is a highly regarded professional software for creating digital artwork. Over the years Illustrator's capabilities have been closely identified with print publishing, where the application's high quality precise vector line-art can be scaled up or down in size and not change its resolution. It turns out there's far more uses for Illustrator than just print work. Adobe has been steadily adding features in its last three versions that make Illustrator a very valuable tool for creating Web graphics.

"The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS: Web Graphics Techniques", by author Steve Kurth, focuses on many features that Adobe has bestowed to its latest version of Illustrator. What the book does very well is elaborate on important Web graphics features that Adobe sparingly describes in its Illustrator CS users manual, or omits all together.

Prior to reading "The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS: Web Graphics Techniques" I've been creating navigation buttons, banners, and most other Web page visual components in PhotoShop. If I've needed to slice a graphic or create a button roll-over effect, I have relied on PhotoShop's integrated companion ImageReady. Thanks to this book I'm now much better informed about what Illustrator CS can offer, and it's going to change the way I create Web graphics.

I wouldn't recommend this book for the person who hasn't spent some time using Adobe Illustrator. The author attempts to address many of the application's basic features in the first two chapters. However, it's not going to be adequate for beginners, although users already experienced with Macromedia FreeHand or CorelDraw may find these two chapters quite useful for understanding and adapting their acquired knowledge into effectively using Illustrator CS.

Chapter Three begins explaining what makes Illustrator CS such a great tool for creating Web graphics. The author, Steve Kurth, has more than 10 years experience as a graphics professional. His "how-to's" with Illustrator CS are peppered with explanations of time-saving techniques for increasing workflow productivity when creating Web graphics with Adobe Illustrator. This is particularly the case in chapters five and six "Preparing The Work Environment" and "Preparing Single Graphics".

In Chapter Eight, "Creating Complete Pages", Steve Kurth explains and shows (with sample screen shots) how an entire Web page can be an Illustrator graphic sliced into sections that lessen the apparent wait of screen loading for dial-up users. He also explains how links can be created with specific bits of HTML code embedded into Illustrator Web graphics. Additionally, there are good explanations and examples throughout the chapter explaining how important Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) embedded code can be for precise placement and alignment of graphics in a Web page (better than HTML code instructions), and for creating fancy functional items such as drop-down menus.

With Adobe having given Illustrator CS 3-D graphics creation abilities, the possibilities for making sophisticated Web animations are exciting. Chapter Nine provides some easy-to-follow examples that certainly fueled a number of animation ideas I will be trying. Sequential frames created in Illustrator layers can be exported as a series of GIF graphics, or they can be exported to Macromedia Flash, Adobe AfterEffects or LiveMotion to create quick-loading vector graphics animations.

Chapter Ten is devoted to explaining the features, advantages, and the hopes for the Scaled Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Similar to SWF Flash files, SVG is also a quick-loading vector format that displays well in Web browsers-as long as you have the free plug-in that must be downloaded from Adobe and installed. Unlike the proprietary Flash format, SVG is an open standard. The descriptions given of SVG makes it seem considerably more versatile for website designers than SWF. The Flash plug-in, however, was introduced well before SVG and now enjoys a much larger market share. SVG's ultimate success (and survival) may hinge on developers writing future versions of Web browsers that will natively display the SVG format the way they currently support JPEG, GIF, and PNG.

"The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS: Web Graphics Techniques" is a treasure of information. If you use Illustrator and have not moved up to CS (v. 11), the book will likely motivate an upgrade.

Tom Shackle is a freelance media professional and a member of the Alaskan Apple Users Group

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good - and Not Just Web Stuff, February 19, 2004

By 

Peter Smalls (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS Web Graphic Techniques (Paperback)

I got this book even though I already know Illustrator. I am a print designer and I wanted to learn web stuff, too. There was plenty of that, and current stuff too. A lot of books on web graphics were written 4 years ago and a lot has changed. This book was up-todate and pertintent. It was complete and easy-to -read.

The part that came as a surprise is that I learned a lot I didn't know about Illustrator in general while reading it. I was surprised at that. I especially liked the animation section. A good book for any Illustrator user.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book about Illustrator for web, February 9, 2004

By 

Sally Bosco (St. Petersburg, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hidden Power of Illustrator CS Web Graphic Techniques (Paperback)

This book was a real eye opener for me. I love Illustrator, and I've been using it for many years, but never realized it has such practical application for web design. Steve Kurth gives practical examples of ways to make your workflow more productive, and his technical expertise in Illustrator is unsurpassed.

Kurth presents a comprehensive training course in the efficient use of Illustrator and aspects that especially apply to web creation. The "Save for Web Reference" gave an excellent overview of file formats and optimizing for web.

Some features were new to me, such as exporting to CSS layers for creating motion animation and more complex design effects. Pixel dimensions when transferring art to GoLive and Dreamweaver was a very useful reference. I found the detailed color discussion most informative.

In the section on creating browser templates. Steve Kurth walks us through constructing an Illustrator template for creating a full web page, something I had never thought of doing before.

All in all, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in fully and efficiently using Illustrator to design for web. It will definitely increase your production knowledge.