Illustrator CS Accelerated: A Full-Color Guide [Paperback]

Youngjin.com (Author), Sybex (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2004 | ISBN-10: 8931435045 | ISBN-13: 978-8931435047

Accelerate Your Illustrator Skills with This Practical, Sophisticated Guide

Illustrator CS Accelerated: A Full-Color Guide gets you up and running through hands-on experience creating meaningful, fun projects. Its learn-by-doing approach makes the road to proficiency quick and painless. Start off with a clear-cut introduction to the essential concepts, functions, and terminology that are difficult to grasp on your own. Then, immediately put your new skills to the test by following step-by-step practical exercises.

Full-color screenshots and illustrations on every page give you a clear image of what's possible. Dozens of real-world examples, from straightforward to advanced, demonstrate how to integrate techniques and take advantage of the innovative features new to Illustrator CS. By the end, you'll know how to create all sorts of elaborate and stylish illustrations--a level of competency that classifies you as a skillful Illustrator user.
* Projects you'll complete include:
* Use precise drawing techniques to create 3D perspective
* Blend and mask shapes to create a dynamic event poster
* Use the mesh and liquify tools to design elaborate images
* Devise an emblem using advanced text effects
* Produce a nature poster with maximum efficiency using the symbols palette
* Harness layers and filters to create a printable greeting card
* Apply patterns, textures, and colors to artwork
* Add interesting details to a fashion illustration
* Use 3D effects and shape blends to create Flash animations
* Contruct professional-level effects, such as neon text and simulated motion
* Apply page layout techniques to create a magazine article
* Use formatting to combine text with graphics in innovative ways

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Accelerate Your Illustrator Skills with This Practical, Sophisticated Guide

Illustrator CS Accelerated: A Full-Color Guide gets you up and running through hands-on experience creating meaningful, fun projects. Its learn-by-doing approach makes the road to proficiency quick and painless. Start off with a clear-cut introduction to the essential concepts, functions, and terminology that are difficult to grasp on your own. Then, immediately put your new skills to the test by following step-by-step practical exercises.

Full-color screenshots and illustrations on every page give you a clear image of what’s possible. Dozens of real-world examples, from straightforward to advanced, demonstrate how to integrate techniques and take advantage of the innovative features new to Illustrator CS. By the end, you’ll know how to create all sorts of elaborate and stylish illustrations—a level of competency that classifies you as a skillful Illustrator user.

• Projects you'll complete include:
• Use precise drawing techniques to create 3D perspective
• Blend and mask shapes to create a dynamic event poster
• Use the mesh and liquify tools to design elaborate images
• Devise an emblem using advanced text effects
• Produce a nature poster with maximum efficiency using the symbols palette
• Harness layers and filters to create a printable greeting card
• Apply patterns, textures, and colors to artwork
• Add interesting details to a fashion illustration
• Use 3D effects and shape blends to create Flash animations
• Contruct professional-level effects, such as neon text and simulated motion
• Apply page layout techniques to create a magazine article
• Use formatting to combine text with graphics in innovative ways

About the Author

Founded in 1987, YoungJin.com is a leading South Korean book publisher known for brilliant graphics books that feature trend-setting designs and images. Other high-quality YoungJin.com books published with Sybex Inc. include 40 Digital Photography Techniques, 40 Digital Photo Retouching Techniques, Maya Character Animation, and Flash MX Motion Graphics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Sybex (July 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8931435045
• ISBN-13: 978-8931435047
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,519,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great Graphics But Very Poor Instructions-->VERY Disappointed!, August 5, 2006

By 

GoldNER (FL. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Illustrator CS Accelerated: A Full-Color Guide (Paperback)

Lets start with the positive aspect -->

This book is very colorful with nice glossy pages and had a good intro to the many tools illustrator has to work with.

OK THE BAD PART-->

The projects looked very easy to do until I bought the book and actually sat down to do some learning. I am very familiar with all the Illustrator tools so I know my way around, however the directions given in the book had me very confused. The first project was a building with a satellite dish. This project to an artist looked very simple to construct yet trying to follow the directions made no sense. No matter what I did by following every word from the author, the building was horrible and lop sided due to the directions.I followed every word exactly that the author gave as instructions and yet my projects didn't even come close to what the book presented. Being very fluent in photoshop I knew this was not my fault.

As an example for the building with the satellite project he author did not mention perspective positioning and left alot of detail out. To a novice or a beginner this would be very discouraging.

I was really excited about this book from the way it looked in the store that was until I got home and read the directions while trying to perform the projects in the book. The author must have had to much wine while he was writing.

I do not recommend this book because the author will leave your head spinning. Following the project's instructions will make you feel it is your lack of following directions and artistry when really the book just plain out sucks at teaching!

If you have this book and your new to Adobe Illustrator please realize that the tutorials are badly written leaving huge gaps of instructions needed to perform each project.

Please note that if you are using this book as an Illustrator learning tool and you are completely baffled that after many hours you can't get your project to look right, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.

It is not your ability to understand illustrator rather it is the authors lack of understanding of who would be buying this book.

Don't give up learning, just get a better author who can define and explain each step carefully and detailed-

This could have been a fabulous book, but the author failed to pay attention to the fact that this was more than just showing pretty art work but rather a teaching tool to adavnce people in their desire to learn Illustrator.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sample projects are poorly designed, February 1, 2006

By 

William Stuart "wstuart12" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Illustrator CS Accelerated: A Full-Color Guide (Paperback)

There are a number of problems with this book. First, the book starts with an introduction to the controls. Nice idea, but it would have be nicer if the examples the author gives were included in the disk so that we could follow along. The big problem with this book, though, is that the sample projects cannot be done the way the author says they can. Take the first exercise, the building with the satellite dish on top. The little box that the dish sits on can't be made the way the author says--changing the width of the box copied from the main building changes the perspective of the sides of the box, so it doesn't match the rest of the building. In the second exercise, the dartboard, you need to color alternating slices of the outer ring different colors. But the ring can't be broken up, not using the technique the author gave. As in the other case, the properly finished project is included on the disk but I can't figure out how the guy finished it. This is very very poor. Don't be fooled by the glossy graphics, this is a lousy book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illustrator CS, September 26, 2007

By 

GT - See all my reviews

This review is from: Illustrator CS Accelerated: A Full-Color Guide (Paperback)

Illustrator CS Accelerated: A Full-Color Guide

I was looking for an Illustrator book that was suggested by a collegue. I order this one used, great book, it was $3.00 and it is a great book. I am sorry to say I wish I had waited a couple of days, as the price went from $3.00 to .75 cents, I probably at that point would have ordered more, for my students.
Great book.