Illustrator 8 for Windows & Macintosh, Fifth Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide) [Paperback]

Elaine Weinmann (Author), Peter Lourekas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 12, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0201353881 | ISBN-13: 978-0201353884 | Edition: 5th edition

Illustrator 8 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide is the ideal way for anyone to learn the newest version of the program. This step-by-step guide gives readers what they need to get right to work, without having to wander through menus or read a lot of text. The book is an instruction guide to the newest version of the top-selling Illustrator program, written by two experienced computer instructors. Like the authors' previous Visual QuickStarts covering the best-selling QuarkXPress and PhotoShop, the IIlustrator Visual QuickStart Guide's unique easy-to-use format is specifically tailored for the beginning to intermediate user: step-by-step instructions, hundreds of illustrations with detailed captions, and special tips to help users avoid potential problems. Elegant, original artwork created in Adobe Illustrator by the authors and their colleagues will both inspire and illuminate.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Illustrator 8 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide will give newcomers to Adobe Illustrator 8 a push in the right direction. Authors Weinmann and Lourekas demonstrate how to use this illustration package's user interface, tools, and palettes to create, save, and open illustrations.

The authors teach you how to create basic objects and show you the options and techniques for selecting, moving, reshaping, and transforming objects. Next you learn how to use Illustrator's Fill, Stroke, brushes, and pen options; add and manipulate type; work with layers; combine paths; and create gradients.

Later chapters teach you to apply filters, work with masks, create graphs, use precision tools, work with the Actions feature, change the program's preferences, create separations, and output your work for print and for the Web. A full-color section in the center of the book offers eye-catching artwork to help get your creative juices flowing. The book closes with a guide to those contributing artists and a quick reference guide to keyboard shortcuts. --Kathleen Caster

From Library Journal

Illustrator 8 is the latest version of Adobe's excellent vector program for image manipulation and creation. Vectors are lines of art in which Photoshop is a matrix of colors in rows and columns. Vectors are much easier to manipulate than a matrix of colors; they allow you to select areas of color easily for color change or line-size change. All these books are solid titles for folks trying to upgrade to Illustrator 8 or learn Illustrator for the first time. Alspach's and Weinmann's books are fine for starting out; Pirouz's and Steuer's works are for advanced users.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 362 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 5th edition edition (February 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201353881
• ISBN-13: 978-0201353884
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,584,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elaine Weinmann and her co-author, Peter Lourekas, write, design, and illustrate the best-selling Visual QuickStart Guides to Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Their books have been translated into 25 languages and have sold more than 2.4 million copies worldwide. She has also taught computer graphics courses at the New School Computer Instruction Center and Pratt Manhattan; he has taught at the Cooper Union School of Art and Parsons School of Design. View their blog at elaineandpeter.com Twitter @elaineweinmann

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only Illustrator book you need..., April 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Illustrator 8 for Windows & Macintosh, Fifth Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide) (Paperback)

If you want only one Illustrator (8) book, this is the only one you need. Quick, to the point, stuffed with visuals, easy to locate sections, tips, steps, exercises, etc. For the money, this beats those twice the price, hands down. Now if I can only return the one I paid $45 for...

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Newbee's Dream and Oh So Cheap, June 25, 2000

By 

L. Patterson "graphic designer and Mac wonk" (Rising Fawn, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Illustrator 8 for Windows & Macintosh, Fifth Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide) (Paperback)

This is the Most Excellent Book that I have found to guide me through the intricacies of Illustrator. It is written in simple, understandable lingo and accompanied by illustrations of your desktop and tools and what they should look like when you perform a procedure. There are also comprehensive illustrations depicting, step by step, how-tos. Steps follow logically with a great textual and pictorial intro to the basics, then into other areas such as how to create and alter type to create a logo. Excellent and easy to read and grasp at such an unbelievably LOW price, this is The Illustrator Book To Buy, and believe me, I have them all!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Illustrator for Windows & Macintosh 8, May 21, 2000

By 

Fabio Okubo "binski" (Northville, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Illustrator 8 for Windows & Macintosh, Fifth Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide) (Paperback)

This book has exceptional value compared to other books on the same topic. I was able to get started with Illustrator 8 quickely, and it saved me a lot of money and time compared to other books. I only wish that this book had more practice exercises, but overall very good. Bottom line: get this book if you want to save and get a decent tutorial