Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Adobe(R) Illustrator(R) 9 in 24 Hours

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author has made some modifications/additions to his previous book (Teach Yourself Illustrator 8 in 24 Hours). But it is largely similar in content. If you expect this book to be largely different, you will be disappointed. As the content is largely same, it retains it top notch style of providing enough illustrations one gets to know the features and how the tools can be used in different ways to produce the different effects in the illustrations.

But this book is aimed at the total beginner and those basic features of Illustrator cannot be taken out and hence the great similiarity in content. A mentioned of SVF format is mentioned at the section of importing/exporting files and also the support for the web animation highlighted. But it does not cover in all the new stuff in Illustrator 9. To do so would go beyond 24 hours.

If you do not own his previous book and you have no knowledge of Illustrator 9 and want to know the basic stuff quickly, this book is excellent. Expecting instructions of how to use all the new features? Then this book is not for you.

Learning Illustrator 9 in 24 hours at beginner's level? This book deserves 5 stars for it.

I've taught Illustrator. I make my living using Illustrator. My artwork has appeared in the digital gallery on the Illustrator 8 CD. And for my money and time, Mordy Golding's book is the best. I have used it as a classroom text at The New School, and recommended it to my students at Parsons and at Syracuse University. The clear writing, logical progression through the features of the program, and the down home quality of the narrative (besides being pretty funny at times) sets this apart from most dry-as-a-bone treatments. If you are a high end user of Illustrator, this may not be the book for you, but I found it useful even as a review of features I was neglecting to utilize. Cheers to Mr. Golding.

If you've had no previous exposure to Illustrator at all, and want to find the quickest and easiest way to start learning the program from scratch, this is your book! The lessons are easy to follow, and give you a good grasp on how Illustrator's many tools and functions work. This is the best book I've found for getting an introduction to using the program. By the time you finish it, you'll have a good enough understanding of the program to begin learning Illustrator's more advanced features. This book is written for the complete Illustrator novice, so if you're looking for a more in depth guide to all of what Illustrator 9 has to offer, this book isn't what you're looking for. But if you want a fast, effective, and fun intro to the program, get yourself this book.

This book is awesome! I already thoroughly know version 8 and am currently teaching it (as well as working as a freelance illustrator), so I was reading this book for my students and I highly recommend it. I learned many new features of illustrator 9 by reading it, and I found the writing style to be the most enjoyable of all the illustrator texts I've read, and I've read several. The excercises are fun and useful. My criticism is that the author doesn't point out when a feature is new to version 9, so if someone doesn't know that version super well, they may not recognize a new feature. Also, the new features are mixed in, so you have to read the whole chapter to find the new features. So, whether you are a new user or wanting to know new features, this is a book you have to sit down and actually read. It is NOT a reference book, and it is not easy to look up and find a quick answer. I recommend to my students to have a good reference book on hand for when you just need to look up something (Illustrator for windows and macintosh) and have this book as a learning tool to study with. I think it would be especially useful for instruction to those who are not taking a class with a live teacher.

This book is very beginnerish... meaning it's extremely clear, understandable, and simple (the end starts to get a little technical but don't worry Mordy makes it easy!).

The author's goal seems to be... introduce you to the tools, explain all the options and what they do, sometimes explain breifly how you would apply your skills with these tools, and let you practice fooling around with it. Also the author keeps the ball rolling with an interesting sense of humor (see the quizs at the end of each chapter to see what I mean :)

In the end, I highly recommend this book to new users. Even with a few month's worth of practice I'm constantly jumping back to this book "aha!, that's it!"

In accord with other books in the SAMS series, this book is very helpful for those who want to learn Illustrator from scratch. Each chapter is well organized and, true to the book's title, can be done in 24 one hour session.

There is no mumble jumble here. The book provides very clear (and short) written explanations for each tool, the subjects are to the point, and the review at the end of each chapter really clarifies the more confusing concepts.

This book will help you familiarize yourself very quickly with illustrator and what it can do. It will not, however, show you how to do more fancy stuff with illustrator. But we all have to start somewhere, right? This is definitely the first step you should take. It's the most effective and economical step. Good luck!

I have to say that for someone who has no illustrator skills and needs to learn illustrator for personal or professional purposes; This is the best way to start. It builds up your skills from going over the basic to explaining what every palette/window will do in a smart sequence. Other books are more like user guides that cover things without any order making it difficult to learn. After you read this book( it takes about a week to finish if you sit down everyday for a few hours) you will be able to start exploring how illustrator will benefit your needs. GOOD LUCK AND ENJOY THIS BOOK ITS LOTS OF FUN & EASY READING
SHIRLEY

Sorry to say that I was disapointed in this book, Illustrator 9.0 is an upgrade to 8.0 with new features to bring Illustrators vector art to the web. Sam's Teach Yourself Illustrator 9.0 in 24 Hours falls short in offering any new information from this new version. If you are an Illustrator 8.0 user and want to know about 9.0 then this book is not for you. If you have never used Illustrator before then this is a great book to start with but only to start with. Hopefuly "Adobe Illustrator 9.0 Classroom in a Book" will be out soon to answer the question? What does 9.0 have to offer?

The author followed the original purpose of his book. I've read it easily and with no effort and I think I had at a first glance a good notion about the program. If you never work with Illustrator 9 before this book is a very good reference to start.

A well organized book that skims over a great deal of issues. The Illustrator 9 coverage is especially weak. The Illustrator Visual QuickStart Guide is better than this book for learning the basics of Illustrator (and that book isn't very good either).