Title: Create Shapes Assignments Outline
Course: WILSON MC - INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER GRAPHICS HYBRID > Section: Week 2: Create Shapes

- INTRODUCTION TO CREATE SHAPES

Adobe Illustrator’s vector-based logic relies on defined paths — mathematically defined lines between defined anchors. Many designers are first introduced to digital graphics through Adobe Photoshop or other bitmap- or raster-based programs. Vector artwork and raster (or bitmap) artwork are two very different ways of creating, saving, and presenting illustrations.

On a conceptual level, you can think of vector artwork as analogous to drawing with a pen or pencil, and raster artwork in terms of dabs of paint on a canvas. More specifically, Photoshop is a powerful tool for editing photographs — composed as they are of tiny pixels of content — while Illustrator is a more powerful environment for drawing line-based illustrations.

Illustrator’s vector-based paths are easy to select and bend, stretch, move, or recolor. In addition, unlike raster (bitmap) images, Illustrator’s vectors scale (resize) without distortion. Beyond that, Illustrator file sizes are often much smaller than those of raster images. As such, it is an ideal platform to design artwork intended for a wide variety of sizes and outputs.

Note that designers working in Illustrator often integrate raster artwork into projects. Conversely, artists working in Photoshop sometimes use its more limited capacity to work with vectors in combination with photo editing. It is also important to understand that some of the effects that are part of Illustrator artwork are raster-based.

Illustrator documents have one or more artboards that define the working area for an illustration. A single artboard might be defined for a website banner, a tabloid-sized newspaper ad, or any possible output.

Illustrator has six shape tools — useful in a wide range of design projects, and also a good introduction to the program. The Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Star, and Flare tools can be used interactively on an Illustrator artboard. To create a shape, you select one of the tools from the Illustrator Tools panel, and click and draw to create the object. You can also generate shapes by double-clicking on the shape tool and then clicking at a location on the artboard. A dialog opens allowing you to define the shape with dimension values.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
- CREATE a document
- SELECT a color mode
- SET essential preferences (units of measurement)
- USE rulers and grids
- DRAW shapes
- CHANGE fill and stroke attributes
- SELECT and move shapes
- ARRANGE objects (front to back)
- SAVE files

ELEMENTS OF THIS LESSON INCLUDE:

- CHAPTERS
ILLUSTRATOR CS6: VISUAL QUICKSTART GUIDE
Using the book Illustrator CS6: Visual QuickStart Guide refer to the following chapters for Create Shapes:
Chapter 1: Create & Save Files
Chapter 3: Workspace
Chapter 6: Geometric Objects
Chapter 9: Move, Copy & Align
Chapter 10: Fill & Stroke

- PRESENTATION
  - View the 25 slide presentation on Create Shapes in MGLab to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts and the terminology.
- VIDEOS
  - Watch the following lesson videos in MGLab. As with the slide presentation, use the video content to expose you to the techniques demonstrated. You may need to re-watch portions - or all-  of a video for complex techniques.
    - 1 What Is Adobe Illustrator?
    - 2 About This Course
    - 3 Using the Shape Tools
    - 4 Bitmap vs. Vector
    - 5 Using Line Tools