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About this lesson
Launching the program from the beginning and looking at the different types of documents that can be created in Adobe Illustrator.
Quick reference
Preparing for Launch
Launching the program from the beginning and looking at the different types of documents that can be created in Adobe Illustrator.
When to use
Anytime you start up Adobe Illustrator you will want to be familiar with the options and settings available to you directly from the Start Workspace.
Instructions
- Launch Adobe Illustrator
- Open any recent files by choosing them from the list or thumbnail view.
- Open an existing file or create a New Document by clicking ‘New’ or ‘Open’.
- When you select a new document, you will see templates for different kinds of projects:
- Mobile, web, print, film and video, art and illustration
- You can browse through all of the templates and preset options available.
Hints & tips
- To hide the Start Workspace: Go to Preferences > General > Uncheck Show Start Workspace
- To change the Workspace to Essentials, Typography, etc click on the Start dropdown in the upper right hand corner.
- 00:04 The first time you open up Adobe Illustrator,
- 00:06 this is what the interface looks like.
- 00:08 Now for the purposes of this video series, I will be using Adobe Illustrator CC2017.
- 00:14 Now yours will probably look something like this if you've been using one or
- 00:19 two versions before, hopefully, nothing too much older than CC 2015, or CS5.
- 00:25 But upon opening up the Adobe Illustrator,
- 00:27 you'll see that the first thing you may notice are these thumbnails.
- 00:31 Now, these from my recent files that I've been using as indicated by this
- 00:34 little line, and the white text up here.
- 00:37 So these are files that I've just been using recently and working on.
- 00:40 But if I wanted to change those from thumbnails to a list,
- 00:43 I can just click on these lines and it'll basically just change it to
- 00:46 a list of the names of all of the files that I've been working with.
- 00:50 All right, you also have a few other options over here, it's called CC FILES,
- 00:54 MOBILE CREATIONS, New, Open along with a bunch of other stuff.
- 00:59 Now, I know it may seem like there's a lot going on right away, but don't worry.
- 01:03 I promise you, it's not as daunting or as bad as it seems.
- 01:07 Now on the bottom here, you have the ability to search for stock images and
- 01:11 you also have the ability to watch a short three minute video
- 01:14 to see what kinds of things you can create with the program.
- 01:17 But up top here, you'll notice that you have a few more options,
- 01:20 including this one that says Start.
- 01:23 And all this is doing is indicating the work space, or
- 01:25 the interface that you're currently viewing.
- 01:28 So if I click this down arrow, you'll see that I have some other options here,
- 01:31 called Automation, Essentials, Layout Etc.,
- 01:34 and those are just the different types of work spaces that you can use.
- 01:38 So if I were to change this to Essentials,
- 01:41 it's basically showing me the default setup for my tools.
- 01:46 If I change to Layout, you'll see that now all of a sudden,
- 01:48 I have slightly different tools.
- 01:50 And depending on what kind of things I would like to achieve in the program,
- 01:55 it's going to change the workspace a little bit.
- 01:59 But by default, it's always going to come to the start workspace.
- 02:02 And if you don't wanna show the start workspace,
- 02:05 you can click on this little gear right here on the upper right hand corner and
- 02:08 it'll tell you to hide the start workspace.
- 02:11 All you have to do is go to Preferences > General, and
- 02:13 uncheck the box that says show start workspace.
- 02:17 And you've also got this little question mark here in case you have any questions
- 02:20 along the way.
- 02:22 But moving along, let's say that I wanted to come over here to New and
- 02:25 create a new document or I could open an existing file.
- 02:29 But for now we're gonna go ahead and hit New.
- 02:32 Now this next screen is going to pop up.
- 02:35 And you'll see right here, again these are recent items.
- 02:38 So these are the sizes that I use the most frequently,
- 02:41 the most common ones that I have been working with.
- 02:43 And along with some distress patterns down here.
- 02:47 Now these are just something that I had loaded up from Adobe stalk to play
- 02:50 around with.
- 02:51 But aside from these thumbnail elements just here,
- 02:54 you'll see on the right hand side there's a column.
- 02:57 Now this is basically where you can set up your work space, determine the height and
- 03:00 width of your document, along with changing the units of measurement.
- 03:04 So you can change it from points to to centimeters and so forth.
- 03:08 I like sticking with inches.
- 03:10 You can also change the orientation, whether you want portrait or landscape.
- 03:14 The number of art boards which we'll get to a little bit later, along with things
- 03:17 like bleed and color mode, which we'll be discussing in the next video.
- 03:21 But you also have some more settings down here,
- 03:24 which are essentially pretty much the same options in a different interface.
- 03:28 But if I wanted to come over here to my saved tab, you'll see that I have some of
- 03:32 those distress patterns that I mentioned which I loaded up from Adobe Stock.
- 03:36 You also have what are called mobile,
- 03:38 where you'll see that you had some default mobile presets.
- 03:41 These are just blank documents that will allow you to jump in and start creating
- 03:45 depending on what kind of device or mobile file that you like to create.
- 03:50 So you'll see that if I expand that menu, I can now not only choose from iPads and
- 03:56 iPhones, but also a Surface, Android, Apple Watch, and a Nexus.
- 04:00 If I scroll down even further, you'll see that not only do we have those presets
- 04:04 above, but we also have 13 templates to choose from.
- 04:08 Once your art is set up with some colors and graphics, so
- 04:11 we can jump in right away and start creating.
- 04:14 So aside from mobile, you also have basically the same thing for web,
- 04:18 where you've got this default or standard web sizes and
- 04:21 you can view more by choosing this option here that says view all presets.
- 04:25 When you do that, you'll see a bunch other standard sizes here as well.
- 04:30 And again, you also have templates for web, which you can use and
- 04:33 jump in to start playing around with,
- 04:35 such as these laptop effector mock ups, landing page wire frames, and more.
- 04:41 As we go on, you'll see that you have the same things for print, for film and
- 04:45 video, and art and illustration.
- 04:48 So there's a lot of blank documents and presets and
- 04:51 templates in here that you can use and play around with.
- 04:54 If you just wanna jump in and start moving stuff around and
- 04:56 playing with some of these graphics.
- 04:58 And that can be a great way to get familiar with some of these projects and
- 05:02 the way that they're constructed.
- 05:03 But in the next video, I would like to talk to you guys about something a little
- 05:06 bit more simple as we dive into the color mode and
- 05:10 talking more about what kind of color settings you wanna use for your projects.
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