Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator’s hidden gem: Width Tool
Adobe Illustrator has an awesome tool that I’m willing to bet most designers have never used. The Width Tool.
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Should you outline your fonts before output?
InDesign offers the ability to outline your fonts before output, much the same way as Illustrator. Outlining the fonts (sometimes known as converting to paths) prevents the potential for missing font errors and a host of other issues. But it’s not without a catch.
Adobe Illustrator
VectorScribe takes vector path and shape editing to new…
Please join me in welcoming The Graphic Mac’s latest site sponsor, Astute Graphics. The first time I heard of Astute Graphics was back in 2008 when I reviewed Phantasm CS, a new plugin suite for Adobe Illustrator. In that review, I called Phantasm CS “the most useful plugin set I’ve ever come across for any version of Adobe Illustrator.”Today I want to introduce you to VectorScribe, the latest plugin from Astute Graphics. VectorScribe allows you to quickly and easily create and manipulate vector paths in Adobe Illustrator CS3 to CS5 through the use of several new tools and panels.
Because there are two versions of VectorScribe, Designer and Studio, and the tools are so incredibly powerful and in-depth, I’m just going to briefly overview them here. But before I do, let me just say that if you’re the type of Illustrator user who only opens AI once or twice per month to quickly edit an existing logo, VectorScribe probably isn’t for you. But if you spend a good amount of time in Illustrator, working as a logo designer, architect, illustrator, or cartographer, then you’ll definitely enjoy this plugin! Read more “VectorScribe takes vector path and shape editing to new levels”
Adobe Illustrator
Creating compound paths in Illustrator
One of the most confusing things to do with Illustrator for new users is working with Compound Paths, which are responsible for taking two solid objects and combining them to make one of the objects a “hole” in the other. Let’s say you want to make a donut. You first draw a larger circle, then draw a second smaller circle over the first one which will be the hole. Now, simply select the objects and go to Object>Compound Path>Make. That’s it.