Product Description

If you're looking forward to using cool new tools like Illustrator CS2's Live Trace or Live Paint in your vector artwork, or eager to take advantage of its more than 200 professionally designed templates, you'll need to get up to speed on every aspect of Illustrator CS2 now with this Visual QuickStart Guide! As the standard Illustrator text in many design schools, this popular, task-based best seller has taught a generation of users how to make the most out of Adobe's vector-graphics powerhouse. Now it’s back--revised and updated--to teach the next. Using simple step-by-step instructions, loads of screen shots, and an array of time-saving tips and tricks, this volume represents the quickest route to Illustrator CS2 proficiency. Clearly marked locators indicate new and improved features (such as enhanced type capabilities, powerful 3D graphics tools, enhanced PDF support, and more), a 24-page color section, and highly readable text create a winning combination for every level of Illustrator user.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161916 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 632 pages

About the Author

Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas have written, designed, and illustrated Visual QuickStart Guides for QuarkXPress, Photoshop, LiveMotion, and Painter. Their books have been translated into 12 other languages and have sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide. They have taught at Pratt Manhattan, Cooper Union School of Art, the New School Computer Instruction Center, and Parsons School of Design. Also wrote Illustrator CS for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide (ISBN 0-321-19955-3).

Customer Reviews

Excellent bible for the bumbling novice
First I need to give a nod to "Gunny", the reviewer who convinced me to purchase this book: Thank you! This is truly the best Illustrator guide available for beginners, who need to find their painful path through the inscrutable thicket of Illustrator, who need to get a graphic project done, quickly.

People like us (i.e. either not professional designers [me], or the few remaining troglodyte designers who've remained fanatically attached to their bristling forest of Berol markers) don't have time to flirt with the dreamy practice projects that other manuals propose; we need to punch out the goods quickly -- usually just some "simple" graphics (well, they LOOK simple, but we all know they're really not so). So we need to know the basics, need to know how to alter a shape, eliminate extraneous background junk, whatever. And this book, with its extensive index and it's clear, step-by-step instructions, does just that.

No, this doesn't have any projects, and there are lovely pictures in the middle of the book that one assumes were done with CS2 but which don't serve any other purpose than as examples of what one COULD do, once one figures out how to maze oneself through the thicket. So "matt the artist" reviewer has a point there. (But his referring to "Illustrator help" -- jeesh! I defy anyone who's ever clicked on that Help menu to find me a phrase in the English language that's more oxymoronic than "Illustrator Help.")

This book stays next to my computer, and although I've owned it only a coupla weeks, it's already looking a tad weary & worn. Worth every penny.

Excellent, As Usual
Visual Quick Start Guides and I were introduced in college. Each one I have used is: supremely instructive, light to nonexistent on self absorbed asides (a blessed relief), and meaty...very meaty. The paper isn't glossy, the images aren't in color, you get no adorable photos of the author with their children frolicking on the sands of Southern California. But you get information about how to use Adobe products (and anything else you want to tackle) so that you, in your miserable Midwestern hovel, far from the smiling shores of the Pacific rim, can accomplish your tasks for your demanding and sniffy clients and get paid, and not go to the poor house! Tres cool, no?

Every tool is explored to the max, all the possible options are explained clearly, new things about the program are patiently explained. By the time you get through with this book, you Know Illustrator. You don't have to read it cover to cover, but you can dive in anywhere to have a new item explained to you, and be on your way.

I have found Visual Quick Start Guides far clearer than Dummies, and much more useful than any cookbook guides. I recommend them way over the more expensive Classroom in a Book. They are also reasonably priced, and though they don't catch your eye or come with the CD rom (which you don't really need), or show you a bunch of high concept work,; they are your reference and you will keep them snuggled by you as you plow through tough creativity and succeed.

!Viva Visual Quick Start Guides!

Complete Reference
This is a reference book, and a very good one. If you're looking for a tutorial-based book, try the HOT series by Lynda Weinman and quit your griping.