Adobe illustrator

 Today we started using adobe illustrator in an attempt to make some progress with the ancillary task of the digipak. I have never actually used illustrator despite being comfortable in using adobe photoshop and after effects and being very knowledgeable in using adobe flash. Because of my prior knowledge on existing adobe products, I found it easy to work my way around illustrator as the tools and navigational panels were similar. However as adobe illustrators function and purpose differs to these other programs I did have some minor difficulties.

The first tool I explored was the opacity tool which I like to use within graphic design as I find that it helps in terms of making certain things stand out and in terms of having images layer up on top of each other without making the aesthetic too busy and keeping a level of simplicity within the design.

I believe that this tool is one of the most important, the colour picker tool. This tool will allow you to change the colour of almost anything on the stage, primarily things you have created but also vectors that you have imported into the stage externally.

 This tool is used so that you can change ur font of ur text into something which fits the aesthetic of your graphic. This is helpful as you can quickly decide which font to use as they show examples on the drop down list.

 This navigation drop down list holds the tools in order to create a variety of different shapes which can be filled and have an outline with colours of the users preference.

 Here is the text tool, a tool used to create text I'm simple terms, this tool can be used with many other tools to create effects and aesthetics. This tool will allow you to include a text content within your work.

The make clipping mask tool, a complex but easy to use tool. This tool is basically a cropping tool but you can make it as specific as you want so that an image fits a specific shape such as a star or even a splatter shape.

This is the layers window this window is one of the most important features within illustrator, this is because it allows you to order and manage what goes where on the stage and also in what you can see or edit on stage. This is helpful as it allows the user to make changes specifically to one component of the design rather than disrupt the fluency of the aesthetic.

This tool is used to arrange your graphics on your stage so that things are in the right order. This can often be used with the opacity tool in order to make things look professional.