Adobe Illustrator Intermediate (2023): Customizations

Name: Adobe Illustrator Intermediate (2023): Customizations
Author: Stephen Steinbach

Understand how the Adobe Illustrator menus can be adjusted to better fit your design workflow

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Course: On-Demand

Hello, my name is Steven Stenbach, and in these lessons, I want to show you how to customize the user interface in Adobe Illustrator 2023. To begin, let's go to New File, and the first thing that you can do for Customize, and the first thing you can do for Customization is change the height here. You can change it from pixels to inches. You can set a bleed if you want. If you're going to print, you might want to go to CMYK, I'm going to switch it back to RGB, and you can also change the resolution here for print. Okay, and we'll hit Create. Alright, the first thing you can do for Customization is change the workspace, and to do that, you can click on here, and for instance, if I wanted to go to Layout, it's going to change my icons here, I'm going to use Essentials Classic, and I'm going to reset Essentials Classic. This gives me a toolbar at the top here, and on the left-hand side. So there might be some tools that you don't use very often. For instance, if I accidentally click on one of these here, and the first thing that you can do is change your tools here. So there might be some tools that you don't use, like for instance, this Perspective Tool, and if I accidentally add this, you'll have to go back and hide that. So how you do that is go to View, Perspective Grid, and Hide Grid. So that might be a tool that you don't want to use. So if you want to remove that, we can do that here by going to Edit Toolbar, and then you just left click and drag and release there. If there's a sub tool that you want to use more often, you can do that by clicking on the sub tool that you like, and then just left click and drag and bring it down. Left click and drag and bring it down. For example, I also like to use the Delete Anchor Point tool, and I'm going to left click and drag and do that. Left click and drag down here. If I want to reset the Toolbar, you can do that right here, and we can go to Reset here. Okay, so over here on the right-hand side, there might be some tools that you don't use. For instance, this comment one, and if you want to delete that, you just left click and drag it out and just hit the X button there. And if you roll over these, it'll tell you what these are. So this is Arcboard, so if we don't want to use that, we can just slide that off. You can always come back to Windows and open it back up here. So if I want to add the gradient, for example, I can do that here, and I can just dock that right here. And maybe I don't need the stroke here, I'm going to delete that, and I don't need that for now. Other customizations, things like Layer Size, so here we can see the layer is kind of small, but we can go to the Options here, and we can go to Panel Options, and make it a custom size, or just make it large, for example. So that's going to be a little bit easier to see. And if you want to even make it larger, you can do that here by going to Panel Options, and we can do Other, and let's do it like 100, and press OK, and now it's really large. So that just depends on your screen size and how large you want to get that. So that might be a little bit too large. I'm going to come back down here, Panel Options, and maybe do 50, press OK. You can do the same with your colors here, swatches, so if there are swatches that you don't want, you can look at that panels here. So these colors are not very helpful, so I'm going to delete those, so Shift, left-click, and I'm going to keep that, and then I'm just going to delete those. Yes, I'm going to delete these, and if I want to add colors now, I can do that by going up to the Swatch Library, and let's just take something like, let's go to Earthtones, for example, and if I like these, I can just drag these up here. It might be hard to see, I might want to make that a little bit bigger. Large thumbnail view, so now that it's a little bit easier to see the colors, and we can customize pretty much everything here, so for example, Symbols here, we have the Symbols here, we don't like any of those. We can delete those, and then we can add some more here, so dot vector pack here, and if there's some that we like here, we can start to drag these up here. Later on, when we create a template, when you open a new file, you'll be able to have all this saved. Additional settings can be found under Edit, Preferences, and we'll just start with General here. And this gives you a ton of options, for example, the Double-click to Isolate option, down here to the display sizes of anchor points, unit size points and pixels, color of your grid, so if you want your guide to be different color, I might go a little bit darker here, the Smart Guides, so if you don't like this color, you can switch it here, and we also have other options such as use your interface, if you want to make it lighter, you can do that here, or darker. I prefer this medium dark, and when you're happy with all your changes, just press OK. In the next lesson, I want to show you some tips and tricks for customization. Thanks for watching.

Intermediate Provider : Stephen Steinbach 6 Lessons · 24m in English

Course Description

In this course on Adobe Illustrator Intermediate 2023, you will continue to customize tools, layers, and workspaces. You will also implement artboards into your projects for easier overall project viewing. By the end of this course, you will understand how to modify your workflow to better fit your design process. Graphic designers employ many different processes to accomplish the same product. Customizing Illustrator to meet these workflow needs is an important skill to have for increased productivity. This course will teach you how to modify the toolbar, as well as how to create and save custom workspaces. Using these, you can hide unused tools and bring forward more frequently used subtools. Any changes that are made can always be adjusted further to perfect your workspace, making you more comfortable with your working environment. You will also understand what role artboards play in organizing a project, and how professionals utilize them to achieve a more cohesive final product. Finally, you will learn how to adjust hotkeys to quickly access any needed tools.

What You'll Learn

Customize the Illustrator toolbar to hide unused tools and surface frequently used subtools
Create and save custom workspaces that fit your design process
Implement artboards into your projects to organize and view work more cohesively
Adjust keyboard shortcuts (hotkeys) to quickly access needed tools
Build and apply custom presets to modify your workflow
Import scripts to extend your Illustrator workflow

Key Takeaways

Customizing Illustrator to meet workflow needs is an important skill for increased productivity.
Modifying the toolbar and saving custom workspaces lets you hide unused tools and bring forward more frequently used subtools.
Any workspace changes can always be adjusted further to perfect your working environment.
Artboards help organize a project, and professionals use them to achieve a more cohesive final product.
Adjusting hotkeys lets you quickly access any needed tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this course?

You will learn how to customize tools, layers, and workspaces, implement artboards into your projects, modify the toolbar, create and save custom workspaces, import scripts, and adjust keyboard shortcuts to better fit your design process.

Who is this course for?

It is aimed at graphic designers who want to customize Illustrator to meet their workflow needs for increased productivity.

What topics are covered in the lessons?

Lessons cover Custom Presets Overview, Custom Preset Tips, Saving Custom Workspaces, Working With Art Boards, Importing Scripts, and Keyboard Shortcuts.

What skills does this course relate to?

This course relates to Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Certification.

How do artboards help in a project?

Artboards play a role in organizing a project, and professionals utilize them to achieve a more cohesive final product and easier overall project viewing.