Introduction

This manual teaches some of the tools and techniques that are helpful for work in graphic design when using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. It is not a comprehensive guide to the programs, but it introduces a number of important features that you are likely to encounter when doing the work of a graphic designer.

Some of the things covered include:

• Basic Editing in Photoshop

• Using the Quick Selection Tool and Masking

• Creating artboards in Illustrator

• Importing images from external sources

• Working with type

• Creating and modifying shapes

• Creating clipping masks from type and shapes

• Changing the appearance of objects with Strokes and Fills

In this manual, we will walk through the creation of a basic book cover, adding type, shapes, and imported images to complete our design.

Download the Class Files

Download the Class Files from the link above. If you are using Mac iOS, just click once on the downloaded file to use it. If you are using Windows, make sure to Extract the files by double clicking on the downloaded zip file and clicking "Extract" near the top of the pop-up window.

Starting a New Project in Illustrator

In Illustrator, a project consists of one or more artboards. When you start a new project, you will create an artboard

1. Create a New Document by selecting File > New... (or the keyboard shortcut: Cmd + N on a Mac or Ctrl + N on Windows).


2. Click the Print preset and enter the following settings:
   • Width: 15 inches

   • Height: 10 in

   • Number of Artboards: 1

   • Color Mode: CMYK Color

3. When you are done, you should have a blank project that looks similar to the following:

   

To add additional Artboards to change the size or arrangement of the artboards in your project, use the Artboard tool (keyboard shortcut: Shift + O).

Add The Control Panel

Add the Control Panel to your workspace by going to Window > Control Panel. This will bring up more tools for us to work with on Illustrator. Notice that the Control Panel will change according to the Tool we are selected on.

Add Guides

To make managing your project easier, we will add guides for a visual reference so we can get a sense for where the back cover, spine, and front cover will be on the artboard.

1. Enable Rulers by choosing View > Rulers > Show Rulers or using the shorcut Cmd + R (Mac) or Ctrl+R (Windows)

   

2. To create a guide, click and hold on the left ruler and drag to the 7 inch mark.

3. To make sure the guide is at exactly 7 inches, use the Transform option at the top of the screen from the Control Panel. If you do not see the Transform controls, click the word Transform or open the Transform panel by going to Window > Transform.

   
   

   Set the X value to 7 inches

   
   

   If the Transform options are greyed-out, your guide might be locked. To unlock them, go to View > Guides > Unlock Guides

4. Repeat this and create a second guide at the 8 inch mark.

   

5. When you are done, lock the guides via View > Guides > Lock Guides

   

Creating the Book Background

Placing an Image or Project in Illustrator

The Adobe Create Cloud does a great job at allowing users to integrate projects from one software to another. By importing a Photoshop project into Illustrator rather than a raster image saved from a Photoshop project, we can be certain that any future changes made to the Photoshop project will also update in our Illustrator file.

For this example we will be bringing in the castle.psd file we were working on earlier.

1. First zoom out (Ctrl -/Cmd -) of your artboard enough so there is a lot of grey area around it. This will make placing your image easier.
2. Then go to File > Place (Cmd + P/Ctrl + P) and for this example, choose castle.psd. Click and drag until the image covers the entire artboard.

(Don't worry if it is outside the edge of the artboard - we take care of this in the next step)

You can also choose to place any raster image in your project if you did not edit anything in Photoshop.

Making a Clipping Mask (Cropping an Image)

If your image is too large, you may want to add a Clipping Mask. This will crop you image non-destructively. This means that if you can always go back to the original file by right-clicking and (Control + Mouse Click for some Macs) selecting "Release Clipping Mask"

1. Resize or move your image to your liking with the Selection Tool V

2. Using the Rectangle Tool (R), draw a rectangle that is the same size as our artboard. The rectangle's fill color does not have to be any specific color.

   

4. Using the Selection Tool (V), drag a selection box over the rectangle and picture to select both of the objects.

   You can also select both objects by first expanding Layer 1 from the Layers Panel and clicking the circles next to each object's sublayer while holding down Ctrl/Cmd

5. With both layers selected, either Right Click > Make Clipping Mask or go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make

   to crop the picture to the size of the rectangle.

Blend Modes

Blend modes change how a layer affects the appearance of the layers below it. Open the Appearance Panel by going to Window > Appearance. Click on the word Opacity

Some of the more commonly used blend modes:

• Normal: does not affect the layer underneath.

• Multiply: Darkens the pixels underneath it

• Overlay: Give the pixels beneath the color of the selected layer

• Color Burn/Saturate: Intensify the colors underneath the layer

Adding a Blue Appearance

1. Using the Rectangle Tool (R), create a rectangle the size of your artboard. Double-click on the Fill Color from the bottom of the Tools Panel and change the color to a dark blue of your choice. In the below example we used the color with hexcode #1B1066

2. After you've created the rectangle and given it a blue fill color, go to the Layers Panel and make sure the sublayer is above the Clip Group.

   

   Using the Selection Tool (V), select the blue rectangle, open the Appearance panel (Window > Appearance), and click the word Opacity at the bottom.

   Click the dropdown that says Normal and change this to Multiply.

   Notice how the appearance of the castle layer changes!

3. After you add the Multiply blend mode to the blue rectangle, go to the Layers Panel and lock the layer to avoid accidentally making any changes to it by clicking on the empty space between the eyeball and layer title. A small lock graphic should appear when you click indicating that it is locked and cannot be manipulated!

   

Working With Type

Type is one of the main tools you are likely to work with when designing this project. The Character Panel in Illustrator allows you to adjust font presentation when working with the Type Tool.

Using the Type Tool and Character Panel

1. Go to Window > Type > Character to open the Character Panel. We will be using this panel to change the font size, leading, and tracking. Leading is the space between lines of text and Tracking is the space between characters in a text.


2. Select the Type tool from the Tools Panel (T).

   

3. Click and drag a text box on "front cover" (the right side of the artboard) and type: HARRY POTTER [line break] and the [line break] Philosopher's Stone

   
   

   Manually adding the line breaks (with Enter/Return) will make it easier to adjust the individual lines of text later in the project.

4. Select all the text by hitting Ctrl + A/Cmd + A or by clicking and dragging to highlight the text. From the Control Panel at the top of the screen, or from the Character Panel, change the font to Georgia

   

5. Select just the word HARRY and set the font size to 105pt and tracking to 60



6. Highlight the word POTTER and change the font size to 100pt and leading to 100pt

   

   Notice how "HARRY" and "POTTER" are aligned with one another because we increased the size and tracking slightly for "HARRY". Also notice how the vertical spacing between lines of text lessened when we changed the leading of "POTTER" to a smaller number. Fun note: leading is pronounced "ledding," which is a throwback to the days of the printing press: the small pieces of metal they used to adjust line spacing were made out of lead.

7. Highlight and the and change the font size to 25pt and leading to 35

   

   Next, open the Paragraph panel and change the Left Indent to 300pt

8. Select "The Philosopher's Stone" and change the font size to 40pt, leading to 45pt, and tracking to 65

   

9. Using the Selection Tool (V), resize the text box to be the width of the text and move the box to be centered on the right side of the artboard.

Creating A Clipping Mask For Text

Once we have the text sized and arranged the way we'd like, we'll create a clipping mask to give it a leather texture.

1. Go to File > Place and select the leather.jpg image from the class files you downloaded earlier. Click and drag the image so that it covers all of the text. We will use this textured image to create a clipping mask with the text.

2. From the Layers Panel, move the text sublayer to be above the leather.jpg image

3. Using the Selection Tool (V), select both the text and leather texture image while holding down Shift
4. Right Click > Make Clipping Mask or go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make

5. Using the Selection Tool, select the text and use the Appearance Panel to change the blend mode from Normal to Screen to make the text appear paler.

Bonus:

To make the text stand out even more, click on the fx button from the Appearance Panel to add a Layer Effects like the Warp modes to make the text curve or ripple.

Working with Shapes

Next, we're going to build visual elements using simple shapes to create Harry's glasses and a lightning bolt.

Creating Harry's Glasses

1. To get started, let's change our stroke color and stroke width.

   Make sure no objects are selected (click on the grey area around the canvas with the Selection Tool V) and change the Stroke's color and width from the Control Panel at the top:

   • Fill color: None

   • Stroke color: Light Grey

   • Stroke Width: 10pt

   

Using the Ellipse Tool (L)

2. Select the Ellipse Tool L from the Tools Menu. If you don't see it, click and hold down the Rectangle tool to reveal more shapes.

   

3. Click and drag on your canvas to form an ellipse. Remember to hold down Shift to create a perfect circle.

4. We're going to make a copy of this circle and paste it exactly on top of the other so we can resize it to make a smaller, inner circle.

   • Select the circle with the Selection Tool V
   • Go to Edit > Copy to make copy of the circle
   • Go to Edit > Paste In Place to paste the copy right on top of the original circle. (Note that you won't see a difference right away after you paste in place.)
   

5. After pasting in place, resize the second circle to be smaller and inside the first. Do this with the Selection Tool V and drag the handles at the edge of the bounding box to resize while holding down Shift and Alt/Option until you let go of the mouse click.

   Holding Shift will resize will keeping the original shape

   Dragging while holding Alt/Option will resize while keeping the center of the circle in place.

Using the Scissors Tool (C)

We only want the lower left part of the inner circle, so we're going to use the Scissors Tool to break apart the inner shape.

6. Select the Scissors Tool C. It is one of the shapes underneath the Eraser tool:

   

7. With the Scissors Tool, click the Left and Bottom anchor points to separate the circle into two parts. Then, use the Selection Tool V to select the upper-right part of the circle and hit Delete or Backspace to remove it.

Using the Width Tool (Shift + W)

Next, we're going to use the Width Tool to adjust our inner circle's stroke in interesting ways.

8. Select the Width Tool Shift + W from the Tools Panel:

   

9. Using the Width Tool, click and drag the end of the inner circle to narrow the stroke width for that part of the line:

   Drag the middle part of the line so it is wider than the end:

   Finally, drag the other end so the line tapers off:

Completing the Glasses

10. The next step is to make a copy of this first lens.

    Using the Selection Tool V, hold down Shift and select both the outer circle and inner line.

    Click and drag the shapes while holding Alt/Option and Shift to make a copy that is perfectly aligned with the original.

11. After making the copy, we're going to use the Pen toolP to create a line between them for the nose piece.

    

    Click once on the left lens to start the curve, then click and drag down and to the right on the right lens to create the curved line. Hit Enter to complete the line

12. Next, use the Ellipse tool L to create small perfect circles for the earpieces. Remember to use Shift and Alt/Option to drag an aligned copy of the first circle

Grouping Objects

13. Use the Selection Tool V click all of the pieces of the glasses and group them by choosing Object > Group or Right-Click > Group (Cmd + G/Ctrl + G) and align the group under the text.

Using Image Trace to Create a Lightning Bolt

Illustrator gives you the option to vectorize a raster image such as a scanned image through the "Image Trace" option. We will place our scanned image of a hand drawn lightning bolt into Illustrator and image trace it so that we can edit it further.

Image Tracing and Expanding

1. Go to File > Place and select the scanned.jpg image from the class files you downloaded earlier
2. Drag the image out on your canvas
3. From the Control Panel above, click on Image Trace
4. Click on the Image Trace Panel icon to open the settings
5. Check "Preview" to be able to preview your changes
6. Change the Threshhold to 50
7. Click on Advanced and change the Paths to 10%, Corners to 80%, and Noise to 100px
8. Make sure that the "Fills", "Snap Curves to Lines" and "Ignore White" options are checked

9. Click the small "x" in the upper-right hand corner of the panel to exit out of it.
10. From the Control Panel above, click Expand

Live Paint and Gradients

1. Making sure your lightning bolt is selected, go to Object > Live Paint > Make. This will make the inside of your shape "paintable"

2. Navigate to the Tools Panel and find the Live Paint Bucket Tool (it may be under the Shpae Builder Tool)

3. Navigate to the Fill Color menu and click on the Swatch Menu panel icon. Go to Gradients > Metals

4. From the Metals library, click on the first option
5. Using the Live Paint Bucket Tool K fill in the inside and outside of the lightning bolt
6. Using the Selection Tool V, move the lightning bold so that it right above the glasses

Optional: Creating a Lightning Bolt Using the Shape Builder Tool

In this example we will not create the lightning bolt this way. However, if you are curious as to how to create one using Illustrator tools, here's how:

Creating Trapezoids

1. Using the Pen Tool P, create a trapezoid by simply clicking (without dragging) four times. On the fourth point, click the first point again to close the shape:

2. Using the Selection Tool V, hold Alt/Option and drag to create a copy of the trapezoid shape. Resize this copy to be slightly smaller than the original:

3. Repeat to create a third trapezoid, making sure to resize it so that it is slighly smaller than the second trapezoid:

Using the Shape Builder Tool

Next we'll use the Shape Builder Tool to join these three shapes into one.

4. Using the Selection Tool V, hold down Shift and select the three trapezoids

5. Select the Shape Builder Tool Shift + M:

   

6. Using the Shape Builder Tool, drag a line through all of the internal shapes of the trapezoids. After you release the mouse, the trapezoids will be a single shape!

7. Once you've joined them into a single shape, use the Direct Selection Tool A to click once and drag the bottom right anchor point down to create the bottom of the lightning bolt:

8. If you find your lightning bolt to be too wide, narrow, tall, or short, use the Selection Tool V to resize accordingly.

Adding a Gradient Fill

Next, we're going to use a Gradient Swatch for the Fill Color to give the lightning bolt a more dynamic appearance.

9. Open the Swatches Panel by going to Window > Swatches.

   

   Click the bottom left icon (that looks like books on a bookshelf) to open the Swatch Libraries:

   

   From the menu that appears, choose Gradients > Metals:

   

   This will open the Metals Panel:

   

   With the lightning bolt shape selected, choose one of the swatches to apply the gradient Ffill and change the Stroke Color to none (white square with red diagonal slash):

   

10. Once we've applied the swatch, drag the lightning bolt onto the front cover. In the Layers Panel, move the lightning bold layer to be under the glasses layer. Resize the shape as needed with the Selection Tool V:

    

Adding Text To The Spine of the Book Cover

It's expected that books should always have their title on the spine for easy identification!

1. Using the Type Tool T drag a wide text box on your artboard
2. In the text box, write the title of your book and change the font, color, size to your liking using the tools we've already learned in this project. For this example we used Georgia font and size 30pt
3. Select the Rotate Tool R from the Tools Panel

4. While your text box is still selected, click and drag while holding down Shift anywhere on the canvas to rotate the text box 90 degrees.
5. With the Selection Tool V, click and drag your rotated text box to the spine of your book cover

Adding Text to the Back of the Book Cover

All book covers have some type of summary or reviews on the back. Remember to add this to your project!

1. Depending on the complexity of your book cover design, you might want to add a slightly transparent rectangle behind your text to make sure it is legible.

   Using the Rectangle Tool R, make a rectangle that covers the back part of your book cover (or as much as your text will need) and change the Fill to White and Stroke to none

   
2. Go to Window > Appearance, and while the white rectangle is still selected, click on the most bottom "Opacity" from the Appearance Panel
3. The Opacity is defaulted to be 100%. Change this to whatever amount you find to be reasonable considering the design. In this example, we'll lower it to 50%
4. Using the Type Tool T, drag a text box that fits within the white rectangle you created.
5. Remember to change the size and font from the Character Panel and rest the paragraph indentation from the Paragraph Panel

Saving Your Project

Once you're done with your project, the final step is to Save it as an Illustrator File and PDF file for printing.

Saving as and Illustrator File

To save as an Illustrator File, go to File > Save As... and save as Adobe Illustrator (.AI) in a location you know where to find later

Packaging a Project

If you have "Placed" images in you Illustrator project, it's smart to "Package" your project in order to keep all links to your image references in one location. Packaging creates a new folder with all of the fonts and images used in the project, making the project available to open with no broken links. Note that this type of saving is only needed when using a downloaded font or placed image.

1. To Package a project, go to File > Package.... If you haven't already saved it as an Illustrator File, it will prompt you to do that first before packaging.

2. After saving as an Illustrator File in a specific location, a Package box will appear

3. In the Package dialogue box, make sure the location you choose is one you'll be able to find later

4. If they aren't already, check all the boxes under options and then click Package

   

Saving as a PDF

TO save as a PDF, simply select File > Save As and save the file as an Adobe PDF in a location you know where to find later.