Working in the Design Industry
A local pet supply store may have a new business goal to market pet grooming services. Identify the target audience (age, gender, income level, educational level, etc.); Audience expectations of design, and budget if needed.
What is urban pet owners of working age who typically pay for such a service?
What is animation on their website would show a cartoon of animals leaving their facility looking happy and well-groomed?
Name the two tools used most commonly to manipulate viewing your document.
What is the hand tool (Quick Key = H) and the zoom tool (Quick Key = Z)?
By default, every Illustrator document has 1 layer. Know how to access your layers panel.
What is Windows > Layers?
Fonts can cause problems when sending artwork to a commercial printer. If the printing house doesn't have the exact font, the document will print incorrectly. To prevent this problem, a final step to publishing your design is to convert the text to outlines or paths. Describe how to convert text into outlines.
What is Properties Panel > Type > Create Outlines?
Describe how to set Color Mode.
What is Edit > Color Settings...?
(Remember to look for specifications for RGB, CMYK, etc.)
Project managers' primary job is two-fold. 1.) to ensure the project is developed on schedule and 2.) to prevent scope creep. Define what scope creep is.
What is changes in the requirements of a project (made by the client) during construction that will cause over-budget or delays?
Rulers help measure and align images. And while most of us know the quick key for the ruler, illustrator asks us to identify it differently. Describe the second way.
What is going to the properties panel and selecting "Ruler"?
Another acceptable answer is:
What is View > Rulers > Show Rulers/Guides/Show Grids?
There are 4 different management tasks you can do with layers. List all 4.
What is:
1.) New Layer
2.) New Sublayer
3.) Duplicate "Layer Name"
4.) Delete "Layer Name"
Define overflow text.
(A red plus sign [+] indicates the text has overflowed the exit port of the path.)
What is if an area type or path type object contains more text than it has room to display, the remaining unseen text is called overflow text.
Describe how to convert to a rasterized image.
What is:
1.) Select the object
2.) Object > Rasterize
Successful management of design projects involves 5 stages. List these stages.
What is:
1.) Planning
2.) Scheduling
3.) Building
4.) Review
5.) Publish
Know how to identify links in your document, and what the difference is between linked and embedded.
What is embedded means inside of the file, linked is an outside sourced document only for viewing inside of the file?
In a complex project there are multiple layers. It is essential to know how to manage them. Name the 4 ways to manage your layers.
What is:
1.) Rename
2.) Show/Hide
3.) Rearrange
4.) Delete
Knowing Visual Terminology:
Selecting v. Targeting
What is selecting: is an action that chooses an object, group, or layer to perform transformations, such as deleting, moving, rearranging, scaling, rotating, skewing, reflecting, mirroring, etc.?
What is targeting: chooses an object, group, or layer to apply attributes, such as fill or a stroke, or applying effects or style?
Describe how to access metadata of a file.
What is File > File Info..?
Knowing Graphics Terminology:
Vector v. Raster
Bonus Points: Each Answer will be worth 50 points. Name the most common file types and what type of graphic they output.
What is Vector: an image with paths and anchor points?
What is Raster: an image with a pixel grid?
Bonus: What is:
Ai: Illustrator File
JPG: Raster File
PNG: Raster File
GIF: Raster File
EPS: Vector File
SVG: Vector File
(It will be good to know what each file is used best for!)
Identify the swatch library, as well as the following terms:
1.) Process Colors
2.) CMYK
What is Window > Swatch Libraries?
What is Colors with the combination of four standard inks:C (Cyan), M (Magenta), Y (Yellow), K (Black)?
The transparency panel is used to adjust the opacity of a layer. Know how to access this panel.
What is Window > Transparency?
To repair or reconstruct objets there are 3 tools. Name these tools.
What is:
1.) Eraser Tool
2.) Knife Tool
3.) Scissors Tool
Describe how to export artboards.
Define the following terms:
1.) Rule of Thirds
2.) Foreground
3.) Background
4.) Document
5.) Aspect Ratio
(You must know all terms in order to receive all 500 points!)
1.) 2 horizontal and 2 vertical lines evenly spaced to create a grid of 9 sections.
2.) Elements closest to the viewer.
3.) Elements furthest from the viewer.
4.) Area that contains all your created work.
5.) Ratio between width and height of an image.
You have different ways to view your document. Name several common ways and how to access them.
What is outline view? View > Outline
What is pixel view? View > Pixel Preview
What is to trim objects outside the artboard? View > Trim View
What is presentation? View > Presentation View
A clipping mask works like a cookie-cutter.
Describe how to create a clipping mask.
What is:
1.) Create a closed shape you want to use as the mask over the original image. This object is called the Clipping Path.
2.) Select both the clipping path and original image or grouped objects.
3.) Then go to Object Menu> Clipping Mask > Make
( Only vector objects can be clipping paths. Again, this must be placed on top of the single image or grouped objects. )
Graphic styles are a set of reusable attributes that change the look of an object. Describe how to create a new graphic style.
What is Window > Graphic Style?
Adobe Illustrator allows you to bundle together the files you’ve used, including linked graphics and fonts (except Chinese, Korean, and Japanese), to share with other people.
Describe how to package files together.
What is File > Package..?