Pantone Color

Color is a an important topic in digital illustration, so I decided to add a new color category in the blog. I'll begin with a simple guide to pantone colors from colourlovers.com's blog, you can check the original article by clicking on the link below. The next posting in this category will be dedicated to the color libraries and swatches in Adobe Illustrator."Pantone was founded in 1962 as a small business that manufactured color cards for cosmetics companies. Since their humble beginning, Pantone has become a mainstay for color in the design world. The Pantone Matching System allows colors to be “matched” when they reach the production stages. They also assert that their lists of color numbers and pigment values are the intellectual property of Pantone and free use of the list is not allowed, which is controversial and could be said to cause problems, especially for open source uses. Controversy aside, the world leader in color hasn’t stopped with just their matching system and has started to move into taking over the ‘universe’ of color as well with the launch of Pantone Universe." Full text

Rotate Tool

Fresh Vector Brushes

A fresh looking brush set for Adobe Illustrator from www.dtpvids.com . Ckech it out, I found other interesting resources and tutorials. To download the brushes use this link

Take A Seat Vector Collection

8 eps vectors of seating furniture from fudgegraphics. Download the pack from here.

Vector Trees Illustrator Tutorial for Adobe Illustrator

"Green is in vogue and clients everywhere want natural imagery in their promotional material. Ben the Illustrator shows you how to create a fresh-looking tree.

As a child, no doubt a tree was one of the first things you drew, with a brown rectangular block for the trunk and a big green scribble for the leaves...

But with companies increasingly keen to shout about their ecological credentials, now’s a good time to learn how to create a tree with a computer instead of crayons.
Full tutorial Computer Arts Magazine

60 Random Vectors in EPS

Free vector pack from Samuel Sinaga. This set contains over 30 random vector illustrations that could be used for logo design brainstorming or for a starting point of a design concept...

The artwork is saved in AI and EPS file formats, you can use any vector compatible editor to modify or customize it.

To use, first you have to expand the ZIP archive. Free for personal and commercial use. Download

Pretty in PUNK

Vector Illustration by Big Lew.

Convert Brushes from Photoshop to Illustrator

In December I briefly described a quick method for vectorizing pixels with the Live Trace feature in Adobe Illustrator.

In this tutorial you'll take almost the same steps in order to convert a Photoshop Brush object to an Illustrator brush file.

1) You'll need a brush set file and load it in adobe photoshop. In this case I'll use an Urban Scrawl Brush set for Photoshop available here.

2) Load the brush (.arb) file in, by double click or dragging it into Photoshop.
3) Create a new document (white background, resolution - 200 ppi).
4) Select the brush tool, and chose a shape from the brush set that you just loaded. Change the opacity too 100% and select black for forground color. (use the screenshot below as reference)

5)After selecting your shape click twice on the screen with the brush tool and save the document as jpeg or gif.

Now comes the second part - Bringing the image in Adobe Illustrator and Vectorizing it.

6)Load Illustrator and create a new print document. Then go to File>Place and choose the image that you created in photoshop.

7) Select the image and go to Object>Live Trace>Tracing Options...

8) In the Live Trace Dialogue Box make sure that you choose black & white mode and put a checkmark on Filles and click on Trace.9)Now you see the vectorized preview of the shape that you want to be your brush. But to use it as a regular vector object you have to expand it. Go to Object>Expand and then Object>Ungroup

10) Choose the selection tool and delete the white areas that are not part of the object. You can experiment with the stroke color or fill, it's up to you and the object.
11) The last step is to save your vector as a brush file. Open your brush palette (F5) select your vector object and drag it into the bursh pallette. A "new brush" window will popup, select "New Art Brush, click OK and then name it. In the palette you can se other brushes, that are loaded in Illustrator by default. Delete them from the palette (don't worry they are not going to be removed) by selecting them and clicking on the trash can. Leave only the brush that you've just created and go to Save Brushes... (look ath the image below) and name your file.Well that's it. I Hope I didn't shorten the process a lot.

Groove

Quickly created in Illustrator while not paying attention in my Photoshop class. Done by overlapping serif characters and playing with pathfinders and shape modes, in this case "exclude". This actually reminds me that I've got to post more examples and tutorials about usage of type and pathfinders in Adobe Illustrator. More soon !!!

Thorn Brush for Adobe Illustrator

Thorn brush for Illustrator by orgamecha. To use the brush set download the pdf file, then open it with Illustrator and you'll have it in your brush panel.

Hibiscus Vectors

I decided to post these hibiscus vectors as a response to one of the requiests in "Hibiscus Brush Set". Below you can see a preview of the shapes. Download the illustrator file from here.

Vector Nails Tutorial for Adobe Illustrator

Take a quick look at that great eight step image tutorial. It's pretty basic but you'll save a lot of time figuring out how to illustrate simple vector fingernails in Adobe Illustrator.Thanks to taho. Enlarge the image to see the tutorial.

Adobe CS4 on Vista?

Adobe is readying a new version of its Creative Suite, that includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and other applications for print and Web design. Only this time there's a twist: The new version of Photoshop will support 64-bit memory addressing for the first time -- but only if you're running Windows.

Simply put, more bits means you can access more memory, which means you can work with bigger files. By taking advantage of 64-bit CPUs, Adobe is making it possible for designers and photo manipulators to work with really, really big images at high resolutions. Think posters, advertising displays, or even billboards.
Full Article PCWORLD.ca

EskoArtwork Studio plugin for Adobe Illustrator

EskoArtwork announced the introduction of Studio, a plug-in environment for Adobe Illustrator that brings interactive 3D packaging design to the familiar Adobe Illustrator software at its pre-Drupa press event, held in Ghent last month. EskoArtwork is also introducing Studio Toolkits, a collection of supporting simplified structural design solutions.‘In packaging design, the world is certainly not a flat place and there is a clear demand for more 3D capabilities as communicating with a 3D design greatly benefits the turn-around time of the design process. Very often existing 3D tools are too complicated and simply not suited for a packaging design workflow,’ explained Kris Van Bael, product manager 3D and Visualisation, EskoArtwork. ‘EskoArtwork introduces the perfect solutions to solve these issues. Studio and the supporting Studio Toolkits are closely integrated with Adobe Illustrator and come equipped with built-in EskoArtwork packaging knowledge. Studio reduces the need for multiple costly mock-ups, helps to spot design-errors faster and takes away the guesswork from 2D flats.’
Full Article

Computer Arts Poster Design Tips

"Discover the essentials of project management and dealing with agents with these two posters to download and print out.

If you’re keen on the monthly top ten tips feature in the magazine and would like to pin it up on your wall, but don’t want to tear your magazine apart, then here’s just the thing for you..."

Full Article