Vector work in Illustrator
A course about graphics that do not blur when scaled up: icons, marks and illustration are built from curves, not from pixels. We cover the pen and its nodes, boolean operations, the icon grid, colour and export — from the first outline to a set of icons and an illustration made for one product.
What you will be able to do
8 modules, one project
01 How vector differs from pixels2 lessons · 1 h 26 minOpen
We work out what a vector object is made of and why the same file works both on a business card and on a billboard. By the end of the module you have your own file with artboards.
02 The pen and Bézier curves3 lessons · 2 h 16 min
The most unpleasant tool in the program stops being unpleasant once you see what the node handles do. We trace a reference and correct the shape.
03 An icon from simple shapes3 lessons · 2 h 19 min
An icon is almost never drawn entirely with the pen — it is assembled from circles and rectangles. We make a set of six in one style.
04 Colour2 lessons · 1 h 28 min
Colour in vector is not an eyedropper, it is a system of swatches. A palette built once lets you recolour the whole set in a minute.
05 Text and letters2 lessons · 1 h 31 min
Text in vector lives by its own rules: while it is text you can edit it, once it is outlines you cannot. Both are needed, each at the right moment.
06 Illustration3 lessons · 2 h 19 min
An illustration starts not with a line but with analysis: which shapes and masses are here. We build a scene with volume and a background plane.
07 Order in the file and export3 lessons · 2 h 13 min
A file gets opened a month later — yours or someone else's. We put it in order and learn to hand graphics to the web and to a print shop, not «just a picture».
08 The project2 lessons · 1 h 32 min
The final piece: a set of icons and an illustration for one product, presented so they can be shown to a client or put in a portfolio.
What you get
Videos with timecodes and a written version: the shortcuts and values from a lesson can be copied without listening again.
.ai files for each step: you can open the finished result and see how a shape is built instead of guessing from the video.
A template with artboards, guides and export set up — so you do not start from an empty canvas.
A curve with too many nodes, grey bands in a gradient, an SVG that shifted on export — what exactly went wrong and how to fix it.
The whole first module is open
Watch the lessons of the first module and the first task. If the format does not suit you, you have lost nothing.