When Good Illustrators Goes Bad

My first semester teaching Illustrator was rough going. I knew the program well enough to convince the tools, menus and palettes to do my bidding, but when it came to identifying the mistakes my students were making, I was a total loss. Within 2 seconds after they began working on an assignment, there would be a frenzy of frantic hand waving and gasps of dismay as a multitude of students experienced Illustrator breakdown.

"There is something wrong with my computer," a student would cry out.

"Oh, dear," I would respond, "Whatever is the matter?" (Nice,natural flow to my dialog, huh?)

Then the litany of complaints would begin:

"The menus disappeared!"

"The drawing tools are broken. I have drawn the star 47 times and it is STILL NOT THERE!" ( obsessive, older student)

"I have picked a color from the Swatches palette, but it's not working, the square is still white."

"My screen is all white--everything is gone."

I would stare dumbly and their screens and ask "What did you do?"

Their responses would range from "I don't know," to "I followed the steps exactly--The directions are wrong," to my personal favorite "Nothing."

At this point, I would nod sagely and say "hmmmm, I see."

But, I didn't see. I simply didn't know Illustrator well enough to determine where they had gone wrong. As a result, I would tell them to shut the program down and start over again. "Well," I would say, "there must be a bug in the system." (*see below)

After a few years of watching students repeat the same mistakes, I began to recognize their errors and, after a moments glance, could set them straight. After a few more years of watching students make the same mistakes over and over again, I began telling the them what they were going to do wrong before they even started. Once duly warned, they go gleefully on their way to making said mistakes and then expressing surprise at the subsequent outcome. Hmmmm.

Here are some of the more common mistakes students make:

• They don't select the object they want to work on. This is the most common mistake I see. It's a great program, but Illustrator can't read our minds. Just staring at an object and wishing hard isn't going to make it happen.


• They work in outline view without realizing it. Outline view is handy if you want to work with points and paths without the distraction of colors, but otherwise, stay in preview mode (View>Preview). If you are in Outline mode, you are applying the colors, you're just not seeing them.


• They have accidentally clicked the Full Screen Mode button. This one is fun--the entire menu bar at the top disappears. There are three buttons across the bottom of the Toolbar: Standard Screen, Full Screen with Menu Bar and Full Screen. Save yourself some grief, stay on the Standard Screen Mode.


• Those 47 invisible stars were drawn with No Stroke and No Fill. Switch the view from Preview to Outline and tra da...there 47 stars are in all their glory!


• They try to make a pattern out of another pattern. The close cousin to this mistake is accidentally applying a pattern to the stroke instead of the fill of an object. If the stroke has a heavy weight, this works out nicely, but if it is 1 pt weight, the stroke just looks like a lousy try at making dots and dashes.


• They type in the dimensions of a shape and are using the wrong unit of measure. For instance, they think they are creating a square that is 1 inches by 1.5 inches, but in reality they have made world's tiniest square--1 pt by 1.5 pts.


• Some students accidentally scroll totally away from the page and end up lost in a world of scratchboard white. A quick solution to this is to double-click the Hand Tool in the Toolbox. The Navigator palette is also useful for finding your way back to the page.

The longer I work with Illustrator, the more convinced I become that there are logical reasons for all the problems we meet. I certainly know enough now to state absolutely that there are no such thing as "bugs in the system." It is well known that they were wiped out years ago by the little purple computer gremlins.

*Yes the bugs in the system is a lame cop-out and makes absolutely no sense. But I grew up listening to my grandmother's excuses. Example: When asked to do something she didn't want to do, her pat response was "I'd like to help, but I am an old woman and I have a bone in my leg." People would take that as a viable excuse and apologize profusely for having taken up her time.

Little late for Halloween, but here is a fun tutorial from n. design studio

Bookmarking the Old-Fashioned Way

On the first day of the semester I hand out the class syllabus. This is a paper that is meticulously, painstakingly rewritten every semester only to be unceremoniously jammed into the back of a pocket folder that will never be opened again.

When a student does something particularly annoying during the semester I add a new blurb to the syllabus. For instance, one year Jim sauntered into class 7 to 10 minutes late every day. He always did nice work and turned everything in on time, but his constant tardiness was both disruptive and disrespectful. Since I had never officially specified that my expectation was that students would come to class on time, I had no recourse but to give him a good grade. The following semester, though, my syllabus included strict admonishments regarding tardiness. (1st time you are derided unmercifully, 2nd time your grade drops significantly, and 3rd time you might as well drop the class because you're not passing.) Any complaints about the severity of my tardy rules I gladly refer to Jim. My syllabus is now approximately 20 pages long and is periodically reviewed by a team of lawyers that I keep on retainer.

Just kidding, actually, I am not meticulous at all. Every semester our office assistant checks our syllabi for errors. This fall I had the wrong room number, forgot to put the name of the scool in the header and had the year as 2004. Ah, that was a very good year.

We also delve a bit into Illustrator on Day 1. I bring in nice, heavy paper (that has been known to jam up the printer) and we create bookmarks. It gives the students a quick look-see at all the exciting things that can be accomplished in Illustrator. They end up with a nice sturdy bookmark to lose for the semester. I mean use. Actually, the obsessive older students laminate and beribbon theirs and eventually bequeath them to grandchildren as family heirlooms. So, lets get busy with those bookmarks.

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Create a Bookmark

• Open Adobe Illustrator (preferably a CS something)


• Choose File>New from the menu.


• Set the Units to inches, choose CYMK Color mode and name the file "Bookmark."

Rectangle 1

• Select the Rectangle tool in the Toolbox


• Click on the page with the tool and make the rectangle 2" width and 6" height. (Note: a rectangle is created and is automatically selected. An object must be selected in order to change its color, size, and other attributes.)


• Click Fill in the Control Panel (top of screen) to open the Swatch Palette.


• Select a light color to apply to the rectangle.


• Hold the Shift key down and click on the Fill box in the Control Palette again. (Holding the Shift key magically transforms the Swatch Palette into the Color Palette.)


• Adjust the color using the sliders if you so desire.


• Click on the Stroke box in the Control Panel and choose No Stroke. (that would be the one with the red diagonal line.)


• Keep the rectangle selected.


• Let me repeat that...keep the rectangle selected. Illustrator is very adamant about refusing to do things when there are no objects selected.

Rectangle 2

• Choose from the menu: Object>Path>Offset Path.


• Type in -0.25 (negative number) and click OK.


• You have created a duplicate rectangle that is slightly smaller than the original. This new rectangle is the one that is selected now.

Decorative Border

• If it's not showing, open the Brushes Palette by choosing Window>Brushes.


• Click on the options menu button. (this is the little circle with an arrow that is on the top right side of the palette.)


• From the Open menu: choose Brush Library and select any brush library that strikes your fancy.


• Select a border from the library palette. (The rectangle is outlined with the border you chose. Now is a good time to change your mind if you are unhappy with your first choice. Illustrator specializes in accomodating indecisive people.)


• Close the Library palette to get it out of the way. Your border is most likely overwhelmingly big, so you will edit it. The brush you chose from the library is now showing in the Brushes palette.


• Double-click on the brush you used to open a dialog box. (towards the right side of the dialog box is a place to change the scale of the border.)


• Click the preview box and adjust the size if necessary.


• Click OK


• When a warning box comes up, choose Apply to Strokes.


• Choose Select>Deselect All from the menu.

Adding Text

• Hold the Alt key and click on the Type Tool in the Toolbox until you see the Vertical Text Tool.


• Click on the Fill Color box in the Control Palette and select a text color.


• Set the keyboard for all caps.


• Choose a font, font style and point size from the Control panel.


• Type a word or two on the bookmark.


• If you are dissatisfied with any of the attributes of the text, click on the black arrow at the top right of the toolbar (selection tool) to select the text and make your changes. You can also adjust the position of the text using the up and down arrows on the keyboard.

Drop Shadow

• Make sure the text is still selected.


• Choose Effect>Stylize>Drop Shadow


• Click the Preview button in the dialog and adjust the shadow any way you like.

Add a Symbol

This part is great for all us folks who can't draw.

• Choose Window>Symbols to open the Symbols palette.


• Click on the Options Menu button in the Symbols palette (top right of palette.)


• Choose Open Symbol Library and choose any of the libraries.


• Click on a picture and drag it to your bookmark. (If the symbol needs to be resized or rotated: choose View>View Bounding Box. select the symbol and adjust it using the bounding box.)

Finish it up

• Choose File>Save As and save it wherever you like to save things.


• Choose File>Print and click OK.

Pat yourself on the shoulder and go read a good book. How about Adobe Illustrator CS3 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques.

Who, What, When, Where and Know Hows

My name is Diana and I have been teaching computer graphics at St. Charles Community College for the past five years. I am not a graphic artist and I make no claims whatsoever to having even a modicum of talent, but I love Adobe Illustrator and have had the pleasure of teaching many very talented students to use the program efficiently.

I started out at SCC as a student. My husband pushed the "wherever thou goest, I go" promise to the hilt and we passed through six states in 25 years. This was problematic when I was teaching elementary school because each time we moved I had to take state required tests, jump through various flaming hoops and substitute teach to "get my foot in the door." (Flaming hoops were much more pleasant than the substitute teaching.) When we moved to Illinois in the 1990s I moved away from classroom teaching and began working for Arthur Andersen. I toiled in the production department of their learning development facility for five years. Soon after we moved to Missouri, Arthur Andersen went kerplunk. (I had no idea how much they were depending on me!)

Aimlessly meandering through my days in St. Charles, I stumbled upon a brochure offering an opportunity to earn a certificate in multimedia from SCC. (Better than finding opportunity on a matchbook.) I figured that it would be a good way to meet people in the area and it would afford me the opportunity to play with lots of fun multimedia software, so I signed up.

I was one of those annoying older students who hold up class asking inconsequential questions and fly into a frenzy every time they miss a single question on a test. After I had finished the program, I was asked to join the staff as an adjunct and to teach Illustrator in the computer graphics class. I have built up my repertoire so that I am now also teaching digital photo editing with Photoshop. But, Illustrator is and always will be my first love. (Don't tell my husband--he'd probably make me move again.)

I am starting this blog as a project for a graduate course that I am taking at University of Missouri--Columbia. My first impulse was to create a Webquest about invasive species in the Midwest, but looking out at my weed-ridden garden I realized that it would be a case of not practicing what I was preaching. Then I remembered the old adage about doing what you know (or something along that line.) So, I have decided to create this blog and to write about what goes on in my classroom, and share some hints and lessons that I have developed over the years.

I hope that this site will serve as a resource for my students, past and present, who need support or inspiration. I also think it would be a wonderful thing if this blog should inspire some new budding artists to try their hand at Adobe Illustrator.

Why Industrious Illustrator? I have an affinity for alliteration, but neither illicit nor illuvial quite convey the intended message. Besides, what I lack in talent, I make up for with hard work.