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LinkedIn Learning

Creating Icons with Illustrator

via LinkedIn Learning

Overview

This beginner-level course gives you an overview of what an icon is and its key characteristics, then enables you to design and export your icons in Illustrator.

This course provides an overview of what an icon is and its key characteristics, then teaches you how to design your own icons using Adobe Illustrator. Instructor Bart Van de Wiele explores why you need icons, how you use them, and why scalability is important. Bart steps you through how to set up your Illustrator document before you begin your design process. He describes how to organize your work using Illustrator artboards for arranging, naming, and exporting your icons. Bart walks you through ways to import your sketch into Illustrator, then goes over how to clean up your sketch digitally. He shows you how to use simple, complex, and compound shapes to build your logo digitally, then explores several more advanced techniques. In conclusion, Bart covers best practices for exporting your icons for the web, for print, and for use in other applications like Photoshop.

Syllabus

Introduction
  • Fast and efficient icon creation
  • About challenges
1. Understanding Core Concepts
  • The concept of an icon
  • Screen versus printed icons
  • Icon styles and sets
  • Things to help you get started
  • Challenge
  • Solution
2. Setting Up Illustrator
  • How to correctly set up a document
  • Creating a custom toolset
  • Setting grid preferences
  • How to use the pixel grid
  • Creating artboards
  • Challenge
  • Solution
3. Going from Paper to Digital
  • Sketching icons
  • Importing a sketch as a template
  • Auto-tracing a sketch
  • Capturing and importing a sketch using Adobe Capture
  • Reducing the number of points and cleaning up
  • Challenge
  • Solution
4. Understanding Design Techniques
  • Designing with basic shapes
  • Setting stroke options
  • Using the Pathfinder panel
  • Understanding compound shapes
  • Mastering the Shape Builder tool
  • Discovering the Appearance panel
  • Useful filters and effects
  • Power tips
  • Advanced techniques: Creating a winter icon
  • Advanced techniques: Creating a summer icon
  • Advanced techniques: Creating a fall icon
  • Advanced techniques: Creating a spring icon
  • Challenge
  • Solution
5. Saving and Exporting
  • Common icon sizes
  • How to export for web
  • How to export as SVG
  • Bulk exporting via Export for Screens
  • Bulk artwork export via Asset Export panel
  • Exporting for print
  • Exporting to Adobe Photoshop
  • Challenge
  • Solution
Conclusion
  • Thank you

Taught by

Bart Van de Wiele

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