Home / Non-Accredited / Graphic Design & CAD / Adobe Illustrator Course for Beginners (2 days)
Quick Look Course Summary:Adobe Illustrator Course for Beginners (2 days)
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Length: 2 day(s)
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Price (at your venue): 1 Person R 14,642 EX VAT 3 Person R 9,476 EX VAT 10 Person R 6,472 EX VAT
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Certification Type:Non-Accredited
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Locations & Venues: Off-site or in-house. We train in all major city centres throughout South Africa.
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Adobe Illustrator Course for Beginners (2 days)
Your staff produce clean, scalable vector artwork – logos, icons, signage and simple layouts – that prints and displays correctly at any size.
Logos, icons, signage, infographics and packaging artwork have to stay sharp at any size, from a business card to a billboard. That is what vector graphics are for, and Adobe Illustrator is the standard tool for them. Teams who do this work in Word, PowerPoint or a photo editor end up with blurry logos, wrong colours and files the printer sends back. This Adobe Illustrator course takes beginners from a blank artboard to print-ready and web-ready artwork in two days.
Day one lays the foundations: design principles, the workspace, basic shapes, the Pen tool and paths, type, placed images, strokes, fills and simple styles, and saving files for print, web and PDF. Day two builds more complex illustrations with layers, guides, combined shapes, perspective and image tracing, then covers painting tools, colour swatches and groups, advanced type, effects, masks, symbols and production-ready output. It closes with the practical side of design work: briefs, audiences, deadlines and copyright.
Every topic is practised on business-style artwork rather than abstract exercises.
Why this course
For your organisation
- Brand artwork produced in-house, to a consistent standard
- Fewer files rejected by printers and signage suppliers
- Logos and icons that stay sharp in every format
- Less reliance on outside agencies for small design jobs
For your delegates
- Confidence with the Pen tool, paths and shapes
- Know when to use vector artwork and when to use a photo editor
- Prepare files correctly for print, web and PDF
- A small set of practice artwork built over the two days
What delegates will be able to do
- Explain the difference between vector and raster graphics and choose the right one for the job
- Set up documents and artboards and work in a customised workspace
- Draw and edit shapes and custom paths with the Pen and shape tools
- Add and format type, including text on a path and threaded text frames
- Combine shapes, use layers and trace artwork to build complex illustrations
- Manage colour with swatches, colour groups, gradients and transparency
- Apply effects, graphic styles, masks and symbols
- Prepare artwork for commercial print, the web and PDF
Who should attend
Marketing and communications staff, in-house designers, administrators who produce company artwork, signage and packaging staff, and anyone who needs to create logos, icons or simple layouts. No previous Illustrator experience is needed; basic computer skills are assumed.
Course outline
Day 1 – Illustrator foundations
Design basics and the Illustrator workspace
- Design principles: balance, contrast, alignment and composition
- Vector versus raster: why Illustrator artwork scales cleanly
- Finding your way round panels, tools and the Properties panel
- Customising and saving a workspace
Documents, artboards and basic shapes
- Creating documents with the right size, units and colour mode
- Working with several artboards
- Drawing rectangles, ellipses, polygons and stars
- Selecting, aligning, grouping and arranging objects
- Saving and exporting in the common formats
Paths and the Pen tool
- Anchor points, handles and curves
- Drawing straight and curved paths with the Pen tool
- The Pencil, Curvature and Shaper tools
- Adding, removing and converting anchor points
- Practice: redrawing a simple logo shape
Working with type
- Point type and area type
- Running text along a path
- Threading text between frames
- Character and paragraph styles
- Special characters and glyphs
- Bending text with envelope distortions
Fills, strokes, images and styles
- Placing and linking images
- Stroke weight, dashes and arrowheads
- Fills, gradients and brushes
- Changing appearance and saving graphic styles
Preparing simple artwork for output
- Updating, wrapping and hyphenating text
- Output settings for commercial print
- Exporting for websites and screens
- Saving a print-ready PDF
Day 2 – Complex artwork and production
Building complex illustrations
- Grids, guides, rulers and the Info panel
- Combining shapes with Pathfinder and the Shape Builder
- Organising artwork with layers
- Drawing in perspective
- Image Trace: turning a scan or sketch into vector art
Painting tools
- Live Paint groups
- Custom brushes
- Transparency and blending modes
- Gradient meshes
- Creating and applying patterns
Colour management
- Process and spot colours, CMYK and RGB
- Building a swatch library for a brand
- Colour groups and recolouring artwork
- Adjusting colour across a whole design
Advanced type and effects
- Advanced character and paragraph formatting
- Applying effects and saving them as graphic styles
- Clipping masks and opacity masks
- Symbols and symbol sets
- Basic 3D effects
Production-ready output
- Preparing artwork and transparency for printing
- Bleed, crop marks and pre-flight checks
- Exporting assets for websites, screens and video
- Packaging files for other applications and suppliers
Managing a design job
- Reading a brief: purpose, audience and needs
- Copyright and usage rights for artwork, fonts and images
- Planning tasks, deadlines and sign-off
- Final project and review
How it is delivered
Two days, 08:30-16:00. In person at your offices anywhere in South Africa, at a BOTI venue, or live online. One delegate or a group of up to 20. Delegates work in the current Creative Cloud version of Adobe Illustrator; laptops with the software can be supplied on request. Course manual and practice files included. We deliver it at your offices in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and anywhere else in South Africa, at a BOTI venue in Johannesburg, or live online for teams in different places.
What our clients say
“The training was very informative and practical, leaving our employees feeling confident in their ability to leverage Excel more effectively.”
“The training courses were efficiently scheduled and planned around our timetable. We were impressed by the quality of training. I look forward to working with Business Optimization Training Institute in the future.”
“We were particularly impressed by the quality of facilitation and the practical relevance of the content presented. The programme was delivered with professionalism, clarity, and a strong emphasis on real-world application.”
Frequently asked questions
Should our team learn Illustrator or Photoshop?
Illustrator is for artwork built from shapes and lines – logos, icons, signage and diagrams – that must scale cleanly. Photoshop is for photos and other pixel-based images. Many marketing teams need both; see Adobe Photoshop CC Essentials (2 days).
Does it prepare delegates for an Adobe exam?
The courseware is mapped to Adobe's Certified Professional exam for Illustrator, but the exam is not included in the course. Delegates who want the exam book it separately.
Can you run this course at our offices?
Yes. Most groups are trained at the client's premises anywhere in South Africa; we can also host it at a BOTI venue or deliver it live online.
How many people can attend?
From one delegate to groups of 20. The price per delegate drops as the group grows – see the price table, or ask us for a quote.
Is it accredited?
No – it is a non-accredited short course and delegates receive a BOTI certificate of attendance.
Can you run this course in Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban?
Yes. We train on site at your offices in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and across South Africa, at a BOTI venue in Johannesburg, or live online so a team spread over several offices can attend together.
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