Illustrator is one of the most difficult Creative Suite applications to get to grips with. The key is to understand the various modes in which the application deems objects to be in - keeping an eye on the control strip status information is central to mastering this product. In the right hands it's a flexible and excellent, yet demanding tool.

All Illustrator courses start with the Pen Tool and the basic theory of Bézier curves. For your information Pierre Bézier was a French engineer and patentee (but not the inventor) of the Bézier curves and worked for Renault from 1933–1975 where he developed his UNISURF CAD CAM system. Interesting?

All courses cover the major features of Illustrator - in addition you will receive information on additional resources to support your training, 3 months telephone support as well as a 3 month free subscription to talentedpixie.com online training videos. Prices start from £300 plus VAT per day. A course outline can be downloaded in pdf format here - use this to form the basis of your training requirements.

An overview of Illustrator training

• What's new in Illustrator CS4; multiple art-boards, appearance panel, graduations
• Getting to grips with the pen tool and Bézier curves
• Using Pathfinder to combine shapes
• Creating and using brushes to link shapes to paths
• Warping, make with top object, envelope distorting and bending type and objects
• Live paint and live trace - converting pictures into paths - great for maps
• Export options; saving artwork for web or print and exporting to other applications like Photoshop

Available Illustrator courses

• Illustrator introduction, 2 days
• Illustrator advanced, one day

Recently I produced a series of InDesign training videos for talentedpixie.com - a free example of one of these videos where I introduce the fantastic brush features can be viewed here: http://online.talentedpixie.com/movies/322137/brushoptions.html

Adobe Illustrator training