Illustrator 101: Faster Font Selection

March 3, 2008 | Posted in Illustrator | 37 Comments »

It’s important to note that this will also work in Photoshop, but I’m using Illustrator as an example. If you’re anything at all like me, you have a ginormous font collection and scrolling through the entire list to find the one your looking for can be cumbersome at times. Here’s a quick tip to spend less time scrolling and more time designing.

Illustrator 101: Faster Font Selection
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*BB Special* 3 Ways: VECTOR HALFTONES from RASTER Images

January 28, 2008 | Posted in Illustrator | 70 Comments »

This is by far the most-emailed question I get here at BittBox. How can you make vector halftones from raster images? Well, our friends at Adobe haven’t seen the need to throw us a bone in this situation yet, but there are some brave souls out there taking on the challenge themselves, and answering the call. I’m going to show you 3 different ways to create vector halftones from raster images, 2 of which are free, and the 3rd is only $15. Grab a random image from your archive, and let’s get to it. . .

3 Ways: VECTOR HALFTONES from RASTER Images
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Illustrator: The Tilde Trick

December 19, 2007 | Posted in Illustrator | 86 Comments »

BittBox Reader Jeff F tipped me off about this neat little Illy trick. It just so happens that if you hold down the “tilde” key on your keyboard, you can get a neat effect using any of Illustrator’s drawing tools. Holding down the tilde key, (the little squiggly line above the tab key, left of the number 1 on your keyboard.) while using a drawing tool will cause Illustrator to repeat the shape rapidly as you move your mouse. Examples after the jump. Thanks Jeff!

Illustrator: The Tilde Trick
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Get More-Natural Adjustments with the Illustrator “Reshape” Tool

November 28, 2007 | Posted in Illustrator | 64 Comments »

A hidden gem in my opinion, Illustrator’s “Reshape” tool can come in very handy in a variety of situations. In a nutshell, the Reshape tool allows you to drag a single point on a path and it tries to retain the overall shape of the entire path, while you only move the one anchor point. What? I’ll explain below.

The Illustrator Reshape Tool
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Requested Tutorial: Crop Excess Illustrator Artwork

November 13, 2007 | Posted in Illustrator | 55 Comments »

This tutorial was requested (by David) and I’m happy to report, it’s really not very hard to do. If you’ve ever used a clipping mask to hide all of the extra artwork that hangs off the edges of your Illustrator artboard, and wished you could just get rid of the excess, here’s how…

Requested Tutorial: Crop Excess Illustrator Artwork
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