The Ultimate Guide to Every Adobe Illustrator Tool

Hello, my name is Dawid Tuminski and I am an Adobe Certified Expert in Illustrator.

I wanted to thank you for choosing this course. I know that there is a lot of courses out there, that is why I am grateful that you chose this one.

I also wanted to welcome you to the course and invite you to join me in a journey through all the tools offered by Illustrator.

It’s going to be quite a long one.

The course is more than 5 hours long and has around 100 lectures, which I think is enough to satisfy even the biggest Illustrator hunger.

Let's take a look at what you will find inside this course:

1. It’s divided into 20 sections which have 3 – to even 11 videos.

2. Each video is typically no longer than 5-6 minutes, so you can easily focus on one, specific subject.

3. I’ve added plenty of practical examples to illustrate how each tool works so you can understand it better.

4. If you are struggling with a particular tool at the moment or you just want to learn some specific aspects of it, you can jump to the exact lecture and watch it. Each section and most of the lectures are standalone projects, so you can just watch what interests you at a given moment.

5. At many stages of the course I will be advocating the use of shortcuts, instead of heading over to the tools panel every time you need to use a specific tool.  But I know that learning all of them can be a long process. That is why I have attached a comprehensive Illustrator tools shortcut reference to the first lecture in the course.

If, when watching this course, you have any problems or something is unclear, feel free to ask me in the discussion board and I will be happy to answer. So let’s jump right into the course and make you an Illustrator power user!

In this lecture you will learn how to use the first tool in Illustrator's tool panel: the selection tool. It may look like it's a really humble tool, but one you get to know its true abilities, you will be surprised how much you can do with it!

The Direct Selection Tool is the second tool in the Illustrator tools panel. It can be used both for selecting whole objects and single anchor points and paths. In this lecture we will take a look at how to use its whole potential.

In this lecture you will learn how to use the group selection tool, which is less commonly used, but in some design situations it can come in really handy.

If you ever used Photoshop, you probably used the Magic Wand to make selections. But did you know that you can select objects with similar appearance in Illustrator as well? In this lecture you will discover how to do just that.

The Lasso Tool is another tool more commonly used in Photoshop. However, in Illustrator you can use it to conveniently select objects in a more "free hand" way.

Test your selection tools knowledge

Test your selection tools knowledge

In this particular class you will learn the the pen tool, which is one of the most "in-demand" tool in the design world. 

In this lecture you will learn how to add and remove anchor points in Illustrator and you will understand the "not-so-apparent" difference between removing and deleting anchor points.

With the Convert Anchor Point tool you can turn smooth points into sharp ones, and vice versa.

The Curvature Tool is for those of Illustrator users who find it too difficult to learn the pen tool.

Test your pen tool knowledge

Test your pent tool knowledge

Typography is an essential design element and in this particular class you will learn how to use the typography tools in Adobe Illustrator.

The Are Type Tool is best used for longer pieces of text. It allows you to easily control the layout of your text.

Type on a path tool can become very handy in design scenarios like logo design, brochure design or badge design.

Using the Vertical Type tool you can create type that flows vertically, instead of horizontally.

You want to create text that runs vertically on a specific path? Then use the Vertical Type on a Path tool.

In this class you will learn one nice little trick that will allow you to easily, yet precisely, control the position of the text on a path.

This tool is for those who need the ultimate control over particular letters in a live text.

Test your knowledge about the typography tools

Test your typography tools knowledge

The Line Segment Tool is more powerful than its humble name suggests. If you need straight, precise lines, use this tool instead of the Pen Tool.

The Arc Tool can be an extremely handy Pen Tool replacement when you want to create nicely looking curves.

In this lecture you ill learn how to use the potential of the Spiral Tool, without getting dizzy.

The Rectangular Grid Tool is a great tool for all those table creation maniacs out there.

Rectangular tables are not enough? So what do you say to tables, that look like an ellipse? 

Test your drawing tools knowledge

One of the most frequently used tool in Illustrator. The Rectangle Tool can be used for so many purposes that is it essential to learn how to use its full potential.

If you are creating mobile phone icons or muck-up's, the Rounded Rectangle Tool will be your best friend.

Along with the Rectangle Tool, the Ellipse tool is one of the most important tools in Illustrator and in this class you will learn how to use it to the max.

In this lecture you will learn how to take full control over the process of creating polygon shapes in Illustrator. 

Since so many logos and icons use stars, it's vital to know how to use the Start tool the right way.

Being one of the weirdest tools in Illustrator (and I am not afraid to say that), the Flare Tool can be used to create sun-like reflections.

Test your drawing tools knowledge

The first thing you need to understand about the brushes is that they let you stylize the appearance of paths. You can apply brush strokes to existing paths, or you can use the Paintbrush to draw a path and apply a brush stroke at the same time.

To paint with a paintbrush, all we need to do is to grab the paintbrush tool and simply click and drag to create a path with a brush stroke applied to it automatically.

Of course once we created a path with a brush we still can alter it by using the brushes panel. So we can change its type or appearance by grabbing one of the brushes from the brushes library.

There are different types of brushes in Illustrator: calligraphic, scatter, art, pattern, and bristle brushes.

Let’s take a look at each one of those types in a bit more detail.

In order to change the paintbrush tool options, let’s double click the tool inside the tools panel. 

Create strokes that resemble those drawn with the angled point of a calligraphic pen and are drawn along the center of the path. 

Disperse copies of an object (such as a ladybug or a leaf) along the path.

Stretch a brush shape (such as Rough Charcoal) or object shape evenly along the length of the path.

If you want to add pattern fills to your freeform paths, use the pattern brush. They quite often can produce similar results to the scatter however pattern brushes follow the path exactly, while Scatter brushes do not.

Create brush strokes with the appearance of a natural brush with bristles.

The blob brush tool is used to paint filled shapes that you can intersect and merge with other shapes that have the same color.

Note that the Blob Brush tool uses the same default brush options as calligraphic brushes. The Blob Brush tool creates paths with a fill and no stroke. 

Test your paintbrush tool knowledge

Test your Paintbrush Tool knowledge

The Pencil tool works pretty much the same way in Illustrator and InDesign. It lets you draw open and closed paths as if you were drawing with a pencil on a piece paper. It is most useful for fast sketching or creating a hand-drawn look. 

Learn a few more ways to create paths with the Pencil Tool

To get to the Pencil tool options, we simply have to double click on it in the tools panel. 

The pencil tool comes with some sidekicks that give us even greater control over the results we can get using the tool. These sidekicks are the Smooth tool, the path eraser tool and the join tool. Let’s take a look at them in this video.

Test your Pencil Tool  knowledge

What can we do with the Eraser tool? Well we can remove portions of artwork without breaking the paths and let's take a look at that.

In this video we will take a look at the Eraser Tool options, which we can change by double-clicking the tool in the Tools panel. 

In this video we will talk about the Scissors and the Knife tools which both sit under the Eraser tool.

The Scissors tool has a handy shortcut which is the letter C and what it does is it cuts paths at specified points.

However it can also split a path or an empty text frame at an anchor point or along a path segment.

Let’s take a look at both these scenarios.

Test your Eraser Tool knowledge

Rotating an object turns it around a fixed point that you designate. The default reference point is the object’s center point. If you have multiple objects in a selection, the objects will rotate around a single reference point, which is the center point of the selection or bounding box by default. Let’s take a look at how it works in practice

The rotating tool show its full potential when you use it with the modifier keys, like the Alt key (or Option if you are on a Mac) and with the Transform Again command.

Let’s take a look the one scenario, when the Rotate tool really shows what it’s worth.

Reflecting flips the object across an invisible axis that you specify. We can take the concepts from the Rotate tool and use them with the Reflect tool. 

One of the most common questions I get from my students is how do I establish the center point of my artwork. This is an important question and a serious thing so let’s take a look at it in this video.

You might be asking yourself: What can be so special about scaling objects in Illustrator? You just grab it and make it bigger or smaller.

While you definitely can do that, trust me that there so much more to the subject, especially when you are using the Scale tool, which we will talk about in this video.

The Shear Tool is one of the most unpredictable tools in Illustrator. One of those that produce effects, that can be created much quicker using other tools. But let’s take a look at the Shear tool and see what it promises to do for us. The people behind Illustrator claim that the Shear tool is great for casting shadows, so let’s see if that’s true. 

While the Shear tool may be the most unpredictable of all the Illustrator tools, the Reshape tool is definitely one of the most seldom used. But it doesn’t mean that it’s redundant, in fact, in certain situations, it can prove to be quite helpful. 

The Free Transform tool scales, rotates, or skews object or objects. It sits alone right here in the tools panel and has a default shortcut, which is the letter E.

This tool is something like a combination of all the other transformation tools, but it’s meant for more free hand distortions.

Test your transformation tools quiz

Test your Transformation tools knowledge

In the next few videos we will talk about using the liquify tools and let me tell you, there is quite a handful of them as you can see in the tools panel… but I promise to keep the videos short and share with you only the important stuff.

The first tool we are going to explore is one of my favorite tools in Illustrator, which called the Width tool and you might have seen me using it in my other classes, especially those on logo and flat design.

The Width Tool has a default shortcut which is the Shift+W combination. What this tool does is it allows you to create strokes with variable widths. 

So what if we like the overall look of the stroke we created and we would like to save it for later? If that’s the case, we can always save the stroke as a profile. 

The liquify tools is a group name for all these tools that you can see here and they are the warp tool, the twirl tool, the pucker tool, the bloat tool, the scallop tool, the crystalize tool and the wrinkle tool.

The liquify tools is a group name for all these tools that you can see here and they are the warp tool, the twirl tool, the pucker tool, the bloat tool, the scallop tool, the crystalize tool and the wrinkle tool.

Test your Liquify Tools knowledge

In the next few videos we will take a look at the tools that are favored by fresh Illustrator users: the shape builder tool and the live paint tools.

I guess their popularity is based on the fact that using them is really intuitive and that they just do what you expect them to.

Let’s first talk about the Shape Builder Tool that sits right here in the tools panel and has a default shortcut of the Shift +M key combination.

The Shape builder tool, by default, is in the merge mode, which allows you to combine shapes.

It intuitively highlights edges and regions of the selected art, which can be merged to form new shapes. 

With the shape Builder tool options you can enhance the merging capabilities of the tool and get a better visual feedback of what you are doing. To get to the Shape Builder Tool’s options let’s double-click on the tool’s icon in the tools panel.

With the Live Paint method, you paint more like you would with a traditional coloring tool, without regard to layers or stacking order. All objects in a Live Paint group are treated as if they are part of the same flat surface. This means you can draw several paths and then color separately each area enclosed by these paths. You can also assign different stroke colors and weights to portions of a path between intersections. 

Now let’s take a look at how to modify live paint groups and elements forming them. We’ll start with the Live Paint Selection Tool 

The Live Paint Bucket options let you specify how the Live Paint Bucket tool works, choosing whether to paint just fills, just strokes, or both, as well as how to highlight faces and edges as you move the tool over them. You can see these options by double-clicking the Live Paint Bucket tool.

Test your Shape Builder Tool knowledge

In the next few videos we will talk about creating and rendering artwork in perspective – we will talk about the Perspective grid in Illustrator.

I got to tell you that there is a bit of a learning curve here, but we will take things nice and slow and learn only what’s really important to get you going with the perspective grid in Illustrator.

Drawing and transforming objects in perspective is a whole different subject in its own and it can be quite complicated to understand, that is why we will take things nice and slow. Before we grab a tool and start drawing anything, what you need to understand is the process of making the planes active. 

If you have already created objects, Illustrator provides the option to attach them to an active plane on the perspective grid. Here’s what you have to do to make it happen. Of course we need to have both the perspective grid up and we have to have an object we want to attach to a certain plane. 

Unlike regular shapes, text and symbols cannot be added directly to a perspective plane. However, you can bring text or symbols into perspective after creating them in normal mode.

I think it would be best to explore the perspective grid settings while creating our own custom perspective grid. So let’s do that by going to the View menu -> Perspective grid -> Define grid…

Test your Perspective Grid Tool knowledge

Gradients are one of those effects that are most used and loved not just by especially fresh designers, but also by a lot of designers’ clients.

I guess it’s because they can create that instant “wow” effect,  but sadly, gradients tend to be overused: there is a thin line between just enough amount of gradients and too much gradients so using them is not just about the tools, but also about the design principles.