Tutorial Reviews for Week 10

1) “Illustrator’s Type Tool: A Comprehensive Introduction” Tutorial

http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/illustrators-type-tool-a-comprehensive-introduction/

This tutorial covers all the basic functions of the type tool in Illustrator. The Area Type Tool, Path Tool, and Vertical Type Tool’s are revealed through a quick explanation and an example image. There is also a guide for the keyboard shortcuts and cursors to help you recognize the tools. It also explains how to the different type panels; character, paragraph, open type, glyph, character styles, paragraph styles, and tabs. Wow! This tutorial really fills you in!

Some of the functions:

...so that's what all the type cursors do and mean....

Read this tutorial and become knowledgeable!

2) “Texture: Adding Texture to your Vectors” Tutorial

http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=215

This tutorial teaches you how to apply texture to your Illustrator creations that were not computer generated. You will learn how to make a hand-made texture effect using China graph pencil on watercolor paper to create your image and the shading into a vector image. This tutorial was interesting and I loved the image they used as an example, it was a hippo!

3) “Communicating with Typography” Tutorial

http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/designing/communicating-with-typography/

This tutorial explains characteristics that can influence how the type is interpreted and communicates. The author defines the type characteristics; typeface & font, size, kerning, leading, capitalization, and color. There are numerous varieties of each characteristic and need to be taken under deep consideration when designing a document using font. This tutorial was very informative…I hope this information can prep me for my typography class in the fall.

4) “Dramatic Text on Fire Effect in Photoshop” Tutorial

http://psd.tutsplus.com/text-effects-tutorials/dramatic-text-on-fire-effect-in-photoshop/

I chose this tutorial because last week everyone seemed to put their image for their books on fire and I wanted to know how they did that. This tutorial shows you how to apply fire to text by using a photograph of fire because the author said it’s difficult to create fire in Photoshop. This tutorial applies a textured background, layer setting, filters, layer masks, smudge tool, and a fire image in 33 steps to create amazing looking text. I think this tutorial to be very cool!

5) “Retro Text Photoshop” Tutorial

http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/text-effects/retro-text.html

This tutorial combines Photoshop and Illustrator to create and edit their “retro text”. This tutorial showed you how to create “retro text” in 25 steps that have a picture example and explanation. This tutorial combined the Art Brush, Pen, Guides & Grid, Selection, Lasso, Layer adjustments, and Video Layer tools to make their creation. There was definitely a lot going on in this tutorial.