I know absolutely NOTHING on Illustrator and searching advice on book 2

[TonyU]

I've searched Barns & Noble here got this result:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bo...WRD=illustrator&userid=2UWD5W82OA&cds2Pid=946

Would you guys be so kind to point me out to what the best book for an absolute beginner would be?

I would also would like to hear your opinions as to which is better to learn:

Illustrator (10 or 11 whichever)

or

FreeHand MX

Thanks in advanced...

[sup]
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"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
-Albert Einstein
[/sup]​

 

[healdsburger]

Hello, Just thought I'd respond to your quest for the best Illustrator Learning Books. I've taken all the classes offered at the local JC and the two books we used are: Peachpit Press's book, Visual Quick Start for Illustrator 10, was the beginning book and also Real World Adobe Illustrator 10 by Deke McClelland was the referrence and also the text book for the advanced class. If you read these books and go through all the examples, you will become proficient in Illustrator. Macromedia's Freehand is also a great program. Adob'e Illustrator is more powerful. Once you know Illustrator, you'll have no trouble with Freehand. The same scenario for Photoshop vs. Fireworks, where Photoshop is a much cooler and more powerful program but Fireworks does some things better; for example optimizing files for the web. One more book that may be available is Lynda Weinmann's Hands-On-Training Series. If she has a book on Illustrator, I'd get that one also, depending on your budget. The Hands-On-Training (HOT) is very good because you actually do examples all the way through. We used the HOT book for Dreamweaver. The Photoshop HOT is also very good. Hope this helps.

 

[TonyU]

thanks for you input healdsburger

[sup]
.....................................................................................................................
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
-Albert Einstein
[/sup]​

 

[thombathe]

Try these links for some insight
Adobe Illustrator -

http://www.thinkdan.com/tutorials/illustrator/button/index.html

http://www.thinkdan.com/tutorials/illustrator/type/

http://www.artlandia.com/products/SymmetryWorks/tutorials/index.html

http://www.webreference.com/graphics/column39/

http://www.adobe.com/webstudio/illustrator/illfthropac/main.html

http://www.sketchpad.net/illustrator.htm

http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/illustratortuts/

http://www.thinkdan.com/tutorials/illustrator.html

http://www.nelsonsfreelance.com/tutorial/

Hope this helps
Thom

 

[TonyU]

thanks thombathe

[sup]
.....................................................................................................................
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
-Albert Einstein
[/sup]​

 

[jdy]

I would recommend online instruction from the Virtual Training Company. You can find them at

http://www.vtc.com.

For $25.oo per month, you can view short video tutorials providing indepth instruction on Illustrator as well as dozens more software programs. I find this website invaluable both for the beginner as well as the advanced.