software package

This month I am studying “Creating characters in Adobe Illustrator”

It is an online class consisting mostly of prerecorded video and some exercises.

Should be fun.

Update: Between the video, exercises and extra work I logged 29 hours over the month in improving my character creation skills using Adobe Illustrator.

This month I am studying “InDesign advanced training”

Well we got the basics down last month with 15 hours of recorded video and a bunch of exercises. This month I figured I should try and take it to the next level with more advanced techiques.

Update: A lot of the advanced training was to do with typography, page layout, composition, etc. Most of the stuff I know how to do in Illustrator or Photohop. The actual studying was a breeze to get through.

Between the video tutorials, exercises and just practicing what I learnt I logged a total of 29 hours of study for the month.

 

This month I am studying “Tracing artwork with Illustrator”

This is a short class on using Illustrator to convert artwork to line drawings using the built-in tracing tools.

I don’t really need to take a class in this subject, and I certainly don’t need to spend an entire month studying it. I am in a time crunch this month. I am splitting my time between teaching an advanced iOS development class at the Apple campus and developing Lucky Ace Slots for release in the New Year. Just not enough hours in the day.

Update: Managed to at least log 16 hours of study and practice throughout the month. Hotel rooms are great places to just focus on what work needs to be done.

This month I am studying “Package design with Illustrator”

I’ve always had a fascination with really good package design.

Not just the language and metaphors used in the packaging, but also how graphics are wrapped around a three dimensional object.

Expecting to extract a lot of useful knowledge from this intensive design class.

This is an online class consisting of video tutorials and practice exercises.

Log: Managed to log 18 hours of tutorials, study and practice exercises.

This month I am studying “Creating website wireframes with Illustrator”

Generally when I want to do web design I stop at the wireframe/prototyping stage with either pen & paper or Balsamiq Mockups and turn to doing the code.

Wondering if there is any advantage to using Illustrator to go one step further towards a complete design.

Update: Between watching the videos, practicing the exercises and doing some extra-curricular work, I logged 21 hours of study time for the month.

There does seem to be some advantage to this. I need to start thinking of the design as a pipeline going through “normal form” like I would with data. Sketch on paper becomes wireframe on paper becomes wireframe in Illustrator becomes flesh design out in Illustrator becomes convert to HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

This month I am studying “Creating logos and icons for mobile apps”

It looks like the course primarily relies on Adobe Illustrator for most of the work, with a few outline sketches.

The course is about 12 hours long, and there are several lengthy exercises to work through, so I am anticipating this will take me at least a month to work through, complete the exercises and then review what I have learnt.

Update: I studied and practiced for 26 hours total.

This month I am studying “Creating poseable characters with Illustrator”

I seem to be on an Adobe Illustrator kick, of late. Forth class in a row dealing with interesting aspects of how to use the software.

Log: 20 hours of practice

This month I am studying “Creating maps in Illustrator”

I love maps. I am looking forward to this class on how to make them in Illustrator.

This seems to be a hybrid class. It has an in-person one-on-one workshop component and then a bunch of video tutorials and exercises to work through. Should be interesting to see how the format plays out.

Update: 27 hours logged between the half-day workshop, the video tutorials, the exercises and the extra work I did.