Adobe Illustrator

What is it?

Illustrator is part of the Adobe Creative Suite. It's one of the best pieces of vector graphics software on the market. Vector graphics use smooth lines and shapes rather than pixels (dots) to create images. This creates images that are not only smoother and cleaner, but also have much smaller file sizes. It also features very user-friendly painting tools and customizeable workspaces. If you're doing any sort of artwork on the computer, this is a shiny, shiny program.

Where can I get it?

Due to licensing concerns, Pomona is no longer offering Illustrator and the other Adobe products for private student use. However, Illustrator is available in any of the Pomona computer labs. If you really need a copy for your own computer, you can do a Google search for Illustrator to find a decent deal on the software.

How do I use it?

That's a rather lengthy discussion to be going into here. If you need help using Illustrator, here are a few handy sites you can check out:

• The official Adobe Illustrator product page (Take a look at the animated demo of the program. Just don't drool on your keyboard.)
• A list of links to Illustrator tutorials
• Some tips and techniques for using Illustrator