Editorial Reviews
Product Description:Designed to dazzle and inspire but not leave you in the dust, this beautifully designed volume lets you follow along as it dissects real-world projects from some of today's top Illustrator artists. In the process it teaches you how to use Illustrator in ever more creative ways for your own projects. Best-selling author and award-winning artist Sharon Steuer uses four-color pictures of real Illustrator projects to show what's possible and then employs simple, step-by-step instructions to explain the techniques that will produce those effects. You'll find comprehensive ground-up coverage of all of Illustrator CS' most important capabilities. Veteran users will be grateful to explore Illustrator CS' new features: powerful new tools for creating 3D graphics on the fly, a new Scribble Effect that lets you add a loose, hand-drawn look to your artwork, a redesigned text engine, enhanced PDF support, and more. On the CD, you'll find artwork from the book, technical documents, third-party software, clip art, and more.
Amazon.com Review:Some might think of a Wow! book as only showing how to create neon lettering or chrome highlights. But Sharon Steuer has given us a book that will have readers saying, "Wow! I can't believe how much better I am at Illustrator." The special techniques famous to the Wow! series are still represented here: pen and ink wash, scratchboard, warps, scribbles, and 3D effects, among many others. But what makes this book the one you'll keep by your computer is the incredibly clear writing, examples that cover all the fundamentals, and a clean layout.
The book is great for basics, although even experienced users will appreciate "The Zen of Illustrator" instructions that help you "think" and "see" in Illustrator. You begin by recreating basic shapes using a variety of methods, all the while becoming very agile with the pens, pathfinder palette, and other tools. Then, there's the Finger Dance: a set of keyboard fingerings that will take you right back to your piano lessons. These brilliant exercises help you move away from relying too much on your mouse (the slowest way to go) and in the habit of using the modifier keys (Control, Command, Shift, and Option). Other lessons include drawing and coloring methods, creating isometric images, patterns and vector photos, using distort filters, mapping techniques, extensive use of Illustrator CS's new typography tools, blends, gradients, transparencies, preparing artwork for use in Flash, designing web pages in Illustrator, and much more.
In addition to the at-a-glance charts in the Zen and Finger Dance sections (where you learn by looking more than reading), there's a nifty spread showing all the options in the pathfinder palette and another showing special techniques that can be achieved with brushes. And there's a handy pullout of glossary terms and summary explanations of all the steps in the Finger Dance.
There are techniques from accomplished artists and gallery sections displaying their work. Highlights include Marc LaMantia's expressionistic paintings of New York City, made from meticulously tracing over photos in Illustrator using the pen tool; Ann Paidrick's mindblowing, realistic dishes of glistening tomatoes and olives; and Yukio Miyamoto's awesome illustrations of a cat, a French horn, and a motorcycle, so detailed, you can't believe they are vector-based. This work is truly inspiring. In no time, you'll be more creative, work more efficiently, have more fun, and never let anyone borrow your book! --Angelynn Grant
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
an excellent tutorial for intermediate Illustrator users, April 15, 2006
By
Sally V (San Francisco, CA USA)
I had some Illustrator experience before picking up this book, which is important: this gives you the basics and tells you what to do when you're beyond the basic level. The author doesn't just tell you what to do, but WHY to do it. The book is full of lesson plans covering a broad scope of Illustrator functionality, for example how to use the "divide" command to create nice abstract graphics effects. Similarly, I never really had a good grasp of the usefulness of blends and gradient meshes before completing the lessons. I also got a taste of functions that I don't often use, such as custom brushes and 3D effects. I might not use them more often in the future, but if I ever need them, it's nice to know they exist.
VERY NEW to Illustrator .......but not anymore!, December 1, 2005
By
Young-ish Mommy (East Coast USA)
I LOVE this book. I got this one as a gift in pdf format & ended up buying CS2 hardcopy one.
I really love the work by Yukio Miyamoto that is included in book.
Just including his illustration of his niece in book, helped me learn to create amazing things with the mesh tool! I was able to see his mesh lines & practice recreating the illustration. I went from a complete novice to actually being able to create complicated illustrations that look real.....I really can't understand how the poster above (the quick learning, Photoshop certified one) could not find this book useful...I'm NOT that quick of a learner & got tremendous use out of this book! It's exactly what I wanted because they have enough "For Dummies" type books if you just want to learn the program....BUT if you want to create ART,,Then look at this!
CS2 Wow is basically the same but I love it still.
It has lots of good info but I'd still love more on gradient meshes because there aren't enough people writing things on Illustrator :(
Illustrator is NOT Photoshop..., September 4, 2005
By
Art Boy (NY, NY USA)
This book (and it's many previous editions... which are less expensive, and nearly identical, except for adding "CS" to the title)... are a good way to learn some fundamental AI techniques. Don't let the negative rant by the Photoshop enthusiast (preceeding this post) totally turn you off to the book.
I'm an Art Director and designer, who also comes to Adobe Illustrator from Adobe Photoshop. I've used Photoshop just about every day for 10 years. And for the record, I was a member of NAPP too, until I learned about all I could after 4 or 5 years (it's really just a magazine subscription). Anyway. If you're coming to Adobe Illustrator from Photoshop, as many of us do... here's what you ought to know:
Illustrator books are not as "cool" as Photoshop books. There aren't nearly as many people writing them... there aren't nearly as many people reading them. The average guy or gal on the street will never have to use a vector based illustration program. So keep in mind the Illustrator Software, and most books which cover it, are intended for a small group of dedicated professionals. Not like Photoshop books which are written to a huge audience (anyone with a digital camera).
We have been, perhaps, so spoiled by an abundance of truly outstanding Photoshop books (and magazines... and videos... and training software... and club-memberships... hello NAPP) that our expectations are bound to fail us, when it comes to learning other software.
All things considered... this book is the closest thing I've found to helpful instruction and eye-opening techniques for beginning and intermediate Illustrator users (I've got 5 or 6 Illustrator books lying around). Where it really excels is in its use of beautiful, full-color illustrations. That said... it's no Photoshop book... it doesn't spoon-feed you the techniques... but I really feel that's because Illustrator is simply a much harder program to learn. This book is good, for what it is. I'd rate it 3.5 stars... but 4 will have to do.
Illustrator CS WOW Book, August 2, 2005
By
James Bonner (San Diego, CA USA)
Excellent book for beginners to expert. Gives good instruction on basic concepts and expands on the theme with instructions and examples from Artists. The CD contgains excellent material for self study of techniques.
Great for a quick reference, July 23, 2005
By
T. Kanchanapinyokul (burbank, ca United States)
This book is good for quick and easy to understand guide in Adobe Illustrator CS. (Not a quick guide for people who know Adobe Photoshop.) The reference to the tools are very helpful. Tutorials are very straight forward. There are images through out the books. Great buy.
