Welcome ;)
Thanks for signing up for my course Vector graphics from scratch - I look forward to taking you by the hand through your first steps into the wonderful world of vector graphics. I chose this as my first course on Learnable as I remember how I struggled to get to grips with the Bézier pen and all the tools in Illustrator myself when I first came to learn it.
By now - Illustrator is one of my favourite programs and I would not want to do without it. But I found lots of my students struggling with it and so I am hoping I can ease your way into working with vector graphics and show you how to love it. ❤
Just a quick word about myself. I come from a traditional background of graphic design before going digital and discovering the web. I learnt my first digital programs (QuarkXpress, Photoshop and Illustrator) on a design course, and proceeded to learn more ever since, teaching myself webdesign via the internet. I now work primarily as a freelance webdesigner and also run and teach a webdesign course: ‘ design for the web - webstandards’. I love the web as there is such a spirit of sharing and inspiration which I hope you will be infected with :)
I am using Illustrator for the lesson demos and screencasts - but I need to point out that a lot of the tools and techniques are common to other vector apps as well. So don’t worry if you do not have Illustrator at hand and please feel free to ask questions on whichever other program you are using. I will try to help you along as much as I can.
One open source option is by Aviary - do check out their lovely site and free tools available online. The vector application is called ’ Raven’ and you could use this to work through the exercises on this course.
I hope you will enjoy the course - please do ask questions and I’m always happy to get feedback.
Wishing you lots of inspiration and fun :)
Prisca