Objective

To learn advanced Illustrator drawing techniques. To learn Illustrator's graphing and blending tools by recreating the following art:

Discussion

Illustrator's graphing capabilities gives artists full control over how graphs look. An illustrated graph (as opposed to a plain bar graph) can convey numerical information in a much more interesting way. In this example, we will make the flame art by blending objects. Then we will apply the art to a generic bar graph using imported data.

Procedure

making the graph

1. download starter files
2. open "gas index.xls" in excel; save as "gas index.txt" (text, tab delimited)
3. launch Illustrator, file > new (profile=print), save as "graph.ai"
4. practice Illustrator's navigation shortcuts (download Illustrator keyboard shortcuts)
5. column graph tool: draw rectangle:
   • import "gas index.txt", apply
   • transpose row/column, apply
6. with graph selected, object > graph > type:
   • graph options: column width=60, cluster width=100
   • value axis: 0, 100, 10
   • category axis: tick marks=none

making the flame

1. open "flame.ai", examine layers
2. flame white layer: fill white, stroke none
3. flame blue layer: fill=50C+35M+25K; stroke none
4. flame black layer: fill= 50C+35M+100K, stroke none
5. hide bottom layer, select all
6. object > blend > make (resulting blend will be on top layer)
7. copy and paste blended object into "graph" window, move to side

making a better graph

1. select flame art
2. object > graph design: new design, rename "flame"
3. select graph, object > graph > column: choose flame
4. new layer "black", draw black rectangle, move to bottom
5. change fill to rich black (match flame)
6. view > outline (cmd+Y)
7. direct select tool: select one type element
8. select > same > fill color
9. change font to Gill Sans, fill=white (adjust size)
10. direct select tool: select one tick mark
11. select > same > stroke color
12. stroke=white; width=2pt
13. new layer "title", add title "Natural Gas Consumer Index"
14. save

grading

1. file > save as (format=PDF)
2. delete unused art
3. add your name and the exercise number to the file
4. print a b&w proof for grading
5. file your graded proof in your Process Book for individual review