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Hosting Scott Kelby’s Blog | Bert Monroy & Illustrator | Layers TV Winner

CATEGORIES: Living In Layers | RC | November 05, 2008

Happy Wednesday everyone. So here’s the cool part: I am currently the guest blog over at Scott Kelby’s blog- w00t! I wanted to use my time there to espouse on the virtues of using the Creative Suite and to look at Photoshop as one tool in a big toolbox. Then I did something interesting- just to see if I could, I started up my camera, and just recorded me playing around in the applications (you can even see the mistakes I made and where I do an undo). I tried to go fast, to see how much I could achieve in a short amount of time. When I was cool with stopping, I did – and noticed that in 20 minutes I used:

1. Illustrator to make a simple logo, and business card
2. Photoshop to build a simple website outline
3. InDesign to make a simple, 3-page template layout based on the logo
4. A Dreamweaver Template based page.
5. An export of images for InDesign using Lightroom
6. A XML Flash gallery using Lightroom and my favorite component at Digicrafts Components

I took the footage and removed the music (I was listening to Crystal Method at the time, didn’t think they’d appreciate it if I posted their stuff..), and added some Soundbooth scores into Premiere, and exported it out as is.

The other thing that I was trying to be mindful about here was that I wanted to do all of this with the most basic of techniques on each of the applications. I didn’t want to bust into scripting or anything. I figured, if I can show people what you can do in a short amount of time with -basic- techniques in each of the apps, maybe that will inspire them to take a look at the other apps in the Suite. Chances are – you’ve bought them and they’re just sitting there.. let’s put them into use.

Take a spin over to Scott Kelby’s Website and check out the article. If you have the time, check out the video. You can even click on the little monitor icon on it and make it full screen.

Click on the read more link below to get into Bert Monroy’s tutorial, and this week’s Layers TV winner!

Bert Monroy on Illustrator
Let’s tap into some of the 3D features of Adobe Illustrator. Though Illustrator doesn’t offer a 3D environment like a true 3D application, it does give you the ability to create 3D objects that can be modified within a 3D space. Texture mapping and light sources similar to those found in the high-end 3D applications are also available.

[If you’d like to download the image used in this tutorial to practice these techniques, click here. All files are for personal use only.]

1 CREATE A LABEL
The first thing we’ll do is create the label that will wrap around our can. Create a label like the one here, or you can download the source file (above). In this example, we’re going to create a tin can full of beans, but you can fill your can with whatever you want. You can even import an Adobe Photoshop file for your label, if you wish.

Continue Reading Bert’s Tutorial Here

Layers TV Contest Winner
Last, but certainly not least is the contest winner. Congratulations to Shaun Edwards for letting us know you can have a maximum of 100 artboards in the new Illustrator CS4. Way to go!

That’s it for me for today. Make sure you stop by Scott Kelby’s blog and leave a comment. We’ll catch you guys back here tomorrow!

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