Jumping into a New Software
Illustrator is anything but easy!
This week, I decided to try my hand at an entirely new software: Adobe Illustrator. I’d used it once before for a quick tutorial, and eventually let the free trial expire because the program just seemed intimidating.
Having exhausted Sketch/Figma/Adobe XD tutorials (and seeing Illustrator listed on many a job description), I’m giving it one more try. This time I’ve purchased a month subscription and committing to completing at least 1 or more short tutorials per day.
On the bright side, I have more than enough tutorials to sharpen my skills — the Behance daily challenges are all about 30 minutes long, and typically focus on one tool or feature to highlight. Having completed quite a few Behance challenges for Adobe XD, I knew that this would be a good starting point for learning Illustrator.
Today’s Challenge
The Behance Illustrator challenge I chose focused on using the blend tool to make abstract shapes. The purpose of the blend tool is to make a smooth transition between 2 shapes — either using a solid fill or lines.
Below, I used the blend tool on the red and blue rectangles (far left) to create the shapes in the middle and far right.
Using different blend options, I was able to create the 2 different looks. I also purposely chose to use contrasting colors to outline the rectangles in order to demonstrate the blending and transitioning effects.
As an Illustrator newbie, I had a hard time getting acclimated to the interface and knowing how to access tools/shortcuts/options. However, the blend tool itself was pretty easy to grasp. Learning Illustrator will certainly be an uphill battle, but the results seem worth it!
