What are you trying to convey?
- What is the most important message you want viewers to take away from your graphic?
- Can you summarize this message to fit in a title?
What data do you have?
- Is your data quantitative or qualitative?
- Using shape tools may be helpful
- Are you trying to compare something?
- Graphing tools offer an easy way to demonstrate concepts
- Do you want have historical data?
- Line graphs can show historic trend and difference, as seen in the above infographic on income disparity
- Text
- How much information do you want to convey in text?
- Can be great for describing information
- Too much may overwhelm the viewer
Stylizing
- Gradients
- Great for backgrounds
- Shape tools
- Allow you to construct your own, more complex images
- Rectangles
- Selected by rectangle tool in toolbar
- Shape created by dragging and clicking
- Click + drag + Shift >> Creates a square
- Click + drag + Alt >> Makes the point of rotation at the center of the shape
- Click + drag + spacebar >> Allows you to move the shape
- Click and release >> gives you a dialogue box to measure shape
- Click + Alt and release >> gives you a dialogue box to measure shape from center
- Polygon tool
- Up arrow adds side to shape as you click (down arrow removes a side)
- Click + drag + Shift >> Creates a shape with equal sides
- Star
- Tapping the Up arrow while clicking adds vertices to the star
- Shift maintains equal sides for the star
- Alt aligns shoulders of star
- Holding the Tilda key while clicking creates multiple copies of the shape
- Text
- Type toolbar allows you to format text color, size, and alignment and choose between point and area text
- Type tool (Under the T in the object bar) >> Cursor appears on screen (write)
- Point text
- Aligns on point
- Area text
- Has structure and is contained within a boundary
- Create by clicking and dragging with the text tool selected
- Different options with Area text (Type menu >> Area Type Options)
- Can change the number of rows or columns
- Can type inside different shapes
- Create shape >> Click type tool >> type
- NOTE: In order to make sure you do not confuse the two tools, turn off the "bounding box" feature in Illustrator
- View >> Hide bounding box
- Text options
- Paragraph settings or character based settings
- Window >> Type >> Character >> Show Options
- Select entire object and make edits
- Increase/decrease size by clicking object, and pressing Command + A + Shift + ">" or "<"
- Applying basic paragraph settings
- Changes settings to all paragraphs
- Window >> Type >> Paragraph
- Any change occurs in entire paragraph
- Creating Text Threads
- Text stays within shape and can be moved to other shapes
- Click on out port and drag to create text flow
- Optimal for creating instructions or diagrams
- Setting text along a line
- Text follows curve with “type on a path”
- Click once on the line, or path, and select Type tool
- Setting text along a closed path
- Example: Create a circle
- Window >> Type >> Character and Paragraph panel
- To type on circle press Alt as you approach circle
- Using only the outline of text
- Select text
- Type >> Create Outline
- NOTE: By doing this, you can no longer edit the text
- Paragraph settings or character based settings
- Type toolbar allows you to format text color, size, and alignment and choose between point and area text