Adobe Illustrator - ONLINE (2023-II)

Target group

This entry-lever course takes the time to make you comfortable working in Illustrator and points out the basics. The trainer Vincent will prepare you to create your scientific artwork or diagrams but challenges you to discover the most advanced functions yourself.
If you grasp the basics of Illustrator or are confident you can pick them up quickly, consider taking the course Adobe Illustrator - Scientific Artwork and Infographics by Iliana Boshoven-Gkini. The elementary theory is covered faster, and it dives directly into the tools and design principles needed to create your scientific artwork and infographics. With the manual provided to you, you can come back and refresh the theory. The assignments will make you confident to design your projects at the end.

Course description

This online illustration course will teach you how to design and create scientific illustrations and diagrams, using Adobe Illustrator. With this software, you will convert your concepts or sketches into professional-looking illustrations to be used in your presentation, poster, report, thesis, or other publication. You will be introduced to the basic principles of design and hands-on guided through all the ins and outs of the Adobe Illustrator workspace. 

Learning objectives

During this course, you will learn how to start out with a basic concept or a sketch and convert that into a beautiful illustration or diagram. You will be educated in the basic principles of colour theory, typography and design knowledge. After this course you will master Adobe Illustrator sufficiently to create professional-looking diagrams and illustrations and getting these ready for print and digital use.

Be warned that Adobe Illustrator is a professional illustration tool, not a page lay-out app. If your objective is to manage a multi-page document like a thesis, digital whitepaper or scientific poster, the Adobe InDesign course might be a better fit for you.

Instructional method

At the start of each course session there will be a short lecture about theoretical design knowledge (colour, typography and composition). Theory takes about 30% of the total course duration. The second part of each session consists of an interactive workshop, in which you will learn to use Illustrator after the teacher’s instruction and example. In between the course sessions, you will practice with several exercises, depending on your own goals.

Important

Please make sure that Adobe Illustrator is installed on your computer and is up to date. Also, we strongly recommend using English as the software's language. Use this instruction to switch languages if you have Illustrator installed in a different language. As an employee of UU or UMC Utrecht you can download Adobe Illustrator internally or buy an Adobe license via Surfspot. Furthermore, it's recommended to have a mouse with you since it is challenging working in the program with the mousepad of your laptop.

Be warned that the theoretical knowledge offered in this course is identical to that in the concurrent Adobe InDesign course.

Trainer

Vincent van der Vliet (1978) graduated in Chemistry at Utrecht University. After that, he worked in banking for six years. His creativity wouldn’t have itself be suppressed, so he got a Graphic Designer certification in 2007. Since then, he is a self-employed designer. Vincent has been teaching design courses for over ten years, among others for the UU’s Cultural Centre, Parnassos.

Group size

8 to 12 participants

Number of credits

1.0 EC

Course schedule

Please note that you cannot miss the first session.

Study load

In addition to the scheduled sessions, you should take into account an extra study load of approximately 16 hours in total. This study load generally consists of homework assignments in preparation for the next session.

Course certificate

You will receive a course certificate after actively participating in all course sessions.

Cancellation and No-show policy

This course is free for GSLS PhD candidates. However: free of charge does not mean free of responsibility. Once you have signed up for a course, we expect you to attend. For every late cancellation or no-show we have had to disappoint others who would have liked to attend. This is our policy:

• You may cancel free of charge up to 4 weeks before the start of the course. After this date you can only cancel if you have a GSLS PhD candidate to replace you in the course. Send the name and contact information of your replacement to pcc@uu.nl, at least 2 working days before the start of the course;
• We expect that you actively attend the full course, but at least 80%. It is mandatory to attend the first session. If you are absent the first session you cannot follow the remaining of the course;
• Not meeting the above requirements means you will be charged a no-show fee (€ 105). We will send the invoice after the course has ended. We are unable to make any exceptions, unless you have a valid reason (i.e., illness or death in the family 1^st/2^nd degree or partner). Your supervisor has to send an e-mail to pcc@uu.nl indicating the reason.

Unfortunately we don’t offer this course for participants not part of the GSLS. Our courses tend to be fully booked by GSLS PhD candidates.

I am super excited about the amount of illustrator functions we learned in the course and about the level of illustrations I can already make, I had not expected this in only 4 short sessions.

Being able to work on your own project, while learning tips and tricks about illustrator was extremely helpful!