For those of you that don't know, I am coming up on my 1 year anniversary of leaving my full-time job to become a full-time freelancer. Let me tell you, the things I have learned and had to teach myself over the past year are invaluable to me. I mean, when you freelance you are, in essence, all moving parts of a business wrapped up in one person; accountant, customer service, HR, quality control... ect. Needless to say I quickly had to learn how to manage my valuable time and do things more efficiently. Here are five shortcuts inside Illustrator that I highly recommend learning and implementing now so you can save valuable time for more fun stuff like <insert your favorite activity here> :) 1. Keyboard Shortcut: SHIFT/CTL/ALT (to duplicate any object(s)) These 3 keys are literally worn out on my keyboard. Here's how it works: a) select an object(s) b) hold down your SHIFT/CTL/ALT keys, all at the same time c) now click on your object(s) using the selection tool (solid arrow) d) drag your objects anywhere on the artboard (keeping the 3 keys held down at the same time) and BOOM you have an instant copy of your objects. I use this a lot for copying headlines and formatted text. In essence it's the same as copying and pasting but it's faster because you can slide your new copy right into place. 2. Create ACTIONS For Repetitive Commands Taking the time upfront to set up a few actions can save you loads of time later on. An action is simply an automated task created by you and recorded by Illustrator. For example, let's pretend that most of your work is for web pages and you always have to export your finished designs appropriately for use on screens. When you choose export you have to manually click your settings each time. Or, you could record an ACTION for saving in web format and all you'd have to do is click one button and it Illustrator would do all the work for you. Want to know more? Here's a video tutorial on how to set up actions... 3. Using Multiple Artboards This is a fairly new feature within Illustrator. Did you know that you can create multiple artboards within ONE Illustrator document? For example, if you are creating a two-sided business card you can have two artboards, one for the front design and one for the back design and save it all inside one file. Saving you the time and hassle of saving two separate layouts. Where the time saving really comes in is if you are setting up something larger like an eBook or a months worth of social media quotes and/or blog post images. Instead of saving 10-15 documents, all with separate files names, you can save ONE document. Try it next time! 4. Creating Libraries For Access Another awesome, time saving, feature inside Illustrator (and all Adobe products) is the Library feature. Libraries allow you to store, images, other vector files, color swatches and I think, even video files inside a little window that is accessible across every Adobe software program. I have a library set up for each of my clients. Inside their each library I have stored a)their brand color swatches b)any stock photos I use in their projects c)their logo and all variations of their logo, if any. What this means is that if I am setting up a new flyer for one of my clients, I have all their supporting files and color info saved and at my fingertips. I don't have to spend time digging around and opening multiple documents to grab their logo or supporting images. I don't have to spend anytime wondering what their color formulas are. I just click open their library and VIOLA! It's all right there :) 5. Inserting Placeholder Text Last, but not least, I want to talk about using placeholder text. Placeholder text comes in handy when I am starting a design but the client hasn't provided me with finalized copy yet (which happens a lot in my world). In order to get a jump start on my layout I will often use Illustrators placeholder text so that I can at least get a visual of what the copy might look like but I don't have to waste the time of typing in a bunch of gibberish in order to fill up the blank space. All you have to do is draw your text box in the area you will be placing the copy and go to the TYPE menu, then down to "insert placeholder text". Illustrator will fill your text box with the Lorem Ipsum copy... | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. | Then, when you actually get the real copy you just have to copy and paste it in your box. It will take on whatever formatting you have already done with your placeholder text (i.e. font size, font color, font alignment, ect.) I like knowing that I can get started on layouts and sometimes even proof them without waiting for the finalized copy. This way my client can see what sort of space is available as well and can shorten or lengthen the copy accordingly. Start implementing these tricks as soon as possible so that you can work smarter and not harder! If any of you have any additional tricks to add to the list just drop them in the comments below... You might also enjoy...
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Erin GipfordI am destined to help people save time and work smarter by using the best design software on the market, Adobe Creative Cloud. I have over 21 years as a professional graphic designer. I'm excited to share my wealth of knowledge! Categories
All
|