- The purpose of this course is not so much
to hone your skills as to supercharge them.
I mean, just look at you.
You're already an advanced Illustrator user,
you're on fire, actual powerful, super-dangerous fire.
Illustrator's gonna take one look at you
and shrink in terror, bending to your every will.
Suddenly, it's easy peasy lemon squeezy,
for Illustrator, that is.
For you, it's horrible 'cause you're on fire.
To that end, we're starting things off
not with a look at how you work with, you know,
some of the heftier features in Illustrator,
but how you make Illustrator work with you.
First, you need some new shortcuts,
ones that'll call up Illustrator's best commands
without you having to fumble through menus,
submenus, popup menus, flyout menus,
and the myriad right-click menus
where you don't know if they're gonna offer
the command you're looking for or not.
Menus, I spit on them.
Second, you need to tweak a few preference settings
to make the program work more quickly
and with fewer protests.
And, third, you need to help Illustrator
show you colors the way they will ultimately reproduce
whether on screen or in print.
Wait, I know, have you ever wanted to
slim down illustrator's toolbox
so it contains just those tools that you use
on a regular basis?
You can actually do that.
And, by the end of this chapter, you'll know how.