Like many long-time Illustrator artists, author Sharon Steuer and her team realized that this latest upgrade from Adobe was not "business as usual." With the addition of transparency as well as Adobe's Save for Web utility, multi-fills and strokes, changes to layers, and many other new and improved features, the book has also been radically revised in this new edition. The Illustrator 9 Wow! Book has grown over 100 pages, and covers step-by-step material for beginners through advanced users. In addition, you'll get the usual assortment of goodies that come with full-color Wow! books, making this book educational, inspiring, and worthy of coffee-table display, all in one.
For professional illustrators, and anyone who wants to achieve professional results, The Illustrator WOW! Book is quite simply the best resource that money can buy, aside from Illustrator itself, of course.
Sharon Steuer and her coauthors have managed to produce a book that is both an authoritative practical guide to Illustrator 9.0's tools and features, and a showcase and guide to techniques, as demonstrated by nearly a hundred commercial illustrators.
To bring new users and upgraders up to speed, there are two introductory chapters. Even seasoned users will pick up something from skimming these chapters, thanks to the clear layout which places illustrations and innumerable tip boxes in the outside columns. The remaining chapters are organized into techniques and galleries. Using commercially created work, the techniques each focus on one aspect of how a complex illustration was created. These tutorials pack a lot into a short space because they don't go into specific detail about every single stage in the process--if you need to know the basics, go back to the front of the book!
The galleries further demonstrate the techniques by showcasing an illustration and discussing the process by which it was created--why one approach was chosen over another, which tools where used, how a particular type of effect was produced, what where the special printing considerations, and so on.
As a practical guide to Illustrator techniques, a source of creative ideas, a repository of hints and tips, or a quiet lunchtime browse, you'll need to look hard to find a better, more useful book on Illustrator. --Ken McMahon, Amazon.co.uk
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
WOW!:
I am very impressed by this book and how it helped me to get moving way above and beyond what I have learned from the manual and online tutorials. I believe the negative comments are from those who expected instant results via osmosis. Illustrator is not an easy tool to just pick up and run with. However, this book took me from a snail pace to a pretty good run. This book doesn't do the work for you, you must apply yourself and work through it and you will be amazed at the results.
Avoid this book if you are a beginner:
Hey... I'm not stupid. But this book sure makes Illustrator 9.0 a bit intimidating to the beginner. I wish I would have spent my money on a book that would have been more useful to me.
This is the BEST Illustrator Book to buy:
(...)
In the Illustrator book genre, you have but two choices: #1 "pulp" encyclopedias on the software. These basically parallel what the manuals and online help facilities contain -- They're good, but they're basically lots of words, and few pictures. #2 Quick, Beginner books... like the "Dummies" and the "Visual Quick Starts" ... yes, they're good too -- but tend to only scratch the surface of the program.
Neither genre approaches the applicability of the software in terms of "why" or "how" the tools... more info
Not Particularly Helpful.:
This is one of those books that looks great on the shelf, and seems like a can't-miss. But when you get it home and crack it open, it really doesn't help you to learn.
Much of the problem is the book's approach. Much of the book is essentially a good-looking elaboration upon the manual. I find that you really don't learn anything by reading lists of commands and features. You learn by following tutorials and doing.
This book has comparatively few tutorials, and those that it has are fairly... more info
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