Illustrator Foundations Live Q&A Starts Now! 5-6PM EST

Hey Mat Helme , I know one of our members asked this a couple of weeks ago, but it seems fitting here:

Photoshop or Illustrator: Why would a designer choose one or the other? What are the strengths and weaknesses?

Any thoughts?

I cover the differences of Photoshop and Illustrator in Illustrator Foundations Stage 1 video 2.

http://teamtreehouse.com/library/websites/illustrator-foundations/introduction-to-adobe-illustrator/vector-vs-raster-graphics

To sum it up, Photoshop is a raster based application whereas Illustrator is a Vector based application. I feel its important to understand both in the web design industry. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of both applications will advance your workflow tremendously.

Obvious question: What's the next stages for the illustrator course? If you can say.

I wish I had a better design related question. Hoping I can come up with one.

Keep up the good work though, I'm really enjoying this course and it's one I've looked forward to most.

Thanks Steve McKinney .

As for future Illustrator courses they will most likely be project based as all the tools have been covered in foundations. Although I would like to do a stage on the new Illustrator CC features coming out soon. All the new features are listed in this blog post i wrote:

http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/learn-whats-new-with-adobe-illustrator-creative-cloud

How far along are you in Illustrator Foundations?

Mat Helme I look forward to the projects, following and repeating your techniques has helped it sink in easily. A stage on new the new features would be great too, definitely will take a look at your post.

I'm up to the apply effects stage, although I still need to colour the spaceman in and get some good practice there, before I continue.

Awesome Steve McKinney , congratulations! Practice, practice, practice is the key to success.

Hey Mat great work on the course, I have to get back into it when I have my holidays soon. My daughter has a creative streak she is 8 and has interest in what I do hoping to Exercise her creative.

My question is do you know if you can get discounts through creative cloud if you are a member of Treehouse?, i just have the trial version and would love full version but as a Father money can only stretch so far.

Thanks Scott

Hey Scott Paterson thank you for the kinds words.... As of right now no, unfortunately we dont have a discount for Adobe products but this is something we have been looking into.

-Mat

I have a question based on the course. Live trace seems too good to be true in a lot of cases, though where you point out it's not perfect. Does this always lead you to manually draw your designs or would you try patch up your live trace (if that's possible)?

I manually illustrate them unless I want that hand drawn look... For crisp clean illustrations use the pen tool or brush tools. But if you want something like this , you can use the Live Trace tool.

Mat Helme... totally missed the alarm I had set for this. Well, I'll ask my question anyway. What do you recommend for someone that is designing logos for customers/competitions/fun, but most logos/designs wind up looking pretty similar to one another. Most of my logo attempts look very flat, which is "in" right now, but I always have trouble going for a different look. Thanks!

Hey Ernest Grzybowski ,

I think having your own style is great. If what you create works thats all that matters. Its harder to be good then to be trendy. In most cases clients see your work and want to hire you for things you've created, essentially they will hire you for your style.

With that said always push yourself to create new styles. Get uncomfortable to get comfortable is what I like to say. I personally always try to master different styles and apply them where they fit.

-Mat