Objective

To learn advanced Illustrator drawing techniques. To learn Illustrator's graphing and blending tools by recreating the following art:

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Discussion

Illustrator's graphing capabilities gives artists full control over how graphs look. An illustrated graph (as opposed to a plain bar graph) can convey numerical information in a much more interesting way. In this example, we will make the flame art by blending objects. Then we will apply the art to a generic bar graph using imported data.

Procedure

making the graph

1. open "gas index.xls" in excel; save as "gas index.txt" (text, tab delimited)
2. launch Illustrator, file > new (cmyk), save as "graph.ai"
3. practice Illustrator's navigation shortcuts (download Illustrator keyboard shortcuts)
4. column graph tool: draw rectangle:
   • import "gas index.txt", apply
   • transpose row/column, apply
5. with graph selected, object > graph > type:
   • graph options: column width=60, cluster width=100
   • value axis: 0, 100, 10
   • category axis: tick marks=none

making the flame

1. open "flame.ai", examine layers
2. flame white layer: fill white, stroke none
3. flame blue layer: fill=50C+35M+25K; stroke none
4. flame black layer: fill= 50C+35M+100K, stroke none
5. hide bottom layer, select all
6. object > blend > make (resulting blend will be on top layer)
7. object > blend > option: specified steps=16
8. copy and paste blended object into "graph" window, move to side
9. object > graph design: new design, rename "flame"
10. select graph, object > graph > column: choose flame
11. direct select tool: option-click tick marks 2x, stroke=white; width=2pt
12. repeat with rules
13. select graph, change font to Gill Sans, fill=white (adjust size)
14. new layer "black", draw black rectangle, move to bottom
15. new layer "title", add "Natural Gas Consumer Index"
16. save, print

grading

1. submit b&w laser proofs with your name on it for grading
2. file graded proof in your 3-ring binder for individual review