Adobe® Illustrator® is a professional quality graphic art program. Its applications are diverse, from creating print to web graphics and, for our purposes, posters. Although the program is complex and requires a significant amount of time to truly master, it is quite easy to learn the basics and create work with a professional appearance. Designing a poster does not require any special artistic talent or skills; it just requires having the patience to get acquainted with the program. As with most computer applications, I recommend using the trial-and-error methodology to figure out the intricacies of this program. You will make numerous mistakes, and frequently want to make changes. Thankfully Illustrator is equipped with an undo option. In fact, undo [Crtrl+Z] will become a very familiar action as you design your poster.

This tutorial is very basic, because (as just mentioned), Illustrator is best mastered by actually using it. Use Illustrator’s help index whenever you need a question answered that is not addressed in this text. This tutorial is meant to assist you in making posters only! Many essential elements for creating graphic art have been purposely left out. Although this tutorial was made for use with the Windows® version only, almost everything (with only a few exceptions) is applicable to the Mac® version.

It is also recommended that you create the general appearance of your poster first with pen and paper, so that you have a general idea of what you wish to accomplish on Illustrator.