Back
Share
Adobe Education
Educators and Professional Development Specialists

Getting started with Adobe Illustrator

Lesson Plan Published 11/11/13 Last updated on 6/7/19

Adobe Illustrator is superior for creating vector-based graphics from images. Use this activity to introduce your students to the interface, terminology, and basic panels in Illustrator, work with swatches to manage colors in an Illustrator document, understand and work with layers, and save and export files.

File Updates:

  • Files updated on February 24, 2017 to Adobe Illustrator CC 2017 (November 2016) release.
  • Files updated on January 29, 2018 to Adobe Illustrator CC 2018 (version 22.0 - October 2017) release.
Products
Subjects
Graphic Design, Game Design, Web, Apps, Photography, Video & Audio
Age Levels
15-16, 17-18, Post-Secondary
Duration
1-2 Hours
Custom Standards
ACA Illustrator 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.6, 3.7, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1
ISTE NETS-S
Technology Operations and Concepts
Materials

Adobe Illustrator CC

CC License
Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
Keywords
design projects illustrator illustrator cc 2017 vector graphics
Ratings
5 / 5 • 35 Ratings

Resources (8)

or Join for free to access materials
Name
Added
File Size

Comments (34)

Write a reply...
or Join for free to view all comments and participate in the discussion.

Anne C Smith

Posted on 4/16/19 1:00:22 PM Permalink

​Thank you.

Vincenzo Cannavale

Posted on 4/13/19 12:36:11 PM Permalink

​thanks

Ernie Domingo

Posted on 4/4/19 10:22:44 AM Permalink

​Thank you so much!

Stoyanka Veselinova

Posted on 4/3/19 2:16:06 PM Permalink

​Thank you !

Aaron Kapala

Posted on 3/20/19 9:45:28 PM Permalink

​This is great thanks

NUR SYAFIQAH NORZAILAN

Posted on 3/12/19 2:03:28 AM Permalink

​Thanks for sharing

Ali Imam Reza

Posted on 2/20/19 8:01:51 PM Permalink

​wonderful resources! Thanks for sharing!

TD Wright

Posted on 2/1/19 1:05:37 AM Permalink

Thank you for this.​

James Tyler

Posted on 1/31/19 1:36:20 PM Permalink

​Very helpful resource, many thanks!

Olivia Ahearn

Posted on 1/25/19 4:50:41 PM Permalink

​Very helpful! I'm a total rookie, so this definitely helped.

Noriyuki KOIKE

Posted on 1/21/19 3:17:19 AM Permalink

​Very helpful! Thanks.

Lona U

Posted on 1/2/19 9:19:55 AM Permalink

​Great resources. Thank you

Mohamed Moolla

Posted on 12/30/18 7:16:57 PM Permalink

​This is awesome thank you

stevielee cairns

Posted on 12/6/18 10:42:34 PM Permalink

​This is fantastic

Nitin Kitukale

Posted on 11/16/18 3:45:18 AM Permalink

Excellent​! I can use for my students


Judy Durkin

Posted on 9/24/18 5:50:39 PM Permalink

​All Adobe guides are excellent and useful for my students.

Judy Durkin

Posted on 8/22/18 5:02:32 PM Permalink

​Thank you, Adobe. I am doing Certiport ACA exams in my classroom this year, and this series is perfect.

troy fifield

Posted on 8/19/18 4:12:48 PM Permalink

​I see a lot of reference to ILLUSTRATOR GUIDE. where can I find this?

Adobe Education

Posted on 8/21/18 9:09:51 PM Permalink

Hi Troy - All of the documents referenced in the lesson plan are included in the Resources section above. Is there a specific guide that you can't seem to find?

troy fifield

Posted on 8/22/18 12:09:09 AM Permalink

Got it, thank you​

Avonn Nova

Posted on 8/16/18 2:18:53 AM Permalink

​Thank you for sharing.

Colton Bell

Posted on 8/15/18 6:45:34 PM Permalink

​this is legit

Kimberly Wright

Posted on 5/29/18 12:29:13 AM Permalink

​I am having an issue finding the image assests. I downloaded the bundle and I don't see any link to retrieve the images used in the guides.

Adobe Education

Posted on 5/29/18 7:12:44 PM Permalink

Hi Kimberly - there is a link to the image assets in the Lesson Plan under the Project Assets section on the first page of the PDF. But, to make your life a little less busy, here's the direct link to ​download the files. ​

Adobe Education

Posted on 1/29/18 3:12:17 PM Permalink

We recently updated our files to the Adobe Illustrator CC 2018 (version 22.0 - October 2017) release with links to image assets used in the step-by-step technical guides.

Cheers, 


The AEE Team

Carin Sleurink

Posted on 7/6/17 7:39:16 PM Permalink

​Hi I'm teaching in Dutch may I use this sheets to translate them into a Dutch version?

Adobe Education

Posted on 7/8/17 8:05:09 PM Permalink

Yes you can - just credit that they are translated and you're all set!

Cheers,
​The AEE Team

Doreen McDowell

Posted on 5/18/17 9:50:02 PM Permalink

​This would be great if you could download the assets, but you get a message saying the link is no longer active. If this is true, you need to remove this set of lessons.

Adobe Education

Posted on 5/19/17 8:57:50 PM Permalink

Which document is the link saying that from Doreen? Can you email the information to the edex@adobe.com email.

Adobe Education

Posted on 2/25/17 4:59:36 AM Permalink

​We recently updated our files to the Adobe Illustrator CC 2017 (November 2016) release. We've also added links to image assets used in the step-by-step technical guides.

Cheers, 

The AEE Team

bhoovneshwar dhrobra

Posted on 12/8/16 10:19:46 PM Permalink

Great teaching material, thanks​

David Pluister

Posted on 6/6/16 6:12:46 PM Permalink

This looks like it could be pretty helpful for the basics. I'm curious if there is an updated version of it for the current CC version? Also, as I looked through the first step, it referenced a "technical guide." Is that the same as this link: https://helpx.adobe.com/pdf/illustrator_reference.pdf

Thanks.

Stephen Spicer

Posted on 10/8/14 8:15:09 PM Permalink

This saved me a mountain of work when designing an Illustrator course. However, if your students are actually going to do some stuff, as opposed to just watching, I think this is almost a day's worth.

Adobe Education

Posted on 10/9/14 2:59:29 PM Permalink

Thanks for the feedback Stephen. What do other people think - is this more like a day's worth of instruction?