Today we learned about one of the most useful tools in Illustrator; the pen tool. The pen tool also happens to be one of the hardest tools to master in Illustrator. The pen tool is used to draw vector shapes. Each dot, or anchor, is like a dot on a graph which when connected form a smooth vector shape that can be bent with the arc tool. Then we also learned some more quick tips and shortcuts in Illustrator that would help us with our project for the day which was to copy some logos as vector shapes. The WWF logo was the first one I did. All the black parts of the panda were made with the pen tool while the white is a circle sent to the back of it. One of the red parts of the Texico logo was made the pen tool and then was copied and rotated to fit the logo. The last red part, the one with the T, was also made with the pen tool and the white is just an circle sent to the back. The FedEx and Apple logos were pretty much done with the pen tool and then adjusted with the select and free select tools. The letters in the Chili's logo were made with the pen tool but the circles was just a circle with a large stroke and no fill. The UPS logo was done with the pen and line tools but the letters are from the text tool and were just given outlines to altered. Virgin was simply made with just the circle and pen tools. NFL was probably the hardest one. The blue shield, the white area holding the letters, the letters, and the with part of the football were done with the pen tool. The lines and laces in the football were made with the lines tool. The stars were done with star tool, one of the many shapes in the shape tool.
