Creating Pixel-Perfect Icons in Adobe Illustrator

1.1 Introduction

Hello and welcome to the Creating Pixel-Perfect Icons in Adobe Illustrator course by tuts+. My name's Andrei Stefan, and together we will unravel the mysteries of creating pixel-perfect icons. For some time now, it has come to my attention that a lot of designers struggle when it comes to creating crisp looking icons. I believe that this is mostly due to the fact that even though you can find relevant articles on the web, there aren't many of them that apply an in depth start to finish approach to the process. As a result of this, most of the designers try to grasp the pieces of information usually get lost along the way. Being it's so, I found that I could share my own workflow that I've developed over the years to that you may widen your technical skills in regard to this particular subject. The course itself is aimed at intermediate students who already have a basic understanding of how Illustrator works, but that doesn't mean beginners shouldn't give it a go. Based on the level of difficulty from each lesson, you should be perfectly fine since things will be presented as simple as possible. Now, since icons are pixel-dependent, in this short course we'll be taking a step-by-step practical approach in which we'll become more familiar with the pixel grid. By doing so, we will learn how and why we should take advantage of it in order to get a nice sharpness to be more icons. When it comes to creating the actual icons, we will be using some of Illustrator's basic shapes, combined with the power of the structural grid. I will be using Illustrator CC 2015, but the lessons can be replicated on the other versions of the software, as long as you have a smooth working machine. Based on information from within this course, you should be able to create pixel perfect icons for any future projects in no time. That being said, let's jump into Lesson 1 on Chapter 2 and talk about how Illustrator actually works from a pixel perspective.