I belong to a lot of Facebook Groups for print-on-demand designers and I find that hardly any of the people in those groups use the Adobe suite of products. In fact, most use an online graphic program called Canva.
I find this fascinating. Now don’t get me wrong, Canva is great, but it is limited in what you can create on it. Because of those limitations, I wonder why people who design art for a living don’t educate themselves to use the best graphic design software available.
I guess it’s because the learning curve is HUGE and you have to pay to use the software. To me, those excuses just aren’t good enough. If you want to make a living designing art, you need to use the best tools.
My History with Adobe
I have used Adobe products for at least 30 years. My husband and I owned our own wholesale company for 10 years and I did all the artwork for our ads, flyers, and mailers. I couldn’t have done that without Photoshop and InDesign (back then it was called PageMaker). I then learned to use Dreamweaver to build websites. During this time I became fairly proficient using multiple Adobe products but Illustrator always baffled me. I’d open it and was instantly lost.
It was years later after YouTube became a place where you could learn things, that I actually tried using Illustrator again. So, I kind of understand the hesitancy of people not learning it but I still think with how easy learning has become today, there’s really no excuse.
There are still a ton of things in Illustrator that I don’t know how to do. I tend to learn on a “need to know” basis but every time I “need to know” something, I take the time to learn it. Over the years those skills have built on each other to where, if I’m going to design something, Illustrator is my “go-to” software, especially for print-on-demand designs.
Illustrator Video Tutorials – Ha! I Decided This As I Was Typing!
I kind of feel like I should be teaching people how to use Illustrator but honestly, I wouldn’t know where to begin. There are so many that know so much more than me, but on the other hand, I know so much more than so many.
So, I think I will go ahead and make a commitment to make some short videos showing basic stuff and just build over time. Tutorials that start with the basics might help some people, especially people who want to create designs for print-on-demand.
If I keep the lessons short and focused on creating for print-on-demand, maybe I’ll be able to hold the interest of anyone who is thinking about expanding their skills to include Illustrator.
So, that’s what I’ll do. I just decided… haha!
I’m going to start making short video lessons on how to use Illustrator and post them on a YouTube channel and here on my blog. They will be easy to follow and focused for print-on-demand. I’ll try my best to post one each week.
Okay, I did it, I made a commitment. To follow along just sign-up to my mailing list and I’ll send you an announcement when each video is posted!
Look forward to my first video soon!
Until next time ~
Reba
