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How to Create Snooker App Icon Using Adobe Illustrator and SubScribe Designer Plugin

15 May
2012
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How to create App Snooker Icon using Adobe Illustrator and SubScribe plugin

Rejoice! You no longer need to know complex geometric construction techniques to create a detailed and precise graphics. All you need is the SubScribe plugin which is free to all DrawScribe, VectorScribe and Phantasm CS v2 customers! It will make all the calculations for you.

However, do not think that you will not have to work at all — this plugin has not learned how to click the mouse for you yet… which is why we help you with these tutorials. In this one, we’ll be creating an App style icon where snooker balls are precisely located inside the rack.

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SubScribe Designer – My Top 5 Favorite Features

11 May
2012
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SubScribe plug-in overview

I think that SubScribe Designer is an irreplaceable tool for anyone who creates detailed graphics. And it is even free to all DrawScribe, VectorScribe and Phantasm CS v2 customers! With its help, you can create tangents and perpendiculars to the paths, create a circle according to given points, quickly align objects relatively to horizontals or verticals, create circumscribed and inscribed circles, and much, much more.

Let SubScribe do all the calculations and complex creations. All you need to do is to select the necessary tool and simply click the mouse.

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VectorScribe and SubScribe updates now available

11 May
2012
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VectorScribe and SubScribe updates header image

With work progressing well on the updates necessary for all Astute Graphics plugins to operate with Illustrator CS6, we’re not forgetting that the vast majority of users will be remaining with Illustrator CS3 to CS5 in the near future. With this in mind, we have two important updates for immediate availability to all existing and new users.

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MacUser reviews DrawScribe – bring on the mice!

11 May
2012
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MacUser magazine cover - 11 May 2012 - Vol 28, No 10

MacUser magazine have been very kind in reviewing many of Astute Graphics’ products. And today, 11 May 2012, the latest edition of MacUser (Vol 28, No 10) has hit the shelves containing a review of DrawScribe!

If you can, go out and buy a copy of MacUser today — especially as it contains a full review of Adobe’s latest creative suite as well. But for those who can’t access MacUser, here are some snippets from the review:

What’s extraordinary is that these [Dynamic Sketch attributes] can all be changed after the path has been drawn, and the changes will affect the path. The result is an extraordinarily high level of user control.

The two DrawScribe tools make the whole process of drawing in Illustrator simpler, smoother and more intuitive than ever before [...] they genuinely make Illustrator a better drawing program.

Pro Revolutionary Pen tool replacement for Illustrator. Truly ingenious mechanism for the gesture trimming of paths.
Con There’s a lot to learn.

And the end result? Well, the mice speak (squeak?) for themselves:

MacUser 5 mice rating

A huge “thanks” to MacUser for another wonderful review!

 

How to Rotate the Bounding Box in Adobe Illustrator

10 May
2012
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How to Rotate the Bounding Box in Adobe Illustrator

More than once you’ve probably experienced a situation when the Bounding Box was located at “inconvenient” angles and you needed to change it to make a correct transformation of one or multiple objects. It is quite natural if you come up with a question: how to rotate the Bounding Box in Adobe Illustrator? If you were looking for an answer, you probably won’t have found it. Until now… where I recently discovered a new trick which I want to share it with you.

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How to Create a Liquid Logo Using Adobe Illustrator and DrawScribe Plugin

3 May
2012
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Vector Liquid Logo

In this tutorial we will cover the techniques of creating “liquid” objects with the help of the Dynamic Sketch Tool, part of the DrawScribe plugin, plus the Blend Tool. This tutorial includes detailed instructions and interesting tricks that will allow you to succeed in creating this kind of style.

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How to Create a CD Cover Design Using Illustrator, VectorScribe, DrawScribe and Mesh Tormentor

2 May
2012
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Vector CD Cover Design

In today’s tutorial, we’ll use the most advanced technology in the world of vector graphics. The methods described here will allow you to work faster and more efficiently. I bet in this tutorial you will discover information which you have not heard of before!

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DrawScribe introductory tool movies now available in German

1 May
2012
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DrawScribe movies in Deutsch (German)

Many of Astute Graphics’ products find homes in Deutschland. Whereas it would be great if we could internationalise our products (this is not catered for generally with Illustrator CS5 and below plugins), we now are able to offer translated versions of the introductory videos to DrawScribe’s InkScribe and Dynamic Sketch tools.

The movies are present in HD either via the DrawScribe movies page (click here) or via Astute Graphics’ YouTube channel.

Many thanks to author, designer and trainer Monika Gause (www.vektorgarten.de), the key Adobe Illustrator expert based in Germany, for translating and narrating both DrawScribe introductory movies.

 

Adobe Illustrator CS6 Astute Graphics plugin developments

30 Apr
2012
2 Comments

Illustrator CS6 example artwork by Sabine Reinhart

Last Monday, Adobe published full details of Illustrator CS6 via their Inside Adobe Illustrator blog, thereby removing the veil of secrecy surrounding their hard work over the past two y
ears. Previous previews demonstrated CS6′s new pattern tool and gradients on a stroke. But in our opinion, it is the less glamorous underlying work which should capture user’s attention.

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Monitor technology overview for graphic designers

25 Apr
2012
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What's the best monitor for a graphic designer?

The internet, in particular e-forums are known to be the most helpful source of the information for selection of any technological device. The more popular the device to be selected, the more information may be obtained about it from current and former owners. But there is lack of comments as concerned professional, rare and expensive equipment. We typically have to rely upon the seller’s opinion. But can be the seller good adviser? Monitors for designers, photographers and printers are considered to be one of these examples.

The main requirement for a monitor to be used in a design environment is high quality color reproduction. This article contains the description of main criteria for the monitor selection.

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