Digital Tutors - Thought-provoking Infographics in Illustrator

Software used

Illustrator CS6

Level Intermediate

Duration 4h 51m

Author Laura Smith

What you will learn

In this Illustrator tutorial, we will learn how to create an infographic from scratch.

We start out by discussing why infographics are appealing and when are good scenarios to use them. We'll then learn a little bit about the researching process and a step-by-step list for the preparations you need to go through when doing your own research on your topic.

Then, we dive into Illustrator and spend some time setting up our typography in an appealing and cohesive layout. We also learn how to use some of Illustrator's built-in tools for creating custom charts and graphs and also some of the tools for creating illustrations and icons for the infographic.

This tutorial is great for any designer who wants to create an infographic, has a basic understanding of illustrator, and wants to know the best workflow for executing this type of process from start to finish.

By the end of this training, you'll have created your very own infographic about coral reefs. You'll also understand some new useful tips about typography, charts, icons, color choices, and many more essential pieces to creating a thought-provoking infographic.

1. Introduction and project overview

2. Why use an infographic? Where to start making your own

3. Setting up the document and choosing our colors

4. Creating the title layout

5. Setting up the main headers

6. Building the header for the tone-shift call-out text

7. Setting the type for the secondary headers

8. Setting the fact section's pull-quote style type

9. Building the animal life pull-quote

10. Setting the type for the main call-out

11. Setting the last two call-outs and all the remaining stand alone text blocks

12. Creating pie charts

13. Building a customized scatter graph

14. Creating a column graph with customized shapes

15. Placing images and accompanying text

16. Planning and creating illustrations to use as design elements

17. Creating coral illustrations with the blob brush

18. Painting and drawing branching coral with the Paintbrush and Pencil tools

19. Creating cohesive icon illustrations

20. Placing the illustrations

21. Placing the icons and their labels

22. Exporting as a PDF with crop marks