The Adobe Illustrator CS2 Wow! Book: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques from 100 Top Illustrator Artists [With CDROM]

One reason I love this book is that it is geared toward more advanced techniques and intermediate users rather than absolute beginners. There are plenty of books written for beginners but there are not many books such as WOW! Book that focuses on teaching beyond the basic skills. The book does a good job of explaining how the tools work although in a sense much faster pace than Classroom in a Book. I've tried Adobe Illustrator CS2 Classroom in a Book and I would say that is a good book for beginners compared to this one but if you're ready to advance in your Illustrator techniques and learn how the software is applied to real projects, the WOW book cannot be beat.

After purchasing Adobe's CS2 Premium package, mostly for PhotoShop, but with a mind to use Acrobat Pro and InDesign for some e-book, PDF pictorial, step-by-step woodturning tutorials eventually. It became apparent to me that Adobe Illustrator would be the best software to use to accomplish some things (my logo redesign, a pair of 8-up and 10-up templates for my artist's statement product cards, etc.). That's the point at which I started trying to find honest, objective reviews of the best pair of Illustrator specific books for a neophyte to get start with. I decided on this one, along with "Real World Adobe Illustrator". I am absolutely persuaded I made two awesome choices. This book is absolutely the best, especially the "Zen of the Pen" section, with its companion PDF tutorial file on the included CD-ROM (** see my comment on this file at end of review). It's one of the best tutorials and step-by-step instructions I've found for understanding and learning to use the pen in both PhotoShop and Illustrator. To be fair, there is also an excellent, step-by-step tutorial on the Pen in Caplin's "How to Cheat in PhotoShop" as well, BUT, if I could only pick one for understanding and using the Pen, it would have to be Sharon Steuer's Illustrator CS2 Wow! Book, hands down. The tear-out quick reference of Steuer's "Windows Finger Dance Summary" is superb, too, along with the more thorough explanation of the "Finger Dance" found in the "Zen of Illustrator" chapter. That section alone is awesome! In retrospect now that I've learned a bit about Illustrator, I'd have bought the book just to get the Zen of the Pen and the Finger Dance sections, but the rest of the book is equally as instructional and well-done, too! Suffice it to say that I had absolutely zero experience with Adobe Illustrator when I purchased Illustrator CS2 Wow! and "Real World Adobe Illustrator" together. Maybe as I become more experienced with Illustrator I'll discover I need some additional tutorial reference books, but thus far, I haven't found anything I need to learn how to accomplish in Illustrator that these two books don't have thoroughly covered between them ... and very well explained, too! Everything is explained well enough for even a neophyte newbie like me to grasp and that's going some! I didn't have a clue about Illustrator except in the most general sense when my pair of books arrived, so I started, quite literally, with page 1 and progressed from there. I have NOT been disappointed. *** Zen of the Pen PDF file on included CD-ROM: I ran into a minor difficulty on the included CD-ROM, which was rectified after I contacted the publisher. I'm a PC user and the superb "Zen of the Pen" PDF file inexplicably had an asterisk (*) at the start of the file name, which is a no-no for PC files. I emailed the publisher detailing the problem and within a week or so - it took a while for my email query to get routed to the correct individual - I was emailed a corrected PDF file which

I've been wanting this book for a while, and I finally decided to purchase it. I was very impressed by the artwork throughout the entire book, inlcuding examples from professionals, every page is colored, and its so easily organized. Its a pretty thick book at around 430 pages of all full color (still amazes me at the price I got it for). I've used several Adobe Illustrator Books, including: Visual QuickStart Guide: Illustrator CS, Adobe Illustrator 10/CS/CS2 Classroom in a Book, Adobe Illustrator CS in 24 Hours, and several others that I didn't completely read. I know thats a lot of books but It took me a while to grasp the feel of Illustrator. I would say if you have used Illustrator for over 3 months and have a basic understanding of it then this is the perfect book to expand your creativity and give you a new outlook on devoloping vector graphics. It goes through a lot of the beginner guides, but it jumps right into getting you active and used to Adobe Illustrator with simple exercises and methods of creating things. I also like the included HotKey piece in the back of the book, good to hangup to get used to using keyboard/mouse only (not clicking tool items). The CD is also a big plus, if you want to get good at Illustrator this is the best book I would suggest. This is, hands down, the best book I've ever purchased for the computer.

Each year the Design Bookshelf rates the very best books for computer graphic arts -- The Illustrator WOW book has been a winner in the past. But each year we also highlight a book that goes beyond the "Best" to receive our SPECIAL DISTINCTION AWARD. Year after year, upgrade after upgrade, Sharon Steuer consistently brings the very finest compendium on Adobe Illustrator available. While other WOW books and Bibles fade into dust, Sharon brings Illustrator users everywhere the WOW they need. I'm not even going to refer you to my review -- the Special Distinction Award speaks for itself -- and this book. Just go ahead and buy it now -- and purchased along with the Real World Adobe Illustrator CS2 book, the serious Illustrator user will have everything needed to go all the way to master status. Fred Showker Editor / Publisher, The Designers' Bookshelf design-bookshelf.com

For those readers new to Adobe Illustrator, this book with accompanying CD by Sharon Steuer will introduce all the creative features of Illustrator while inspiring you with real world examples from various artists. If you already use Illustrator, you will find examples of how these professional artists are using the newest features of version CS2 to increase their productivity and expand their creativity. As you would expect, Steuer begins by discussing Illustrator basics. The novice will appreciate the QuickTime demo that teaches drawing and editing paths and Bezier curves. You will also like the "Finger Dance" exercises which teach how to use both hands as you work. One of the secrets for creating productively in Illustrator is to control Illustrator's power-keys with your left hand while your right hand moves the mouse or digital pen. Once the basics are covered, Steuer expands on each of Illustrator's creative features such as Live Paint, Live Trace, Live 3D, drawing tools, bevels, type, blends, gradients, transparency and layers. Each chapter starts with an overview of the topic and follows with a gallery of sample artwork featuring the techniques discussed in the overview. Also included are step-by-step examples of the techniques used by these artists to achieved their results. There really where so many helpful examples that I find it difficult to choose which to discuss. If you create digital animation, you will appreciate the examples of using the Free Transform tool and layers to create and manipulate individual parts for character animation. Once the to-be-animated parts are completed, the artists used layers again to build and preview the animation frames and then export them as a draft in the Flash format. Next, Steuer covers the newest features in version CS2 that will streamline your creativity. The new Live Trace and Live Paint features helped several artists create their artwork in Illustrator when starting from a raster scan. One artist digitized a company logo and another created an image from a scan of a sketch. Several artists shared their ideas for using the new type engine in CS2 which now has the same creative features as other software such as Photoshop. One artist described how he created his own typeface while another used text-shaped clipping masks over a raster image of a scanned regional textile to embellish the text for a book cover. Saving the best for last, the examples of subtle colors and photorealistic artwork were amazing. Several artists discussed how they achieved these results using blends, gradients and mesh. The most impressive example was a photorealistic portrait that I could not believe was created in Illustrator. Sharon Steuer is a fellow digital artist and teacher. Previous editions of The Adobe Illustrator WOW! Book have won the Benjamin Franklin Award. She is also the author of Creative Thinking in Photoshop: A New Approach to Digital Art.