Reversed Arcs in Illustrator

Here is a quick little demo of the reversed arcs exercise, using the pen tool in Illustrator.




Quik 'n Dirty Tip of the Day
Getting artwork that you can use from the Net

Don't create artwork that already exists in a form that you can use. A lot of material that is in the public domain is available as vector artwork on the Net in SVG format. The best source for logos and symbols is The Wikimedia Commons.

Say, for instance that you must use a recycling symbol in a piece for print. Type "recycle SVG" into Google. The first return will be for Wikimedia Commons, having the title, "File:Recycling symbol.svg." The page will display the green circular arrow symbol. Right-click on the graphic, and select "save link as." (Your browser may do this in a slightly different way. This is how Firefox does it.)

Your saved file will be a SVG vector file that can be opened and saved in Illustrator. You can place the saved Illustrator file into Indesign. Avoid using JPGs, for line art, as these are almost always aliased, and will look fuzzy. Also, JPGs usually don't upsample well. Sometimes they do, but don't count on it.

If you can only get a bitmap, submit it to Vector Magic, the best raster-to-vector utility on the Web. For line art, this online tool is is magnitudes better than anything that you can do using Live Trace in Illustrator.

Remember: Time spent spinning your wheels is deducted every day from Happy Hour.

See also:

• All Free Logo.com, a library of logos.