8 Best Adobe Illustrator Online Tutorials

The Career Project is reader-supported. We may earn a commission on products purchased through links on this page. Learn more here.

Looking for the best Adobe Illustrator online classes? We’ve put together a list of the best ones on the web, below. And we’ve made sure to include both free and paid Adobe Illustrator courses to give you a variety of options.

But first, let’s answer the important question – what is this tool all about? Illustrator is a vector graphic design app that lets you create logos, icons, drawings, typography and complex illustrations for any medium! It is widely used by graphic designers, as well as by web designers, marketers, visual artists, and professional illustrators.

Illustrator, which was created by Adobe, allows you to create a range of beautiful and breath-taking designs. Specifically for graphic designers and illustrators, Adobe Illustrator can be used to create a variety of digital and printed images, which includes eye-catching logos, diagrams and digital drawings. On the Illustrator app, you can create a sketch, color images, insert text and merge text and images together.

To learn Adobe Illustrator, you don’t need to spend hours at University. There are plenty of online classes and courses that cover everything you need to know. Suitable for those of all levels, I have spent the time researching the best Adobe Illustrator courses out there. If you’re looking to progress your illustration skills, either for a graphic design or illustration career or to just enhance your creative skill set, there will definitely be one for you.

 

1. Adobe Illustrator CC – Essential Training (Skillshare)

  • Level: Beginner
  • Completion time: 6h 52m
  • Cost: 14-day free trial
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 62,869
  • Course rating: N/A

Instructed by Daniel Scott, an Adobe Certified Instructor and expert, and a Skillshare top teacher, this class is designed for those who are complete Adobe Illustration Beginners (those who have never even opened Adobe Illustrator before) and for those who have opened it before but got a bit lost. This essential training is designed to get you up to speed with Adobe Illustrator in just seven hours!

During this class, you will learn all the essentials of Adobe Illustrator. You will learn, step-by-step, how to create just about anything in Illustrator, including icons and logos. The 41 lessons included in this class take you through how to draw shapes and lines, how to use the pen or pencil tool, how to use brushes, how to use fonts, how to make gradients, and much more. You will also discover how to export your creation, how to save your files, how to redraw different logos, amongst many other very useful things!

After taking this class, you should feel confident in using Adobe Illustrator to create beautiful artwork – all for only seven hours of your time, what a win!

 

2. Learn Adobe Illustrator: Fundamentals for Beginners (Skillshare)

  • Level: Beginner
  • Completion time: 1h 19m
  • Cost: 14-day free trial
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 9,780
  • Course rating: N/A

 

Shorter than the other Skillshare class, this class is better suited for those with less time on their hands. Taught by Anne Bracker, an experienced graphic designer, illustrator and Adobe max speaker, you don’t need any prior experience in Adobe Illustrator to take this class… Anne has got everything you need to get up to scratch!

In this concise and comprehensive introduction to Adobe Illustrator, Anne walks you through everything you need to know. The key skills that you learn include: building objects with simple shapes, applying colors and creating swatches, drawing curves with the Pen Tool, making designs with custom types and much, much more!

By the end of this course, you’ll know how to navigate the platform and take advantage of it powerful features. This way, you can quickly start creating your own beautiful designs.

 

3. Illustrator 2021 Master Class (Udemy)

  • Level: All levels
  • Completion time: 13h 11m
  • Cost: $149.99
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 128,881
  • Course rating: 5 (out of 28,467 ratings)

Instructed by Martin Perhiniak, a world-renowned Adobe Instructor, this course is Udemy’s best-selling Illustrator course!

Suitable for those who have never even seen Adobe Illustrator before, to those who have years of experience, this tutorial is designed to take your design skills to the next level. This course starts with the basics, to ensure you feel totally at ease with the Illustrators interfaces, preferences and how to set up a new document. After this, it gets a bit more advanced and you will discover everything you need to know about working with objects, how to master drawing modes, when to use the different types of brushes and how to trace photographs. The course then takes it up one final notch at the end and teaches you very complex Illustration features, such as symbols, graphs, gradient meshes and workflows.

This class is carefully designed to be incredibly useful to graphic designers and illustrators. However, it is also useful for Product Designers, Fashion Designers, UX designers and many other creative professionals. At the end of this class, you will be able to use Adobe Illustrator effectively, and your creativity will flourish!

 

4. Illustrator 2020 Essential Training (LinkedIn Learning)

  • Level: Beginner
  • Completion time: 3-4h
  • Cost: $35.00
  • Certification: Yes
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 111,392
  • Course rating: N/A

Taught by Tony Harmer, who is an educator and illustrator with 160+ certifications, including Adobe Creative Suite Master, this course is special.

Suitable for those with little Adobe Illustrator experience, this tutorial teaches you the core concepts and techniques that can be applied to any workflow. In a concise, yet informative, manner, Tony Harmer takes you over all the essentials of Illustrator 2020, including artboards, workspaces, layers and shapes. You will also learn how to make selections, draw and build complex shapes using the illustrator drawing tools and how to color artwork. Finally, you will learn how to organize artwork into groups and layers, how to combine and clean up paths, how to work with type and effects, how to export your work, and much more.

By the end of this course, you should be up to date and confident with the essentials of Adobe Illustrator. For only a few hours of your time, you should be able to create all kinds of wonderful creations, from logos to posters, on Adobe Illustrator!

 

5. Adobe Illustrator CC – Advanced Training Course (Udemy)

  • Level: Intermediate to Advanced
  • Completion time: 9h 21m
  • Cost: $129.99
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 32,353
  • Course rating: 7 (out of 5,650 ratings)

This course is taught by Daniel Walter Scott, an Adobe Certified Instructor and Adobe Certified Expert, who loves to teach others in a way that is most efficient, useful and memorable.

This course is best suited to those who have experience using Adobe Illustrator and want to take their learning to the next level. In this course, you will cover a wide range of advanced skills with the aim that once you’ve conquered these skills, you will be able to earn more!

Daniel Scott takes you through keyboard shortcuts, color and patterns, workflow speed, typography, strokes and lines, depth, perspective & 3D, charts & graphs, artboards & pages, the creative cloud, how to transform, distort & blend, web UI design and animations. This course is the perfect way for any experience graphic designers or illustrators to progress their learning (and their earnings) that extra little bit!

 

6. Illustrator 2021 Essential Training (LinkedIn Learning)

  • Level: Beginner
  • Completion time: 5-6h
  • Cost: Free
  • Certification: Yes
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 22,156
  • Course rating: N/A

Taught by Tony Harmer, who is an educator and illustrator with 160+ certifications, including Adobe Creative Suite Master, this course is a free resource that everyone looking to progress their Adobe Illustrator skills should know about!

Suitable for those who have never used Illustrator before, or for those who just want to ‘brush up’ their knowledge, this course aims to help you solidify the essentials of Adobe Illustrator. During this course, you will learn the core concepts that can be applied to any workflow for print, the web or assets that find their way to other applications. Tony covers artboards, workspaces, layers and shapes. He also discusses vector graphics, path strokes, fills, how to use each of the drawing tools, how to clean up paths and organize paths into groups and layers. Finally, Tony will cover text editing, working with color, expressive brush drawing, effects, and much more!

 

7. Illustrator 2020 One-on-One: Fundamentals (LinkedIn Learning)

  • Level: Beginner
  • Completion time: 5-6h
  • Cost: $42.99
  • Certification: Yes
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 20,892
  • Course rating: N/A

Deke McCelland is an award-winning author, educator and an expert at image editing and graphic design. He has more than 50 video course, all which are very popular. To take this LinkedIn learning class, you don’t need any previous experience with Adobe Illustrator, as Deke expertly takes you through everything you need to know.

During this course, you will learn how to work with artboards, how to draw with the pencil, curvature and pen tools, and how to organize color and swatches. Deke also covers how to draw shapes, adjust strokes, format text and much more.

By the end of this course, you should have the skills you need to navigate the complexed world of Adobe Illustrator. For less than six hours of your time, you can join 20,000 other people in ramping your creative skills up a notch!

 

8. Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud Master Class (CreativeLive)

  • Level: Intermediate to Advanced
  • Completion time: 10h 28m
  • Cost: $29.00
  • Certification: No
  • Number of people who have completed the course: 17,600
  • Course rating: 8/5

Taught by Brian Wood, this 10-hour CreativeLive course is very popular. By walking through a series of projects, this course is designed to give you a comprehensive toolkit to be confident using Adobe Illustrator.

In this tutorial, Brian Wood teaches you all the tricks and techniques for creating breath-taking work on Adobe Illustrator. You will learn how to draw, edit images and work with layers. By the end of the course, you will also be able to create customer patterns, brushes, symbols and have explored the built-in visual effect library. After covering these fundamental topics, you go on to explore more advanced illustrator skills, such as how to use the perspective grid, Creative Cloud Libraries, effects, live paint groups and selection, blends, and the shape builder tool.

After taking this course, you should have transformed your Illustration skills. Not only will you have solidified your knowledge of the fundamentals of Adobe Illustrator, you will also be able to carry out advanced work and increase your earning potential!

 

Conclusion

So, there you have it… the eight best Adobe Illustrator online classes.

There are a huge variety of online classes available to teach you everything you need to know about Adobe Illustrator. Some of the tutorials are quick and free. Others are more expensive and take more time to complete – but they offer a more in-depth exploration of the software. Similarly, some are better suited to complete beginners with no illustration experience. Whereas others are far better suited to experienced creatives.

All of the above online classes are excellent. They are the best of the best. Each is taught by an experienced and dedicated teacher and they all have lots of satisfied and happy customers.

So, which course you decide take depends on you experience, funds and spare time. Are you a complete graphic design and illustration newbie? Or have you got years of experience in the industry and just want to refresh your knowledge? Do you have a huge amount of money to spend on your skill development? Do you have a lot of spare time, or are you just looking for a quick, but effective, skill top up?

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Table of Contents

Share this post: