Nice video tuts ! :)

hi...great tut! a lil doubt- how dya quickly change the colours in the gradient?!

Samir, there's a few options for changing the gradient colours:
1) Drag and drop swatches into the little buckets.
2) Use the Color Picker / Eyedropper tool
3) In CS4 you can now double click the swatch and choose from the color picker.

There's possibly a couple more, but they're the ones I tend to use!

ok cool...thanks...i think i've been trying the CS4 trick in the previous versions :P

Hi Chris~^^
I always watch your video
thx!!

I'm a real illustrator beginner, and it would be *so* helpful to see more detail of each step. Even simple things like how you're selecting colors for creating the gradient confuse me because you're doing it behind the scenes. Illustrator (to a newbie) is a complete *mess* of inconsistent controls, windows, and buttons.

I know this is *really* basic stuff, but seeing it would help me (and I'm assuming others) *enourmously* :) Thanks again for posting the video.

(btw: I eventually figured out the color thing :)

Your tutorial frustrates me because it goes too fast, and the text in illustrator is too small in your video for me to read. If you really want to label this a beginner tutorial, you need to elaborate on EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING. I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where the hell colors were on the toolbox.

Great tutorial. If you got some prior knowledge in other Creative Suite apps like Photoshop, these steps can be followed easily. The only thing which took me a while are the gradients.

Thanks

To the confused beginners: Chris forgot to add that to adjust the roundness of the rectangle, as you draw the rounded rectangle and *before releasing the mouse* on your lovely rectangle, tap the up/down cursor keys. Then when you have the roundness you like, release the mouse.

Also, the gradient is done by clicking the gradient tool in the toolbox, then clicking once on the right edge of the rectangle and dragging your mouse to the left side of the rectangle and releasing it. Or clicking the gradient box at the bottom of the tool box (depending on yr version of Illustrator).

The offset part is really tricky to follow. Especially if you're using an older version of Illustrator like mine (CS2!). Basically, once you have your gradient done, you need to Copy the rectangle and Paste in place (Command F). This gives you two identical rounded rectangles, one on top of the other. Then you can Choose Effect> Path>Offset Path from the navigation at the top of your screen. By typing in -1mm, the top rectangle is shrunk by 1mm. WIth this smaller one still selected, you rotate it manually (place cursor just outside a corner and when you see the 2-way arrow, drag and spin it 180 degrees. That should give you the elusive beveled/offset look.

If you're still lost, just keep your mouse over the Pause button and rewind as needed. It may take awhile, but it's worth it. Chris speaks rather quickly in that charming but difficult-to-understand accent. I'm betting it's a potent mix of caffeine and sugar.