Ace the ACA Illustrator 2020 Certification Test / Tips + Tricks for Design Students

hello designers in this video i'm going to prepare you for the illustrator 2020 industry certification test i took this test recently and i scored an 8 45 which i must admit is not my best but it is well beyond the 700 required points you need to pass the industry certification test to be clear i'm going to be going over the simulation questions you may expect to see on the certification test i will not be going over the multiple choice and matching part of the test here if you don't have the files that i'm going to be using today don't freak out because they're very basic you can just go and try to follow along to the best of your ability with just about any kind of object that you open up on illustrator so without further ado let's get started on the test you may expect to see several questions that ask you not necessarily to edit an object but to edit the settings for the artboards in any given document that they present to you one of the questions that i saw on the test had you rearranged the order in which your artboards are presented so you can see by default i created a document with four artboards and each of the artboards is stacked one on top of the other like so the question specifically asked me to make sure that the artboards were arranged in a row so in order for you to complete this part of the question you would need to go and open up your artboards panel if you don't already have it open in this configuration of panels to the right hand side you could go to window and artboards to open up the artboard panel so i'm not necessarily doing any editing to the artboards themselves i can see i have four listed here instead i just want to rearrange their order to do so i would go and click on the three horizontal bars that will enable me to edit the options for the panel and then i'm going to select rearrange all artboards then under layout you have several different options to select from on the test if i recall correctly they had me select an option called rearrange by row and then they had you um select the spacing in between the artboards to any given amount so i don't recall what that was i'm just going to type in 50 pixels or something and then when i click ok you'll see that the artboards are now arranged in a row that pretty much completes that question if you guys tend to see it on the certification test just be mindful when you go and rearrange the artboards to make sure you click on this little check mark right here where it says move artwork with artboard if there's actual work on any of the artboards so you can see all four of these are blank but if i had some kind of object on there i would want to make sure the object moved with the artboard itself another question that i saw ref referring to specifically editing the arrangement of artboards or the orientation of artboards was one question that had me change one artboard to a horizontal orientation so you can see that both of these artboards are vertical in nature so if i was gonna print this it would look like your basic you know sheet of copy paper but they wanted me to go and turn one of the artboards to horizontal so it would look more like a postcard to go and change the orientation of any given artboard like let's say they want me to change the one titled horizontal that would make a little bit more sense to a horizontal orientation i would go and once again i'm working in my artboards panel click on the three dots to open up the options select artboard options and then it's just easy as selecting a different orientation so i would just click right here for the horizontal orientation click ok and you'll see that that artboard is now reoriented automatically if they ask you to move it then try moving it if not leave it alone and move on to the next question if you tend to see this one on the certification test several questions on the certification test are going to ask you guys to deal with layers within illustrator and grouping specific objects within the layers panel on illustrator i recall one specific question that had you guys group the shapes on the document based on their colors and to then hide one of the groups within illustrator so i'm going to show you guys real quick how you can go and group multiple shapes on illustrator the first thing you got to do is you got to make sure you select the ones you actually need to group together so i'm going to go and group the greens i'm going to click on a green and i know it's selected because it has that blue bounding box around it and then i'm gonna hold down shift so that as i click on the other green hexagons all of those are um added automatically and i know they're added because you'll see like a very mild blue outline around the shapes that have been added to this selection so now that i added them to the selection i have to group them to group them i'm going to right click and select group so that's done now you might be wondering okay how do i verify that there's a group be patient i will show you momentarily for now i'm going to go and group all the other shapes by color so now i'm going to start grouping the blues i'm going to click on a blue hold down shift on my keyboard and as i click on all the blues i should start seeing a bounding box around them now that i have that selection i'm going to right click and select group and then lastly i will do the pinks so one more time using your selection tool click on a pink hold down shift to add more pinks to the selection and then i will right click and select group so i know i already grouped all these shapes how do i verify that they're grouped well that's where the layers panel is going to help me to figure that out if you don't have your layers panel open in this configuration of panels you can go to window and layers and now i can see if i expand that one existing layer that i have three groups and each of them are grouped by color on the test they specifically had you go and toggle the visibility of any group any one group that they ask for so let's say if they tell you to toggle off the visibility of the blues you just go and select that blue group and click that little eyeball icon next to the group and now you can't see it anymore um if they have you rename any one of the individual groups you would just go and double click on the group name and just type in whatever name they're asking for so for right now i'm just going to call them you know what each group color is so blue pink and green now they tell me on the test toggle off the visibility of the blue and the pink i would just click on the little eyeball icon next to pink and blue and the only ones remaining visible on the document are green and that's pretty much how you do it one other question that i saw having to do with layers on the certification test was they wanted me to convert a layer into a template to go and convert any given layer into a template it's really easy you just got to make sure your layers panel is open like mine already is and then i select the layer they want me to convert into a template so in this case there's only one so i'm just going to leave it as is and i'm going to click on the three horizontal bars and i'm gonna select options for layer one or if it's you know if it had a name on the test you would just select options for whatever the name of the layer is and then basically you would select the little check mark that says template and if they ask you to rename the layer like let's say they want you to rename it princess you would click ok and that's it now you have a template layer um and you can see the template layers now has like a little lock on it so you can't move it and that's it that's how you go and change any given layer into a template on illustrator some of the questions on the certification test are going to have you edit the anchor points on any given object within your artboard i recall very distinctly one question that had you round out the corners of a triangle to round out any corners on any given shape you would basically have to use your white arrow which is the direct selection tool in your options i'm sorry not your options your toolbar and click on the triangle you'll see that when i click on it with the direct selection tool again the white arrow as i have my students call it you'll have these like little widgets showing up on the corners of the triangle the widgets are basically these like little round shapes that are bordering the corners by the way like this video if you love the name widgets as much as i do but anyway what i want to do to go and round out all of the corners simultaneously is to basically click on a widget and drag inwards and you'll see that it is changing corner size you can see i also have like a little note telling me how much i am rounding out that corner so let's say if the test has you rounded out to 40 pixels i would go and just stop until i see it at 40. okay so i'm just going to leave it 40 69 um if they want you to round it out to let's say 25 pixels you can go and just kind of leave it at 25 pixels depending on what their it is that they're asking you to do another question i remember seeing had the user go and add a corner point to an o so that they could connect it with an i to kind of create this cool graphic so in order to go and add that corner point to the o so that i can connect it with the i and liz i would need to go and select the o with my direct selection tool again my white arrow and i know it's selected because it has that blue bounding box around it and what i'm going to do is i'm going to click on this anchor point and drag it downwards hold on okay double click on it i'm sorry that's what i was doing wrong and drag it downwards like i'm doing right now but now you can see that even though i connected those two shapes it's still not a sharp corner so with that anchor point selected still i'm gonna go and in my properties panel i'm gonna select this option for the sharp corner and you'll see that now both of those two shapes are connected with what appears to be like an arrow on the test it does look a little bit more sophisticated than in my simulation question but as long as you basically get the idea down you should be okay you just need to understand how to edit those anchor points using the direct selection tool one of the questions on the certification test had you archive a set of you know swatches strokes of whatever settings you did to edit any given object as a graphic style on illustrator in order for you to go and save any given graphic style so in this case i want to save the fact that the text is filled with this like tropical pattern and it's outlined in line green i would need to go and open up my graphic styles panel so i would go to window and graphic styles and i can see that within graphic styles there's several styles already archived here but i want to make sure i add my own so the first thing i got to do is use my basic selection tool to select the object in question and now i know it's selected because it has a blue bounding box around it and then i'm gonna go to the horizontal bars next to graphic styles and i'm gonna select new graphic style and i'm going to call it well they're basically going to tell you what to call it but in this case i'm just going to call it tropical and click ok and now you can see that new style called tropical has been added to my selection of graphic styles so that if i wanted to test it on this rectangle for example i could click on the graphic style and the same exact style is added to the rectangle that was on my rainbow layer if they are not asking you to test it then don't test it but that's basically how you add a graphic style another question had me use the symbols panel the symbols are basically like these it kind of looks like clip art like a set of clipart that illustrator offers to you to further illustrate any given project and to open up the symbols panel you would go to window and symbols if it's not listed on the right hand side already and you'll see that it already has like a selection of basic symbols available for you but if the test tells you for example look for a flower symbol and you don't see a flower symbol on here you could look at the library of symbols you can find the library by clicking on this icon that looks like like a stack of books and open up any given library that has more specific symbols for that topic so if i was going to look under flowers i can see that there's several different flowers available to me to use on any given project let's say i'm going to add the blue flower to this text to further illustrate it i would just go and click on the blue flower and maybe drag somewhere on my document and then of course i have the ability to resize it to make it bigger and that's basically how you would use the symbols so on the test they're going to ask you to look for a given library of symbols so you make sure you click on the stack and then look for that library and then specifically the symbol within the library that they're asking for so if they tell me look under mad science and use the symbol that looks like test tubes that's the one that i would select lastly i am going to talk to you guys about some general questions that i can't necessarily fit into any one category they were just general questions i saw on the certification test one of the questions specifically had me go and type text around the path so you can see this path has been created right just a basic curved line to go and add text to this path so that the text curves with it i would go and right click on my type tool and select my type on a path tool then i would click basically anywhere within my path and you guys are going to see that a lot of placeholder text is added to you automatically let me just increase the size so it's easier for you guys to see and then i would basically go and replace that placeholder text by holding down backspace and typing in whatever message they are asking for now let's say the message was something like eat healthy right that's basically how you would go and do it and then if you click on the selection tool to deselect anywhere else in the document you don't see that path anymore but you do see that the text still curves around it if they're asking you to do more edits to the text after you just go and type around the path you would go back and click on the text within with the same tool as before the type on a path to highlight the text and then you can either use the options in the control bar or the options within your properties panel so i'm just going to open up my properties panel because i closed it earlier and then make any changes to the text as necessary so let's see let's say they wanted me to make the text a little bigger so they wanted me to set it to let's say 60 points i could go and still make all those changes even though i already like edited the text by typing on a path so it really depends on what they ask for on the certification test another question within the certification test had me create a clipping mask placing an image inside a text in order for me to create a clipping mask i'm going to go and use my direct selection tool i'm sorry not my trick selection tool my normal selection tool which looks like a black arrow and i'm going to basically drag a marquee over both the image and the text in order to select them and i know they're selected because they have that blue bounding box around them then i'm going to go to object clipping mask and make and then i'll see that the image is placed very neatly inside of the text if they have you do something additional like let's say they want you to apply an effect such as for example a drop shadow or they have you create an outline using a stroke or whatever you can do all of those things after you do the clipping mask within the properties panel so i'm going to apply let's say a stroke of four points in the color green to this clipping mask and i was able to do all of that within the properties panel so just make sure if you see that question you create the clipping mask first and then you edit any of the other settings they're asking for the last item i want to review with you guys is how to edit the opacity of any one given symbol on illustrator so let's say i want to go and edit the opacity of the sun right i'm going to make sure that whatever symbol they're asking for on the test is selected because to effect it you have to select it and to go and edit the opacity i need to make sure i have my properties panel open so in my properties panel you'll see its own setting appearance setting for opacity and then i can go and lower the opacity to whatever they're asking for so let's say on the test they want me to lower the opacity to 75 i would type in 75 and click enter and you'll see that that image is slowly becoming a lot more transparent if they want you to edit the blend mode of any one given image like i recall they're wanting to do you can also go and open up the opacity settings and find blend modes there so let's say they want me to change the blend mode to let's say overlay right i'll select overlay i can see that it's a very distinct difference after i lower the opacity and select the blend mode to the original image so it really depends on what it is there exactly that they're asking for my suggestion is you have the properties panel open during the test and you shouldn't have any problems finding those two settings i hope this has been helpful to you guys i wish you the best of luck as you take your test and you can hit me up with any questions you have below in the comments have an awesome day peace out

Channel: Elizabeth Abaya

Views: 2,402

Keywords: Adobe certification, Adobe industry certification, Illustrator certification 2020, Illustrator certification test, ACA Illustrator

Id: 9vQNZhO3bFs

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021