Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 Bible

Chapter 5. Create an Application Comp in Illustrator

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Create a new file in Illustrator

• Drawing in Illustrator

• Modify artwork

• Organize artwork on layers

• Add text to your designs

• Apply effects

• Best practices when designing a Catalyst comp in Illustrator

For many designers, Flash Catalyst workflows begin in Adobe Illustrator. Illustrator provides a powerful set of drawing tools. These tools allow you to create a comp of your application design that you can later pull into Catalyst and convert into an RIA.

Create a New File in Illustrator

Like other Creative Suite tools, Illustrator displays a Start Screen when first launched (see Figure 5.1). The right side of this screen provides a set of options for new documents. The options provide default settings for your artwork.

Tip

For obvious reasons, designers creating work for Catalyst will usually want to select the Flash Catalyst Document option. There are no significant differences in the initial setup between a Web document and Flash Catalyst document.

You need to establish several basic parameters for your Illustrator document, discussed in the following sections, before you begin. All of these settings will be translated directly into Catalyst, so you need to think about what you want your final application to look like, even at this very early stage of development.

Figure 5.1. The Start Screen in Illustrator CS5

Choosing a print document ...