great book to follow - wonderful for a beginner

I had to purchase this for a class I was taking, but thought the content was mediocre in my opinion. I'm not a total beginner on Illustrator, nor an expert, but would say quite acquainted and familiar with Illustrator.

The activities themselves weren't engaging as they made you recreate out-dated, nor atheistically pleasing, designs. Even if they are just used simply as lessons used to familiarize and learn how to utilize certain tools, it isn't "step-by-step" as it's self described skipping from Point A to Point C. I found the instructions often times vague to the point where I'd have to research myself where I'd find free content that, with better examples, would literally do walk you through the process.

Although the textbook did contain lessons for tools I was not familiar and how to utilize them, it honestly does not hold any technique or information you couldn't learn elsewhere for free. I've learned more through free tutorials on Youtube which were more comprehensive and contained more concepts, personal insight, and tips and tricks.

useful info

I bought this for my college class, it was the required book. It really explains illustrator well. GOOD TIP: don't waste your time reading the paragraphs and paragraphs of chapter material , just skip to the assignment steps and you'll understand perfectly how the program works. I discovered this half way through my course and everything when fine and dandy and FASTER! :) Keep the book because when you forget how to do a simple little step of something after your course is done, you can refer back to it to remember it (and not have to do a ton of googling like I did.)

Needed it for class.