S | 2 | Artboard Sampler

You’ve spent this unit learning to navigate, build, and precisely set up an Illustrator document. Today, you’ll put all four Unit 2 skills together in one project: a single document with 4 artboards, each showing a different shape composition, built with real precision using rulers, guides, and grids.

Project Briefing (~10 min)

Watch the teacher set up one sample artboard from scratch: New Document with bleed → rename the artboard → drag out guides → place shapes precisely against those guides → switch to Outline view briefly to double-check nothing is hidden.

Project Work Time (~23 min)

  1. Sketch your plan for all 4 artboards on your planning sheet before opening Illustrator. Vary the arrangement of shapes on each, not just the colors.
  2. File > New: a Print document with 4 artboards, bleed set, CMYK color.
  3. Rename every artboard to something descriptive (not “Artboard 1/2/3/4”).
  4. Build each composition using only the basic shape/fill tools from S1 (Rectangle, Ellipse, Line Segment, fill color, Selection tool). No Pen tool yet, that’s Unit 4.
  5. Use at least one design aid per artboard: rulers, a guide, the grid, or Smart Guides. Vary which one you lean on across the 4 artboards.
  6. Halfway check-in: trade screens with a partner and verify each other’s artboard count, names, and bleed setting.
  7. Switch to Outline view briefly on at least one artboard to confirm nothing is accidentally hidden behind something else.

Which of your 4 artboards took the most deliberate use of a design aid to get right, and which one could you have built just as easily by eye?

GMetrix/BrainBuffet (~30 min)

Keep working through Module 1: Getting Started, including its module-completion checkpoint.

If you’re not finished by the end of today, that’s expected for most students, not a sign you fell behind. Finish the checkpoint during Unit 3’s early strand time; it still counts.

Save, Export & Submit (~5 min)

Organize (File Management)

  1. Ensure that Google Drive for Desktop is syncing to your computer.
  2. Create a Project Directory (Folder) in your Google Drive Google Drive/My Drive/Digital Design/YYYY-MM PROJECT NAME
  3. Try to keep all of your project files for this project together, so your work is not interrupted due to technical issues.

Storing all your files in the /Downloads folder in your computer is a BAD idea. If any of these files are lost/deleted you will have to reconnect them. Put them in your project folder directly. This will also be helpful in the event of any computer issues.

  1. In your project directory, maintain subdirectories for every category of resource you will be using.
YYYY-MM Project Name
📁 Graphics
📁 Sketches
📁 Photos
📁 Notes
  1. It’s also good to include directories for related files
📁 Project Files
📁 Exports
  1. Save your file as LastName_FirstName_S2_ArtboardSampler.ai.
  2. File > Export > Export As, choose PDF, and confirm “All” artboards are included so every composition exports as one multi-page PDF.

Publish your work to your Google Sites Portfolio

  1. Create a new page on your Google Sites Portfolio to catalog your work.
    • Your work should be exported in a web-safe format in a manner that allows for the work to be embedded without requiring Google Drive permissions
  2. Your work should be accompanied by a detailed project description
  3. Submit the published portfolio page to your LMS (Schoology)

🗂 Organize: Put your Artboard Sampler planning sheet in your binder. Save your multi-artboard .ai file in the Project Files folder of your Digital Design project folder on Google Drive. Save your exported PDF in the Exports folder of your Digital Design project folder on Google Drive.

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