iSyndica

By Asmaa Murad from Aivault.com

Working with illustrator is fun, creating vectors is fun. There are plenty of plugins which make the job even more exciting. When I started working with illustrator I knew nothing about it and learned everything on my own, and it was quite late when I started using plugins . But you know what? There are plenty of plugins which make your life so much easier and fun so you can concentrate more on the creative side of your job. Here is a list of useful plugins which i have been using and enjoying.

Open Paths

Mostly when you are working on an illustration which will be used by someone else Or will be opened in another computer by any other person and maybe modified a bit . This plugin makes your work tidy , more adoptable , once the paths are closed you can easily modify the file with any colour of your choice . You can download this plugin from Rj-Grafix .

To install the plugin , just drop the plugin in your Adobe illustrator Plugins Folder This plugin works with illustrator CS-CS2 and CS3 . What this plugin does for you is that finds all guides , paths , open paths , closed paths , filled paths , unfilled paths , stroked paths , unstroked paths , dashed paths , undashed paths , gradient meshes , envelopes , placed art etc. Usually you will find the path once installed in the select > object menu

Closed Paths

Ok so you found the open paths using the plugin what to do now? now you need to close them so here is the plugin to Close the open paths you just found  , but for some odd reason for me it doesnt show up there .  To run the script go to File > Scripts > other Scripts and browse manually to the scrip and run it. works fine with me!

Here is a link to a tutorial showing step by step how to solve the open paths issue

Creating Silhouettes

Yikes! this one is so so very cool!…. saving tons of your time . Every next design has element of silhouette in them . Only thing when converting images to silhouettes is to use higest resoulution possible image you can find. Secondly you might want to bring the image through photoshop . I would suggest playing around with curves brightness and contrast and grey scale your image then place it inside illustrator and one click you have a perfect silhouette get the plugin from here! Check out the quick demo you will definately want to give it a try