Book Image

Design Made Easy with Inkscape

By : Christopher Rogers
1 (1)
Book Image

Design Made Easy with Inkscape

1 (1)
By: Christopher Rogers

Overview of this book

With the power and versatility of the Inkscape software, making charts, diagrams, illustrations, and UI mockups with infinite resolution becomes enjoyable. If you’re looking to get up to speed with vector illustration in no time, this comprehensive guide has got your back! Design Made Easy with Inkscape is easy to follow and teaches you everything you need to know to create graphics that you can use and reuse forever, for free! You’ll benefit from the author’s industry experience as you go over the basics of vector illustration, discovering tips and tricks for getting professional graphics done fast by leveraging Inkscape's powerful toolset. This book teaches by example, using a great variety of use cases from icons and logos to illustration, web design, and product design. You’ll learn about hotkeys and take a best-practices approach developed over ten years of using Inkscape as a design tool in production. What’s more, this book also includes links to free graphics resources that you can use in all your projects. Whether you’re a new user or a professional, by the end of this book, you’ll have full understanding of how to use Inkscape and its myriad of excellent features to make stunning graphics for your projects.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Finding Your Way Around
7
Part 2: Advanced Shape Editing
13
Part 3: Inkscape’s Power Tools

Technical requirements

To make the most of this chapter, you’ll need a computer running a recent version of Linux, macOS, or Windows.

You will, of course, also need a fresh copy of Inkscape 1.1, which you can download from the Inkscape website at www.inkscape.org (simply click the DOWNLOAD button and follow the instructions). As mentioned in the Preface, Inkscape is free to download and can be used for many purposes. Neat, huh?

I also highly recommend using a mouse as there are some functions tied to the mouse that are hard (or impossible) to do with a touchpad. Laptop trackpads are notoriously terrible for your wrists, and while they may suffice for casual mousing on the go, they are less precise and much harder on your wrists than a mouse for click-heavy graphic design tasks. As a laptop addict in university, I destroyed my wrists learning this lesson the hard way.

So, you can save yourself the medical bills and pain by investing in a good-quality mouse now. While I tend to recommend a Logitech mouse, even the cheapest off-brand mouse is better than the most expensive trackpad. If you can manage to get one with a third mouse button, then you get some nice extra functionality, such as being able to grab/pan the canvas just by holding it down.