Illustrations are often an integral part of a scientific manuscript, especially when conveying complex ideas and data. Additionally, a beautiful illustration is just so nice to look at. Lucky for us, we don’t have to spend years to master drawing those illustrations anymore like in the good ol’ days because there are many software options available to help us make these illustrations. Adobe Illustrator is one of the most powerful tools out there for creating illustrations and is more versatile than the more commonly used Powerpoint. However, it is something that you might not be familiar with and with a slightly steeper learning curve. I came across a retweet from our very own Sydney Wyatt about this Adobe Illustrator guide wrote by Connie Jiang, an MD/PhD Student at UPenn, and I was amazed by how useful it was for a beginner user like me. The guide is orientated for scientists. It covers basic usage and also a range of specific topics such as design scale bar, making poster templates, and color-blind friendly colors. I hope you will find this guide useful, and make the transition from Powerpoint.
–Yulong
Blog post
http://rajlaboratory.blogspot.com/2019/08/i-adobe-illustrator-for-scientific.html
Guide
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TXmbltzBPcApCcuJ9HLOIQgWPqKylrFRWRudrN-5vBE/edit#
Edited by Sydney Wyatt
For any content suggestions or general recommendations, please email to UCDBioScope@gmail.com and put science 2.0 in the title.