🎨 Adobe Illustrator Scavenger Hunt
Mission: Get to Know Your Workspace
Name
Date
Welcome to Adobe Illustrator!
Today you are going on a scavenger hunt through Illustrator. Your goal is to become familiar with the workspace, find important tools and panels, and experiment with what they do.
You don't need to know everything yet. Your job is to explore!
- Work with a partner if your teacher allows it, but complete the tasks on your own computer.
- Click around and experiment.
- If you make a mistake, use Undo ↶.
- Don't worry about making perfect artwork.
- If you get stuck, ask a classmate for a hint before asking your teacher.
🟢 LEVEL 1 — FIND YOUR WAY AROUND
Open Adobe Illustrator and create a new document.
Find the Tools panel. This is where many of Illustrator's most important tools live.
See if you can find each of these:
Icon Hunt: The symbols above are visual clues. The actual Illustrator icons may look slightly different depending on your version or workspace.
🕵️ Bonus Hunt
Find one tool that you have never used before.
Tool
What do you think it does?
Some Illustrator tools are grouped together.
- Look for a tool with a small triangle ▾ beside it.
- Click and hold it.
You discovered... Tool group:
Other tools I found:
⭐ Bonus
Find another tool group:
What tools are hiding there?
Find the Fill and Stroke controls in the Tools panel. Look for something similar to:
Fill: ▣ Stroke: □
Select a shape or create a rectangle.
Your challenge:
- Change the Fill to a color you like.
- Change the Stroke to a different color.
- Make the stroke thick enough that you can clearly see it.
Fill color:
Stroke color:
🔄 Switch It!
Find the Swap Fill and Stroke control. Try it.
What happened?
🟢 LEVEL 2 — EXPLORE THE WORKSPACE
Now that you've found some tools, let's explore the rest of the Illustrator workspace.
Find the Properties panel. Select a shape on your artboard. Look carefully at the Properties panel.
🔍 Detective Challenge
Find three things you can change about your selected object.
1.
2.
3.
Now change one of them.
What did you change?
Find the Layers panel. Create two different shapes on your artboard. Look at the Layers panel.
Can you find your objects?
Now try clicking the eye 👁 beside a layer or object.
What happened?
🔒 Bonus Challenge
Can you find a way to lock something so you can't accidentally select it?
Panels are places where Illustrator gives you more controls. Find these panels:
Choose one panel you have not used before. Panel:
Before experimenting: What do you THINK this panel does?
Now experiment! What did you discover?
🟡 LEVEL 3 — MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN
You've found the tools. Now it's time to actually use them!
Find the ▢ Rectangle Tool and ○ Ellipse Tool. Create:
Give each shape a different Fill color. Now make the shapes overlap.
Challenge
Arrange your shapes so they look something like this: ▢ + ○ → overlapping shapes
This is an important Illustrator mystery.
First: Select your shape using the 🖱️ Selection Tool. Look at what gets selected.
Now: Select the same shape using the ◇ Direct Selection Tool. Look carefully at what happens.
🤔 What is different?
🔍 Detective Hint
Pay attention to the anchor points and the object itself.
Can you move an individual point using the Direct Selection Tool?
Select one of your shapes. Find the Fill control ▣ Fill. Change the Fill to a new color.
Now find □ Stroke. Give your shape a visible stroke.
My shape now has:
Fill:
Stroke:
⭐ Bonus
Find the Swatches panel 🎨. Choose a color from the Swatches panel.
What happened?
You've made it this far. Now prove you can explore Illustrator without instructions!
Choose one tool you haven't used yet.
My mystery tool — Icon:
Tool name:
My prediction: I think this tool will...
Test it! What actually happened?
Did your prediction match?
Before moving on, make sure you can find these without help:
1. What tool do you feel most comfortable finding now?
2. What tool or panel are you still unsure about?
3. What is one thing you discovered by experimenting?
4. Draw the icon of your favorite tool today — My tool:
⭐ Confidence Check
Circle one: