New Year, New Resolutions! We love to see when people decide to jump onto amazing design tools like Illustrator and Photoshop — but where to begin? Whether you’re a newbie or a veteran, these are 10 of the best Illustrator tutorials on the web today.

Here’s how we like to look at them — if you’re already a seasoned Illustrator user, take each of these 10 tutorials as a challenge to reproduce them as best as possible (or to do better)! And if you’re new to the game? Go through each one step by step, and take in how to manipulate every tool, every stroke, and every feature that the incredibly powerful Illustrator has to offer you. We promise you won’t regret it!

1. Create Detailed Spa Stones and Flowers in Adobe Illustrator — This tutorial is great for covering a few basic ideas on texture and color with natural objects. If you’re looking for a few good methods on creating vector stones, flowers, and leaves, then this tutorial will serve you well!

   

2. How To Create a Colorful Vector Landscape Illustration — This is one of those great tutorials that takes something that looks more complicated than it actually is, then breaks it down into totally manageable steps. Gradients will soon become one of the design elements you find yourself putting in many of your finished products!

   

3. Experiment With Color in Adobe Illustrator to Create an Abstract Rose Illustration — Don’t let the finished product intimidate you! While this may seem like a design project that is out of reach for beginners, it’s one that you should absolutely consider undertaking. This tour in texture, color, and shape is really a rudimentary exploration of how to best use Illustrator to master your brightest and most intense design productions.
4. How To Create Geometric Stripy Line Art in Illustrator — More abstract and geometric designs will likely become a part of your design repertoire. Learning to create unique pieces that are aesthetically pleasing and which still manage to evoke an emotional response (all without text or obvious imagery) is a powerful design tool. Get your toes wet with this tutorial!
5. Tips for Guilloche Pattern Vectors in Under an Hour — A Guilloche pattern or technique is most often seen in printed currency to help make counterfeiting efforts more difficult. It can also be seen in some kinds of pottery work, like ceramic or enamel. Needless to say, it’s a highly intricate pattern that takes a little skill and a lot of attention to master — get on it!
6. How To Create Outstanding Modern Infographics — It doesn’t look like infographics are likely to go anywhere anytime soon. Companies are comfortable using them in annual reports that they send to consumers, small business owners are creating them to tell stories about their products, and designers everywhere are being faced with the challenge of coming up with unique ways of showing off those layers of information.
7. How to Create an Identity Package in Illustrator — Whether you use an identity package to hone and present your own design identity, or to help a client visualize their upcoming design elements, this is a great way to do it. Illustrator isn’t often thought of as the strongest tool for the job, but their multiple art boards make it easy to see how each piece (letterhead, magnets, business cards) fit together and mesh — or clash.
8. Learn to Create a Variety of Script Lettering — At some point, you’ll get bored with font options. You’ll want to make something new. Something different. Something that says ME! A script lettering is often the way that designers go, as it can fit fluidly into a formal or more contemporary informal design space. Get your teeth cut with this tutorial, and don’t look back.
9. Create a Variety of 3D Lettering Effects for Poster Design — Clients are going to forever be asking for ways to make their designs “pop.” A 3D lettering effect is a powerful and amazingly simple way to do just that — with the bonus of working for just about any client, and any project, and any end-game.
10. How To Create a Cubist Style Logo Design in Illustrator — This is a tutorial that you can really grow with. After mastering the few basic stylings and techniques for creating the cubist style, you can find all sort of new applications for this hot and chic texture.

Regardless of which tutorials you chose, you can rest assured that you’ll be mastering the foundations of Illustrator in no time. After a few of these great tutorial creations, you’ll be more than ready to venture into the world of freely designing your own stellar images. Happy drafting!