Here's an overview of what you'll find in the CS4 edition of the book:
FULL COLOR, THROUGHOUT
Past editions of Real World Illustrator were printed in black and white (with a small color insert), which unfortunately, didn't do justice to many of the features. So I was thrilled when I found out that my publisher approved my request to do the entire book in color this time! Screenshots look better, the instructions and details are more clearly understood, and the book looks bright, colorful, and great!
FEATURED ARTISTS FROM ISTOCKPHOTO
As they say, be careful what you wish for. Immediately after I got the approval from my publisher to do the entire book in color, I realized the ramifications of that -- I would need to create great looking art for the examples in the book! Rather than panic, I turned towards my friends over at iStockPhoto. Especially after meeting several artists during my visit to Melbourne this past summer, I was able to find some really amazing artists. All of the artwork that appears in the book is derived from a short list of iStockPhoto illustrators. I arranged it so that each chapter features the artwork from a different illustrator. I'm sure you'll enjoy their art that appears in the book, and you can also check out their artwork on iStockPhoto as well. In the order in which they appear in the book, the featured artists are: Julie Felton (jfelton), Simon Oxley (simonox), John Woodcock (johnwoodcock), Cheryl Graham (freetransform), Diane Labombarbe (diane555), Kemie Guaida Ortega (kemie), Che McPherson (chemc), Jennifer Borton (bortonia), Fanelie Rosier (absolutely_frenchy), and Sam Posnick (sposnick).
FULL COVERAGE OF CS4 FEATURES
In the book, as you would expect, I thoroughly cover the new features found in Illustrator CS4, including multiple artboards and the Blob Brush tool. Of course, I also go into my usual in-depth detail on all of the nuances of the application, and cover all of the enhancements like the Appearance panel, smart guides, Separations preview, color blindness preview, and more. I still think Real World Illustrator has more information on the Live Color feature (which was added in CS3) than any other book or training materials that I've seen to date.
COMPLETELY REVISED CONTENT AND STRUCTURE
Based on a tremendous amount of helpful feedback that I've received over the years, I have reformatted the structure of the book to better cover the features in a more conceptual way. In this new format, you can easily read the book from cover to cover, but even more so, the book serves as an incredible reference as the features are grouped together in a more intuitive fashion. I've also made significant updates and even complete rewrites of the chapters. For example, the chapter covering web graphics is almost entire new and covers the challenges of using Illustrator to create precise pixel-perfect and antialiased artwork. The featured artwork that I use throughout the book also allowed me to provide examples that are both clear and understandable.
NEW COVER ILLUSTRATION
Each edition of Real World Illustrator gets a fabulous new illustration, and CS4 is certainly no different. Von Glitschka was hired to create the cover illustration for the CS4 edition and he doesn't disappoint. Von's use of color and his style has always appealed to me, and in a blog post, Von goes into detail on what inspired him for this particular project. In fact, I enjoyed working with Von so much that I also asked him to create an identity for my upcoming relaunch of Mordy.com.