The Safari browser from Apple has a great little icon that works well in small formats while also displaying quite a lot of intricate details when viewed in large format. Navigate through this Adobe Illustrator tutorial to draw up your own vector Safari inspired compass in Adobe Illustrator.
I recently decided that I wanted to add a little coolness to the RSS icon on Blog.SpoonGraphics by displaying the current subscriber count. Having seen plenty of javascript tooltip examples across the web I decided this would be the best solution, displaying the relevant information when the user hovers over the icon area. Using a combination of an extremely simple jQuery script and a PHP snippet follow this walkthrough on how to show your RSS count in a cool tooltip of your own.
Starting with the design application of Adobe Illustrator create a group of vector based geometric lines at dynamic 45 degree angles, then follow the walkthrough to rough them up with brush textures in Adobe Photoshop resulting in a cool and trendy design style.
Follow this Adobe Illustrator walkthrough to create a vector based reproduction of the popular Apple iMac computer. Using simple shapes and tools that can then be put into practice to create further icon style images.
Usually putting together a layout for a printed document would be completed in a desktop publishing package such as Adobe InDesign, however for some smaller projects like a single page article it is sometimes quicker to produce it right inside Illustrator to save switching back and forwards between applications. Using the Text Wrap feature within Adobe Illustrator you can quickly and easily format your text to harmonise with your photographs and images.
Adobe Illustrator has some nifty built in features when it comes to working in three dimensions. This example gives a quick walkthrough on using such features to create a 3D rotatable globe, allowing the earth to be revolved in order to show the desired countries and continents.