About the Author
Bethany Hiitola is a working writer. She has worked as a technical writer and multimedia developer for over 12 years. She spends the rest of her time as a wife, mother, and caretaker to pets. She has written more user manuals than she can count, essays, short stories, academic papers, press releases, and feature articles. More details about her writing and life are at her website: www.bethanyhiitola.com
Without you Matt, this book wouldn't have been possible. You are my everything.
About the Reviewers
Mark Bystry is a design engineer by trade. He is also an open source software enthusiast with a penchant for graphic art. Drawing and illustration, 3D modeling, desktop publishing, photography, and videography are just a few of his many interests. Those things also spill into his daily work duties. Mark has come to rely on Inkscape as well as several other leading open source applications to achieve a full range of graphic tasks.
Several years ago Mark teamed up with his online pal, Richard Querin, when they recognized a void within the Inkscape user community, specifically the lack of educational information dedicated to the use of Inkscape. Their vision was of a series of instructional videos geared towards beginners.
Since that time Richard and Mark have made over one hundred videos demonstrating various functions within the application. Though their video series has tapered off, mainly due to their insatiable need to explore all that the technological world has to offer, they still remain avid users of Inkscape and continue to guide novice users in the achievement of their goals.
Jose Olarte III is a graphic designer and photographer from Baguio City, Philippines. He specializes in: user interface design for web, mobile and desktop platforms; print design for magazines and other publications; logo and icon design. When he's not busy pushing pixels and stretching ems, he gets his social fix by tweeting away his thoughts: twitter.com/brownspank
I would like to thank my wife Vanessa for putting up with my extended hours and sharing my passion for work, without which I wouldn't have the strength and motivation to move forward with my creative endeavors.
Richard Querin is a practicing structural engineer with a passion for graphic design, photography, and other creative pursuits. He has contributed graphic design work to several different free and open source projects including websites, mobile and desktop applications, conference graphics, and print advertisements. He has also done numerous Inkscape video tutorials as a co-contributor to the screencasters.heathenx.org website.
I would like to thank my family for putting up with my creative antics and providing me the time and space to take on creative pursuits such as these. Thanks also go to my friend and Inkscape compatriot Mark Bystry for his help throughout the years and to Joel Goveya for his patience when it came to getting my reviews back. And finally, a special thanks to my wonderful daughter Emily for making fatherhood an absolute delight.
Sylvia Slokker is a graphics freelancer and IT professional. She started her career in web design and development in 2001, abandoning the career path of process engineer after almost 10 years.
Sylvia moved continents to chase a dream and currently works as a web developer in Australia. She has been creating vector designs since 1994, using both commercial as well as open source software. Nowadays, she uses Inkscape almost exclusively for all her vector work. Sylvia writes tutorials for the web under the nickname Syllie and runs: verysimpledesigns.com as a tutorial site for the novice Inkscape artist.
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Preface
Are you ready to jump into the world of graphic design and illustration? Or have you just begun to explore new tools that can broaden your skill set in these specialties? Inkscape Beginner's Guide is the perfect book to start this journey into the world of vector graphics. This book starts at the very basics of a complex, open source tool on the market today Inkscape 0.48 (current version as of the publication of this book). Learn everything you need to know from setting up a document file to completing your first illustration.