10 Illustrator Pen tool and Path Tips in 10 Minutes - A Graphic Design for Lunch™ Class

1. Graphic Design for Lunch 10 in 10 tips Intro: Hello. I'm Helen Bradley. Welcome to this graphic design for lunch class. Today we're looking at 10 pen and path tips for Adobe Illustrator. While most of these tips are targeted towards beginning Illustrator users, there are some that even seasoned Illustrator users may not know. In addition to learning tips for drawing paths with the pen tool and editing those paths, you will also learn a pen tool tip for building a rotation point into a shape. While you may know that once direction handles are split apart they cannot be stuck back together, I'll show you a technique for adjusting them together as if they were locked. As you're watching these videos, you will see a prompt which lets you recommend this class to others. Please, if you're enjoying the class, do two things for me. Firstly, give it a thumbs up and secondly, write in just a few words why you're enjoying the class. These recommendations help other students to say that this is a class that they too might enjoy. If you'd like to leave a comment or a question, please do so. I read and respond to all of your comments and questions and I look at and respond to all of your class projects. If you're ready now, let's get started with 10 pen tool and path tips in 10 minutes or less. 2. 10 Pen and Path tips: Before we start with our ten tips, there are a couple of things that I'm assuming that you are familiar with doing. I'm assuming that you're familiar with drawing straight-line paths by just selecting the pen tool and clicking. I'm also assuming that you know that if you hold the Shift key as you click to draw your path, you will constrain it to either a horizontal line, a vertical line, or a line that has an angle of 45 degrees or a multiple of 45 degrees. I'm also assuming that you've drawn some Bezier curves by clicking and dragging and as you drag, creating the direction handles for your curve line. If you're using an earlier version of Illustrator, you may find that you don't have this rubber band effect where you can see where the line is going, that was introduced in some later versions of Illustrator. Just be aware if you're using an earlier version, even though mine is showing a rubber band, yours may not show that same feature. Unlocking direction handles and a timely warning about the Alt or Option key. I have a path here that is drawn using Bezier curves. If I want to adjust the path, I can select over the anchor points on the path using the direct selection tool. If I now drag on the handles, you'll see that the two handles are joined together so as I rotate one of them, the other one rotates as well. Well, you can change this behavior by holding the Alt or Option key as you drag on one of these handles and this splits the two handles. Now they're going to operate independently of each other and they're going to do that permanently. You can't stick them back together again. There is a word of warning, however, about using the Alt or Option key. Because if I select this anchor point and mistakenly use the Alt or Option key on that anchor point, you can see that what I've done is duplicate the path. It's also possible to mistakenly duplicate just part of a path that same way. Just be really careful when you select either these anchor points and use the Alt or Option key that you're not doing something that you didn't intend to do. Change direction handles as you draw a path and a tip for understanding direction handles. Have a path I've drawn here and we're going to duplicate that now. With the pen tool, I'm going to drag upwards to start my path because I want to head in this direction. I'm going to click and drag downwards. This handle here shows where I've come from. This one is pointing where I'm going to and it's not where I want to go to. I'll hold the Alt or Option key and swing the handle around in the direction that I want to head off in. I'll click and drag downwards. This handle is pointing in the wrong direction for where I want to go. I'll hold Alt or Option, swing it around to the direction I want to head off in, and continue on with my path. When you're drawing a path which involves a change of direction, remember that the Alt or Option key will allow you to change direction as you're drawing the path. Working with a new curvature tool in Illustrator CC, the new curvature tool in Illustrator CC allows you to draw curved shapes by just clicking. You'll just click and Illustrator will create the Bezier curves for you. You can do this with a line of curves or a curved-filled shape. As you're drawing your curves if you want to swing from drawing curved lines to a straight line, double-click to start the straight line segment, and then double-click for each of your straight line segments. When you want to go back to drawing curves, just start single-clicking again. Reshaping a path by dragging on a line. I've created these lines using the pen tool and I'm selecting the direct selection tool. Now you already know probably that you can click and drag on an anchor point to reshape the line, but you can also click and drag on the lines to move them. I'm just moving these lines around by just clicking and dragging on them. This same feature works on lines created using Bezier curves. I've just clicked and dragged on this line segment and I can take it in any direction. The perils or otherwise of using Delete to delete an anchor point. I have my two lines here and I have my direct selection tool selected. I'm clicking on this anchor point. When I press the delete key, you can see that removing that anchor point splits my line in two. I'm going to undo that. If I want to remove this anchor point keeping my line intact, I'll need to go to the delete anchor point tool. When I click it to delete the anchor point with that tool, the line maintains its consistency just minus one anchor point. Now the curvature tool that's new in recent versions of Illustrator has a different behavior entirely. I'm going to select on this line here with a curvature tool and I'm going to click once on this point so it's now a filled circle indicating that this is the targeted point. Now when I press the Delete key, something very different happens. When you press "Delete" with the curvature tool selected, the line remains intact. Shortcut keys to know even when you hate learning shortcuts. These pen tool shortcut keys are worth knowing. Press the letter P to target the pen tool. When you finish drawing your line, you can press the letter P to finish drawing the line. To switch to the delete anchor point tool, press the Minus key. To switch to the add anchor point tool press the Plus key. When you want to change an anchor point, select the anchor point and hold the Shift key and press the letter C. I like to think of that as the change anchor point tool, hence the letter C. Click on the point and you'll turn a curved point into a straight line point. Here I'll click and drag to change a corner anchor into a curve anchor. Moving two unlock direction handles as if they were locked. I have a shape that I've created here. When I drag over this point, you can see it has two direction handles on it and they have been unlocked. They're going to travel independently of each other. If I want them to travel together, I can make them do that. I'm going to select the anchor point using the direct selection tool. Then I'm going to the scale tool. When I do, you'll see that the cursor changes to a cross hair. Now when I drag on the handle, I don't actually see the handles, but they're both being altered and they're both being altered together. I can just click and drag and take them wherever I want, but the two handles are behaving as if they were locked together. A one-click pen tool solution for more powerful rotations. I've taken the start and rotated it using the transform tool. What I did was rotate it around this middle bottom point and this is what I got. You're stuck with using for this transform effect one of these anchor points as your rotation point. But things can be different if you use the pen tool. I'm going to click on the pen tool and click just to create a single point below this shape. I'm going to select my star and the point and center them and then group them. Now let's go and do that same transform effect. The effect this time looks very very different. By creating a single anchor point, grouping it with a shape, you can get more flexible rotation options. How to start a new path on top of an existing anchor point without joining the two lines together. I have a line here I've already created and I want to draw a diamond shape here. I want it to intersect with this anchor point, but I don't want it to be joined to that path. However, as soon as I hover over this anchor point and start drawing, Illustrator joins the two paths together. It's not what I want to happen. It's really quite difficult to stop this behavior in Illustrator unless you lock the path. As soon as you lock the path, you can still locate the anchor point to add your shape at that point. But because you locked this path down, this new shape is a separate path. It's not joined to the other one. They have anchor points that share the same position, but they're not joined together. A one-click solution to turning a curved line into a straight line and vice versa as you're drawing it. I'm drawing a path that has a series of Bezier curves. I want to start doing a straight line, but I already have a direction handle that is creating a curve. If I go back and click on this anchor point once, I'm going to change the behavior of that line so it's now a straight line segment. Likewise, when I want to go back to drawing a curve, I don't have any Bezier curve handles. I'm going to click on this anchor point and drag out. What I'm dragging out at this stage is just the direction handles, so I'm telling Illustrator I want to head back in this direction with my curve line. I'll let go the mouse pointer and here's my curve. Click once to change direction to a straight line. When you want to go in a curve, click and drag to create the direction for your curve, and then start creating your curve. Today's bonus tip is path tool space bar tricks. I'm going to the pen tool, I'm going to start drawing a path. As I get down here with this particular anchor point, I've noticed that this anchor point is not in the right place. If I hold the space bar, I can move the anchor point around. Instead of the mouse pointer changing the direction handles, it's actually moving the anchor point. When I let go the space bar, I can continue to draw that point. Now that's one way that you can use the space bar as you're drawing a line. But down here, I haven't actually got a point select. I'm not drawing a point, but I'm just realizing that I'm running out of artboard. I'm going to hold the space bar at this point and what I get is a hand, so that allows me to move the artboard away. Now I'm going to click and drag to create a point. If it's not in the right place, the space bar will let me move it. You can use the space bar in a couple of ways as you're drawing your paths. Your project for this class is very simple. Just go to the class project area and tell me which of these tips you found most useful. Now as you were watching these videos, you will have seen a prompt which let you recommend this class to others. Please, if you enjoyed the class, do two things. Firstly, give it a thumbs up, and secondly, write in just a few words why you enjoyed the class. These recommendations help other students to say that this is a class that they too might enjoy. If you'd like to leave me a comment or a question, please do so. I read and respond to all of your comments and questions. I look out and respond to all of your class projects. My name's Helen Bradley. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of graphic design for lunch and I look forward to seeing you in an upcoming episode soon.