4 Exotic Patterns in Adobe Illustrator - A Graphic Design for Lunch™ Class

1. Create Exotic Patterns in Adobe Illustrator Intro: Hello, I'm Helen Bradley. Welcome to this episode of Illustrator for Lunch, Create Exotic Patterns. This is a companion class to my class on creating these patterns in Photoshop, but I've added an additional Illustrator pattern here for you. The patterns that we're going to create are the quatrefoil, the barbed quatrefoil, and a Moroccan trellis pattern. Then we're going to finish off with an interesting diamond pattern, which we're actually going to build as squares instead of diamonds. Now as you're working through these classes, you might see a prompt which lets you recommend this class to others. Please, if you're enjoying the class, give it a thumbs up. These recommendations help me get my classes in front of more people who just like you want to learn more about Illustrator. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do so. I read and respond to all of your comments and I look at and respond to all of your class projects. If you're ready now let's get started on creating exotic patterns in Illustrator. 2. 4 exotic patterns - Part 1: The first pattern we're going to make is the quatrefoil pattern. I'm going to start a new document and I'm just going to make it 500 pixels by 500 pixels, so it's square. I'm working in a RGB color mode. I'll click "Okay." Now, for this we need a couple of circles. I'm going to select the Ellipse Tool. I'm going to click and drag out a circle, which is just over half the width of this entire document. I'm just eyeballing, there's no need at this stage to be really detailed. I'm going to increase the strokes. I want it to have quite a dark stroke around it. Now I'm going to add a second one of these and it needs to be identical. I'm going to hold the Alt or Option key, as I drag a duplicate away. I'm going to slightly overlap these. Now they need to be aligned perfectly, so I'm going to select either both of them, and then I'm going to my alignment tools and they're here. If you don't see them, you can choose Window and then Align. Now what's really critical for this particular project is that we have the Align To option here, set to selection. If you're not seeing these options in the bottom of your Align panel, you'll need to go here and click "Show Options." I've got hide options here because mine are already showing. But if it says Show Options, just click on it and then you'll get these extra options here. The critical one here is to open this up and say Align to selection. That just means that these two objects are going to be aligned to each other rather than to the art board. We just want to center them, so we're going to vertically align the centers. Next, I want an exact duplicate of both of these shapes, so I'm selecting either both of them. I'm choosing Edit, Copy and then Edit, Paste in Place. While the copy is still selected, I'm going to hold the Shift key as I just rotate this around so that they're centered over the originals. These are the shapes that I need from my quatrefoil pattern. I'm going to select either all of them and I need to unite them. I'm going to the Pathfinder. Of course you can get to this by choosing Window, and then Pathfinder. We want the Unite option here. That just creates our quatrefoil pattern. Now, if you don't want this to have a fill, you can disable the fill at this stage. That will allow you to put it on a background later on. If you want it to have a fill, then you can add your fill. Of course you could change your color at this stage. Now, I'm going to make this patterns the way that patterns always used to be created in Illustrator before the pattern make tool came out. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that a lot of my users use pre-CS6 versions of Illustrator. The other thing is that you don't really need to use the pattern make tool for this anyway. But what you will need to do is to enlarge this shape a little bit so that it touches and in actual fact goes a little beyond the edges of the art board. I'm going to select the shape. I'm going to drag from the corner here holding the Shift key so it's dragged in proportion. I think I still need to enlarge it just a little bit more. Now I want to go back to my Align Tools, but this time I want to align it to the art boards. So I'm going to select Align to Artboard. I'm going to click here on Horizontal Align Center, and then again on Vertical Align Center. What I've got now is a shape that's just over the edges of the art board. This is perfect because the art board itself is going to become our pattern swatch. So when these two pieces are put together in a pattern, there's going to be a bit of overlap. They're not going to just touch, they're going to overlap. It's going to give us a better looking pattern. Now we need to create a rectangular size of the art board. I'm going to get the Rectangle Tool. I'm just going to click once, because the art board that I created to begin with was 500 pixels by 500 pixels. So I'm going to make a rectangle that's exactly that size. I'm going to turn off the Stroke and the Fill. With it still selected, I need to align it to the art board. So I'm going back to my Align Tools and I already have Align to Artboard selected, so I just need to click on Horizontal Align Center, Vertical Align Center. Now I'm going to open up the Layers panel. I'm going to move my rectangle underneath my path. It's critical that this no fill, no stroke rectangle is underneath the path. I'm going to click to select both the path and the rectangle. I'll open up the Swatches palette, and I'm going to drag and drop it just up into here. I'm going to get the Selection Tool. I've got my shaped selected, so I'm just going to drag and drop them right up in the very top row of my Swatches panel and let go. I should see a pattern swatch appear there. Now I want to re-use this in a minute to create a second pattern. I'm going to create a second art board to just test this pattern. I'm going to click on the Artboard Tool and I'm just going to click and drag another art board here. I'm going to add a rectangle to it, it doesn't really matter how big it is. I'm going to it's fill and I'm going to fill it with my pattern. Then I'll choose Object, Transform, Scale. I don't want to transform my objects, so I'm going to deselect this checkbox, but I'm going to make sure that Transform Patterns is selected. I have Preview on and now I'm just going to decrease the size of my pattern, say to 30 and click "Okay." You can see that we now have this quatrefoil pattern created in Illustrator. If we were to put a colored rectangle behind it, then we would see through it. I'm just going to add another rectangle. This one's a little bit larger. I'm going to fill it with a color. Then from the Pass palette, I'm just going to pull it behind everything. You can see that the entire pattern is transparent where it's not black, so you can see through it. Let's go back to our first art board. I'm just going to click on it and then press Control or "Command Zero." I'm going to add a square to it. So I'm going to the Rectangle Tool. I'm just going to drag out a square holding the Shift key as I drag out my rectangle. Now, I want it to have the same fill and stroke as this one underneath. So I'm going to select the Eyedropper Tool here, and then just click on the shape underneath. That will give this shape the exact same qualities as the one underneath. Just saves me having to set that up myself. Now I am going to the direct Selection Tool here, making sure I have this shape selected, and let's make sure it's aligned to the art board. I want to make sure that this says Align to Artboard, and now I'm going to center it on the art board, just so it's in the right position. Let's open the Layers palette. I'm going to select the rectangular path and the quatrefoil shape underneath. I want both of these selected. Now, I'm going to unite them. Again, back to the Pathfinder and click "Unite." This is my barbed quatrefoil pattern. Now, we know it's in the right position because we didn't ever move the quatrefoil underneath and we just aligned the square on top. So we don't have to do anything else right now, we just need to go to our Layers palette. We need to put the no fill, no stroke rectangles that we created immediately underneath our path. Select both of those, open up the Swatches panel, and then just go and drag and drop this into the panel up here at the very, very top. There is now, our barbed quatrefoil pattern. Let's go back to this art board. I'm just going to click on something on it and press "Control or Command zero." Now, I am going to the topmost shape that has my quatrefoil pattern in it, making sure that the fill is at the top here and active, and I'm going to click here once on my barbed quatrefoil. The pattern is now added at the size that we asked for, for the original pattern. We could scale that again if we wanted to, Object, Transform, Scale. I don't want to transform my object. I do want to transform the size of my barbed quatrefoil. I'm just going to take it up a little bit and click "Okay." There is the second of the patterns that we'll be creating. Next up, we're going to create the Moroccan trellis pattern. 3. 4 exotic patterns - Part 2: The next pattern we're going to create is the Moroccan trellis pattern. So I'm going to create a new document, this time it's going to be 500 pixels wide by 400 high. I'll click "Okay". I'm going to add a circle, so I'll click on the Ellipse tool, click once on the document. The circle is going to be 200 by 200 pixels, so I'll just click on that. I'm going to make this a no fill but a single stroke circle. I'm going to drag it into position, and I want it to align to the art board. So going to the align options here, and just make sure that I have aligned to the art board selected. Now I'm going to center it on the art board, so click here once and then I want to align it to the very top of the art board, so I'll click there. I need to remove part of these shapes so I'm going to the direct selection tool. I'm going to drag over the bottom half of this circle and press delete. I need a duplicate of this shape, so I am going to alt, click, and drag on this to drag a duplicate away. I'm going to select this and rotate it holding the shift key down to rotate it a 180 degrees. Then select and remove half of the half circle so we get a quarter circle, got a bit of a thing left there, so I'm just going to delete that as well. Now I need a line and it needs to be 50 pixels long, so I'm just going to get the line tool, click once. I'm typing 50 pixels and 180 degrees and I'll click "Okay". I need a duplicate of that as well, so I'm just going to alt drag a duplicate away. I'm going to move this roughly into the position that they're going to go into, and with this shape, I need two of them, so I'm going to alt drag a duplicate away. This one's going on this end, and I'm just going to rotate this one into position here. Now we need to put everything together, so I'm going to select over this shape first of all, and I just want to read off where it's positioned, and I want it to be positioned at 150 pixels in. So I'm going to type 150, and it needs to be at 100 pixels down. At the moment it says 100.5, but I want to do it at 100. Now it's not going at 100, even though I keep asking for it to be at 100. The reason is that the Align to Pixel Grid option is turned on. I'm going to go to Window and then Transform, because at the bottom of the Transform panel, you can say that Align to Pixel Grid is selected here. I'm going to select over all of these shapes and disable it for everything. Let's just go and make sure that this is centered, and it is lined perfectly which it is. Let's go and get this 150 pixels, and 100 is its y value. It's now in position. Let's go and get this one, its x value should be 400, and its y value should be 100. Let's go and get this pace. I'm going to align it enough so that its x value is 500 and its y value is 200. I'm just making sure these are all correct absolutely. Bang on the value and this one here, 100 for its x value and 200 for its y value. If you created a document the size that I created and stick with those values, you are going to find that the numbers that you're supposed to put in here are going to be just obvious. They're all either a 100, 200, 300 or 150, 250, 350, something like that. It's pretty easy to work out what they're supposed to be. I'm going to select all of these shapes, I'm going to choose Object, Path, Join and that creates a single shape from all of these shapes. I need a duplicate, so alt drag a duplicate away. I'm going to rotate it holding the Shift key as I do, so that's rotated exactly 180 degrees. Then I'm going to align it to the art board, so I'm going to click here on the center option, and I'm going to click here on the vertical aligned bottom, so that's aligned to the very bottom of the art board. I'm going to select over the entire shape and choose Object, Path, Join. I'm going to hold the Shift key as I scale it in and rotate it, again holding the Shift key. There's an off chance that these points might not be in the exact position that they should be, so if you want to make sure now rather than having to fix it up later, go through the direct selection tool, and just select over the very top of the shape, hold the Shift key, and select over the very bottom of the shapes. We've got these two points selected, and I want to make sure that these two are in the exact same vertical position, so I'm going to choose Object, Path, Average. I'm going to select vertical and I'm going to click "Okay", and this will line them up. If you choose the wrong thing, horizontal, it's just going to butcher the objects so you just press "Control Z" and start again. If you are a little bit confused, don't worry, just try one of those. But what it does is it makes sure that these two points are in exact alignment with each other by taking their position values, and just averaging them and putting them where that average value is. Nice handy way of quickly aligning things. Let's select that shape and let's add an outline stroke to it. I want to make it now the size of the art board, so I'm going to go and select it, and hold the Shift key as I just drag it, so it's just over the top edge of the art board and just over the bottom edge of it too. The shift key helps me do everything in proportion and I want it to be just over the top and bottom. I'm going to center it on the art board, so I'm going to click horizontal align center. The art board is too big and since I'm going to create my rectangle, the size of the art board, I need to bring the art board in. I'm going to click on the art board tool, hold alt or option as I drag in from the sides. Then just drags the edges in, equally from the left and the right and since this object is centered in the art board, this should put it in exactly the right position. Once you've sized your art board just click on the Selection tool. I'm going to double-check that this shape is in position, so I'm going to select it and again click on horizontal line center and vertical align center just to make sure it's perfectly centered on the art board and just extending beyond it on all sides. Now I just resized my art board so I'm not a 100 percent sure how big it is. So I'm just going to double-click on the art board tool. Well, it's 329.81 by 400, it would be easy for me if it was 330, so I'm just going to type 330 and click "Okay". I'm going to click away again. I've just adjusted the size of the art board just marginally. Well, I'm going to just go back and make sure that this shape is perfectly centered in it. So I need a rectangle the size of the art board, click on the Rectangle tool, click once on the document 330 by 400, and click "Okay". It needs to have no fill and no stroke and a it too needs to be centered on the art board. I'm going to click horizontal line center, vertical aligned center, I will go to the last palette. I'm going to open up the last pallet and I'm going to move the no fill, no stroke rectangle below my path, select both of these objects and we're going to create a pattern from that. I'm going to click Open the swatches panel. I'm going to the selection tool, drag and drop this into the very top line of my swatches panel. Let's go and create a new art board for this. I'm going to make a rectangle that is pretty much the size of this art board. I'm going to select the fill and fill it with my pattern and then size my pattern down, Object, Transform, Scale. I don't want to scale the objects so I'm going to turn that off. I do want to scale this in a uniform direction, so I want to scale this. Let's try a 100 percent and let's just see if we can get out of whatever was just happening there and now let's take it down to size 40. Maybe even a bit smaller, and I'll click "Okay". So there is our Moroccan trellis pattern. Now that we're sure that the pattern itself is working, we could go back to the original pattern pace and we could, for example, change it. So I'm going to select over, I'm to make it a different color. So I'm going to click on the "Stroke" and give it a pink edge. Well, let's give it a dark pink edge and let's fill it with a very light color. I think that's still a bit dark, so I'm going to bring down the color still. I'm just going to save that in my swatches just in case I want it again in a minute. Now that I've got a different style to pattern pace, I'm going to check in my layers palette, because I want to select my path and the no fill, no stroke rectangle underneath. I'm going to the selection tool, drag and drop this again into the top of the swatches panel. Let's go and click on this art board, Control or Command zero to make it to centered in the view that we're working in and now let's just click on the pattern that we just created, and here is our new pattern. So there's the Moroccan trellis pattern and you've got the ability to either create it as a transparent pattern, or to create it with a fill. 4. 4 exotic patterns part 3: The final pattern we're going to make is actually a diamond shape pattern. It's going to be a whole lot easier though to make it as a square and then rotate it. I'm going to show you how to do that. We're going to create a new document and this one's going to be 450 pixels wide. I'm just going to type 450 and it's going to be 450 tall. The first shape I'm going to make, is going to be a square and it's going to be the exact size of the artboard. I'm going to click on here and I'm going to type 450 and 450, and I'll click "OK". I'm going to align it to the artboard. I'm going to go and check my alignment options here to make sure I'm aligning to the artboard, which I am, I'm going to center it on the artboard. I'm going to give it a stroke and the stroke is going to be in the middle. I want to make sure here that I have Aligned Stroke to Center set on. I'm going to make my stroke 50 points. Now I'm going to turn off the fill here so it's only a stroke. The next square I'm going to create, I'm just going to click here once, is going to be 250 by 250. Again, it's going to have no fill. It needs to be centered in the art boards. I'm going to click these options here. It's already got a 50-point stroke, just exactly the same as the previous one. The last thing I'm going to create is a 100 by 100 pixels square right right the middle that is filled. Again. I'm going to the Rectangle tool. I'm just going to click once here. I'm going to make this 100 by 100. Click "OK". I'm going to center it using the same center options. But for this, I'm going to invert. I'm going to make the stroke color the fill, and it's going to have no stroke at all. I'm now going to select over all of these shapes, and I'm going to expand them. Click to select over them and choose, Object, Expand and click "OK". I'm going to check my layers palette. I want to make sure that I have as little as possible in the layers palette. Right now, I've got a whole lot of things stuck in groups so I'm going to choose Object Ungroup. I'm going to continue to do that until Ungroup is no longer an option. What I have here is the rectangle in the middle, this compound shape, and this compound shape, exactly what I need. Now, I'm going to create a rectangle that is the size of the artboard and has no fill and no stroke. I'm just going to click on the Rectangle tool and click once on the document, this is going to be 450 by 450. Click "OK". I'm going to set it to have no stroke, no fill. I want to center it on the artboard. I'm going to click Horizontal Align Center, Vertical Align Center. I'm going to move it in the last pallet so it's directly below everything and I'm going to select all four of these objects. I'm going to the selection tool. I'm going to open the swatches panel here, and I'm just going to drag and drop this into the very top of the swatches panel. Now let's go and say how we can make this square pattern something that looks a lot more like a diamond shape. Well, I'm going to the artboard, I'm going to create a new artboard. Let's just drag out a new artboard here. Control 0 to just zoom at the size of my window, I'm going to create a rectangle, pretty much the size of the artboard. I'm going to the fill, I'm going to fill it with my pattern. I'm going to choose Object, Transform, Scale because I want to make this quite a bit smaller. I don't want to transform the object. I just want to transform the pattern. Uniform 20 percent, it's looking pretty good to me. I'll click "OK". Now I'm going to rotate it. Object, Transform, Rotate. I'm going to rotate this 45 degrees. I don't want to transform the object, just the pattern, so I'll click "OK". This is the pattern we get with a square that has been rotated to make it a diamond. But we don't have to stop at this because we can also stretch the diamond. Let's see what the possibilities there. Object, Transform, Scale. Again, we're going to scale it, but we're not going to scale it in a uniform direction. We're going to non-uniform. I'm going to set the vertical to 100, but I'm going to set the horizontal to something like 60. This is giving us a long diamond shape. Using this non-uniform scale, once we've rotated our shape, we can then decide just what sort of a diamond shape we want. Do we want it to be taller than it is wide or the other way round and just how tall do we want it? I can make it even taller if I want to, and then click Okay. This shape would be really quite difficult and quite time-consuming to build as a diamond because you have to get it all lined up. For people who are using Illustrator prior to Illustrator CS6, it would just be a nightmare to create, but creating it as a square is just dead easy. The overlaps are perfect and everything's looking just wonderful. Your project for this class is going to be to make one or more of the patterns that I have created in this class and then post the results of your pattern-making in the class project area. I hope that you've enjoyed this episode of Graphic Design for Lunch and that you've enjoyed learning something about creating these geometric designs in Illustrator. As you're working through these videos, you might have seen a prompt which lets you recommend this to others. Please, if you're enjoying the class, give it a thumbs up. These recommendations help me to get my classes in front of more people who, just like you, want to learn more about Illustrator. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do so. I read and respond to all of your comments, and I look at 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. I look forward to seeing you in an upcoming episode soon.