Create Repeating Patterns with Adobe Illustrator

1. Introduction: A Hi, I'm Kirsty from Kirsty Salt to Designs. I'm excited today to be able to teach you how to create repeating patterns within Adobe Illustrator. When I first started creating repeating patterns, I learned a few techniques which basically to me were the only solution to creating repeating patterns, but actually seemed to be quite technical and always made me second guess if I actually created the pattern correctly, which meant I was overlooking a few things and was actually just confusing me and taking a bit of the love of creating my patterns. I chose adobe illustrator as it allows me to scale up my artwork from a small motif that I can print onto a business card to something that can be printed into a large poster. It's versatility works a lot better with what my style is and my profile. I started researching a bit more and actually found another technique, which has been a lifesaver for me. Especially if it comes, I like to create a range of different styles of designs, especially for my patterns where they'll basically be either toss, horizontal, lateral. There's just a range of different ways that I like to be able to create them. I started initially using illustrators and defined pattern within the actual software. And that really did start to confuse me. I seemed to not be able to get my lines to really line up. I found I was spending so much time just trying to understand how it was actually working within my pattern that it became a bit of a unmotivated section for me when it got to that stage of creating my pattern after all my motifs were done. Today, I really want to share this technique with you. I has saved a lot of time for myself and even when it comes to checking my pattern at the end to make sure I have actually correctly got it laid out. This technique just allows me to double check and if I really feel that it needs to be redone again, it's not as difficult as it has been in the past. I'm excited to show you today and feel free to put any comments or any questions you've got below, and let's get started. 2. Class Project: For this class project, I love for you, Be to show us and share with us what pattern you create after learning this technique through this class. I believe that every pattern has a story. Every motif, the reasons why it's become the actual repeating pattern that you've created. A lot of my stories, I've started with creating a bit of a story line at the start and then start sketching my motifs, then bring it together as a pattern. So I've uploaded an actual example of what I would present for this class project. So feel free, I'd be lovely to be able to see what you've learned through this class and be able to reflect and love your work. 3. Pencil & Pen: For these modules, we're going to run through the drawing techniques. Now, there are some tools within Illustrator that allow us to create in a few different ways. These drawing tools I'm going to show within this class will be the pencil tool, the pen, the paint brush and blob brush, the shape builder tool, which I really do love, and the type tool. So I'm excited to show you this, so let's get into it. The pen tool, the paint brush and blob brush tool, the shape builder tool, which I really do love and the type tool. So I'm excited to show you this, so let's get into it. I'll do the same thing for you. I'm just going to press pencil here or shortcut in. Now, I want my stem to be a dark brown. So I've got my fill with nothing in it, and my stroke is the green. Now, I'm just going to go with just a normal stroke. Mm. I'm very penicy about my stem, so I apologies. And I'm going to call it my stem noo. Now, I want my stem to have round edges. So it looks like I've used a goal point pen or, you know, a permanent. So when I've set when I've gone to do this, my default here is set with a round caps. Some of you may find if you're new to illustrator automatically defaults to sharp square edges, which works for some people, but it's not my style, so I always keep it on und caps. That's how mine may look different to yours if you sorry, if you've just opened illustrator for the first time. Now, I'm just going to do a little bulb leaves. So what I'm going to do is this little section here. And it's just the breakout of where the flower is coming out. So I'm just going to select here the pencil tool again, and I'm just going to draw my little one. Lab. Nothing to you fancy. As see, it's got no f fill at the moment. So don't get this fill. I just want you to go up to the top right. And you can select the box here, which is the last color you currently used. Or I tend to do is I just grab or hold down the boundary box, or the outline box, the stroke, and then drop it in the fill, and it'll put it in there. Depending on what sort of look you're going through, you can use you can keep that same stroke on the outside, or what I tend to do is I remove it, which gives me just a bit more definition in my corners. How I like it, but it's completely up to you, how you create your flowers and your designs. Now, my next part is I want to basically create my bulb. So I'm just going to pick. Here we go. I'll go with that. I do want it to have a fill, but I want to have the same fill, that same peach color into the film, but I'm going to remove the boundary box because I do want it still to have a film. I'm going to press the pencil, and then the last thing I'm going to do is I want to make sure I'm drawing behind this little section. So there's a little tool here, the circle on the square, where it says draw normal or draw behind. Draw normal is it will draw on top of whatever. So if I've drawn this as I have, the next thing that I draw on top of that will go on top of. So if you want to draw behind, make sure you do click and draw behind. Big scoopi bub. That's disappeared. Where to go. Alright. There we go. So I forgot to click that such drawing that. Sorry, that's my mistake. If you ever have that situation, I do it all the time, where you draw a stroke, but it doesn't get a color, just means that you haven't properly selected the color, which I do all the time. So just make sure you click color after, there it is. And there's my bub. Oh, my little bud flow. I'm just going to add in a few little strokes just on this petal to basically show a bit of shading. Now, I'm just aiming at a stroke, not a fill like I did with this. So I'm just going to click on here, and I'm just going to change that to a deeper color. I'm going to press the pencil. Do check. That's all there. And then I'm just going to do little strokes. Now, for any time, you want to resize those. What I tend to do is just make sure I've selected only those strokes. And then what I'm going to do is come over here. And I'm just going to resize that to say 0.5. Okay. And that basically resize them down. So that's just a pencil. That is entirely created with the pencil tool. The pen tool is a great tool to use for creating a lot of different designs. It allows you to have smoother lines, control the lines and manipulate them just under better control. With this pencil tool here, creating this, it's free form. It's like sketching and doodling. With the pen tool, you can create precise curves. By using the pass and anchor points that it provides. So I'll just click up here and the pin tool is shortcut P. But I just want to show you what it allows us to do as an example. So I'm just going to click here. Now, you see this line that comes out. I've not got anything else pressed on the keyboard. It's literally that is the pin tool, and it's just showing me obviously how many points I've come away. Now, if I press down and hold down the mouse, I I stretch, this out. See how that curve keeps going and creating, I twist it around. Allows me to create a very nice smooth curve. If I'm about to create my stem now, I can literally get the most smoothest stem that I want with this tool. It's really really powerful and it's such a great tool. And for the preciseness, it is fantastic. Everyone creates different styles. So this works for some people, and it doesn't work for some. But with me, it's on whatever the day I'm feeling. So I've done that first little curve. Now I'm just going to do the same again. I'm going to press down, hold and stretch out. So I'm going to want mine to just stop there. I'm going to lift off again. And then I'm just going to have a curve round to about there. I'm just going to press my mouse down like a tap. I'm not going to hold down again. I go to tap. And that's it. I'm going to press escape because I want to disconnect from this. I don't want to click on anything else. I want this path to stop. I'm going to click escape. There we go. Now that is my stem. With this, I'm going to just pick a dark green. Here we go. And for pen, and I'm just going to do the exact same again. Now, when I go to click on this anchor, it's going to have It's going to have a little dash beside it. Now, what that's saying to me is that if I click on this anchor with the Pen tool selected, I'm going to basically rejoin editing that path, which I don't want to do, I don't want to touch or edit this. So I'm just going to start creating the path here. Now I've created this path. I want to show you how you can basically manipulate this. This is one of the great things with the pen tool that I really adore. Now, if you go to your indirect selection, your direct selection tool here, And you see you got these anchors here. If I click on one, it's got these little paths to stick out. I zoom into it. If I click on this handle, If I drag that out. Now, I always have to remind myself, especially when I first started and illustrate this path from the top handle to the bottom handle has to be in a straight line. I can drag the handling closer to the anchor, which reduces the smoothness of my stroke here. As you can see it's getting sort of a very sort of sharpish corner as I get closer. I I drag it out, it gets more curve. So And if I move that left or if I move that right, it manipulates the top curve to. You just have to remember, whatever you want to do in the bottom, if you want to make it more straighter or more of a sharper or basically reducing that curve, you can do that. That's fine. But if you're wanting to stretch the curve left, then you're going to have to come up to the top handle here, and then obviously adjust that to be smoo to compensate for the other side. Just keep that in mind when you do this. I really just want to keep that shape. I just want to give you an example of those handles. Now, I'm going to create here. I'm just going to go for a sort orangy Oh, no, sorry, I was going to go for a green. Pas my pintol. Now, I'm just going to come over here and just connected to that path. Just going to go up, and I want to have a curve here. Now, I've just tapped here. If one great thing to remember with the pen tool. If you're wanting to create your next anchor to be a curve, then press and hold, and then obviously stretch out your next section. If you're wanting it to be just a solid anchor, no adjustment handles, then tap. That's what I've done here because I want this point to be a sharp stop point. I'm going to come down here and now I want to give the bottom section a curve, so I'm going to press down and hold and pull out. Now I'm going to tap on that because I don't want to have to redo that, but then I want to extend. Honestly, with a penal, play with it because it's so it's so much fun. It is annoying when I first started to learn it, and I got very frustrated with it at the beginning. But it was just persistence. I learned and learned. And there was just a point where I went, h, I get it. That's how it works. As she can see here. I'm just creating what I need on the curves. But then I get to that point, I don't want to carry this. I don't want to have this path that's a bit crazy, so then I click here, and that stops it. Back to just a normal path. I'm just going to back up here. Give that example, the same again. I'm just going to go up here, extend that path out. Don't want to extend it out, so I'm going to go down here, and I'm just going to pull that out like that. Stop perfect. I want another one to be out here, and then back in again. Oh, I'm not going to lie. Some of my flowers do tend to look a little bit crazy, but that's okay. That's what I love about this industry because we've all different unique styles. Now I'm going to click there, but I want this one to be big and bulky. There you go. Now I want this to end, so I'm going to click Escape. So I'm disconnected. There we go. Now, I want this to have fill, so going to do the same again, grab the out of box, drop. Don't want to have that that out of line, so That's my fire. I'm just gonna rotate that slightly. Drop that down. There you go. So it's a bit different from the one I created here. This I went for more of a random curvy one. But honestly, just play with it. Now I'm going to do my flowers now. Now, same again, I want to draw behind, and let's go into nice vibrant color. I don't want that. So I'm going to draw behind here, press P for pen. I'm going to press down, and I'm just going to do the same sort of jagged leaves I had. I'm outside. I'll sort that in a second. Go. Same again, click, back out. Click. Then again, back out. Click that anchor again. I'm stopping the actual handles from being created on that tool. This probably looks like a very angry flower right now. And then out again, I want that to try and get a bit more of a raise. There we go. Click on the anchor to end path. Oh, there we go. She she is, and then back down in. And then I want that to have quite a big kick. So go Escape. I'm just going to there you go. Now, that's quite a simple design. I'm just going to move that a little bit round, and I'm just going to create that fill. So same again, just drag that into the middle. There we go. I don't want to bound for an actual stroke box. And that's that flower. So that there is how I created that flow using the p. Now, it's a lot more precise, and for me, it just takes a bit longer to create. And For me, it's not really of the free form style I go for, but I'm not going to lie. I have created some really lovely flowers using the pentol. The one thing we'll say about the pentol, it just requires a bit of practice and a bit of patience. Once you figure out how you can manipulate your pass and how you can utilize your anchors, it is a really great tool. 4. Drawing Tools Cont: The next great tool I'm going to teach to you is the paint brush tool. Now, the paint brush tool is very similar to the pencil tool. The only real difference is that with the paint brush tool, you're able to use different brushes when you create a stroke, which is fantastic if you're wanting to create a path that's got especially if you're more creating your own calligraphy. And wanting a certain brush type texture throughout your actual design. So that's one of the great things about it. So let's get started. Now, the shortcut for the paint brush is B, B for brush, but I'm just going to show you where it is because I've been used in the pencil, it's currently just under that section. But normally when I open illustrator straight up, it's the first thing that really pops out, so it's paint brush. More of a Sady green. There we go. Now, the one thing I do love about the paint brush tool is it is free form like the pencil tool. But it's like Illustrator smooths out my line for me. When I do create anything that is a floral design, I tend to go more for the paint brush tool than I do the pencil tool. I'm just going to show you here. I'm just going to do a little line here. Now as you can see it's quite jagged. I've still got my mouse held down. Going to release now. You can see there, all those jaggy lines smooth out. Illustrator just in a way irons it out. So that's one of the reasons I really do love the paint brush tool. So as you can see there, I'm just going to go into the selection tool there. And yeah, it's just lovely and smooth. And if I redo that, I back up again, press B for brush, and if I just do that again, same again, just sort of smooth it out. So Yeah, I don't know why, but it is just something I have noticed on my many times using both pencil or using the paint brush tool. For some reason, the paint brush just gives it a little bit more of a smoother edge. So tends to be a bit of a go to for me. So there I have, I've got my stem. Now I want to create my little leaves. I'm just going to create these. I'm kind of going for a little bit more of a I'm sticking with the same sage green. Let's go bring that in and let it. And once again, same again, it was old jaggy, and it smoothed it out. Now, I want to do a nice fill. I'm just going to basically drag that color into the fill. I want to get rid of the outline color. I'm just going to click there and just maybe bring it down slightly. There we go. Now, for I'm going to go for it. I'm feeling more of a yellow color today. I'm just going to drop this to a yellow color. Make sure I've got my fill there. Press B for my brush. Going to make sure I'm drawing behind. Then I'm just going to do Nice, big petals. Like I said, please don't laugh at my flower and let go again. So obviously, I want to just make sure that's filled with that color. But that is basically a flower created using the paintbrush tool. Now, the next one is the blob brush tool, which is how I created this one. The blob brush tool is kind of a say option. It's not something that I regularly go for, but the one thing I do love about it is, if you're painting with a certain color, if the two paths, actually, I'll just draw it for you because it's a bit hard to explain. But if for instance, I've got this yellow, and I'm going to draw a few leaves here. So it's not going to be pretty, I promise you. So That's that draw. Now, if you see when I hover over it, you see how it's got a path on the outside. It's like its own personal shape. The great thing about the blob brush tool is it allows you to create shapes. It marriages your past together. If the color is the same, it will marriage. If the color is different, it won't marriage. So I'm going to go with the same color again. You can see this shape. I'm going to do say a circle that goes through it. I'm going to go round up. Now, when I go to select it, it's one shape. It's marriage. If I change the color, I I change the color, Click the blob brush. And then if I went over again, Obviously, that's gone behind because I'm currently drawing behind. But you see there, it's separate, and that's because the color is different. So that's the one great thing about the blob brush tool. And I'll show you when basically drawing out this flower here. I'll just delete that. So as normal, I'm just going to grab a green color from my stem, blob brush tool, and I'm just going to draw a nice stem there. Same again, I'm just going to it's ever going to be pretty in this one. There we go. And as you can see, because of the same color, it is the stem and my little leaves have all become one piece. So it's really good if if you're not too worried about working in different sections within your artwork, this is actually nifty. Nifty, I don't know if Nifty is the great word, but it's quite cool. Now, with the blob brush tool, because it creates things not as a path, but as a shape, We can use the shape builder tool, which is just over here in the left. I just looks like two circles, one on top of the other with a little arrow. If you select that, it selects our shape here. But if you see it's got a plus sign as I go across, it allows me to make this into one shape, which is really great. I really do love this, especially when I'm trying to create my own shapes. I'm just going to go through and you see how it's turning red. It's just showing me what shapes are turning and merging into the one shape. I'm going to go there, and that's one shape. Miss it a little bit there. I'm going to go through that. That's one shape. Now, I'm just going to finish this flower off, not the prettiest one I've ever created. But I'm just going to click the blob brush tool. I'm going to pick a color to put in, something a bit orangy. Then once again, I'm just going to make sure I'm drawing behind. And then I'm just going to create that one. Then I actually want to have slightly different color bulb. Let's go to get rid of that. In here, just a slight different tone. One of the main reasons I'm doing this is because I want I want my petals to be different. I don't want them to be exact so they're selecting, but I think these two are the same. That's fine. Now I'm just going to drag that down. Now what I'm going to do here is go to the shape builder tool, and then I'm just going to make them one shape. Same with this one, one shape. The nice thing that I do like about the blood brush tool, if I'm wanting to create circles, Just really quick little circles just to basically add a bit of color or texture within something. Then I can do that really easily. Just making sure I draw on top is just basically going. S S Not the most prettiest flowers, but that is how you can create different flowers within illustrator. Same technique here, blob brush was used for this, paint brush, pen, pencil. I've kind of got a funny thing going on with that one there. Get rid of that one. But that's exact same way. Each of them have all been created. So It's not too hard, but the way I've done these, when I spend a lot more time creating my flowers, They do obviously look a lot better. But if I'm looking for more of a simplistic hand drawn or hand painted look, obviously the paint brush and blob brush is amazing. But if I'm more looking for tighter detail, then pencil and the penol are fantastic. Now, as I just go through and show you a few other different methods for us to create shapes. Illustrator does have some presets for us. If we go over here on the left, got a few shortcuts here. We've got rectangle, which is M eclipse, L, line segment tool. I don't really use that a lot because for me, I tend to use the pen tool or a pencil tool. That's not really what I jump into, and I'm not going to go into it within this class. I'm just going to click rectangle. If I hold down shift on my keypad, it allows me to get an exact box. If I lift up shift, then I can create any right angle to sorry shape. As I was talking about the shape builder tool, before I forget, I'm just going to show you how it allows you to create your own shapes. There is just a simple square. Now, I'm wanting to show you how to create your own shapes. So just going to go same again, a square. But with the square, I want to actually create my own shape. I'm just going to click R for rotate, and I just want to put the square on its side. I'm just going to put it there. Now with these two, now with the shape builder tool, whatever items you want to manipulate and change, you have to make sure you've got them both selected. So that's the two. I'm going to click the Shape Builder tool. Now what I want to do is I want to just have this triangle. I don't want the top of this square, and I don't want the bottom of this square. To do that, I'm going to hold down the option key. Which puts my little arrow with a minus next to it. If I lift up the option key, I've got the plus. That is telling us that the plus. If I select the shape here, it's going to keep that shape. If I hold down the option key and has the minus, it will remove that shape, which is what I want to do. I'm just going to score through there and that shape disappears. Same with the top section and disappears. There you go. There is my triangle, and because there is a back section triangle, I have my two. So I use this a lot for any of my geometric shapes, really good quick and easy tool. Before that was actually brought into Illustrator, I went through the painstaking jumps of having to create them myself, learning how to cut and erase in a straight line. It was painstaking. Then the shape builder tool arrived, and it saved me quite a few times over, so it's a great tool, great one to keep in mind of. The next great tool the illustrator has is the type tool. So it's just here or simple shortcut t. If you hold it down, there is a few selections it does, and it's really easy to use. If I give you an example here, if I select, if I go up here and I just select the clips tool, so I want to just select a circle. Now what I'm showing you is how I created this. Now, I'm wanting the exact same thing. I just want text around a circle. What this option here, the type on a path tool allows us to do is that allows us to put text around this path. So that's what I want to do. So I'm going to select there. And automatically illustrator puts in a whole lot of texts as an example. Once that goes in, I'm just going to copy what I've written there. Happy days sketching and pulling away being creative I just love it. Ooh. And that's it. Really simple. Illustrator takes basically a lot of the stress away. And if you want to do downsize it you can. And one of the things you have to sort of watch out for is obviously, if you want it to match all the way to the end, it's just calculating how big your font is. So if I select my font there, if I increase my font size, I can get it up to the end. If it's not just the right size, you can type your font size in here to try and make it fit perfectly. There's many different ways to work it. Oh. Let me escape. So, yeah. So that's the shape builder tool and the type tool. 5. Repeat Pattern: Now, I've created these shapes just to have simple to make this class quite easy to understand and making it less detailed because sometimes So let's get into creating our first toss pattern. Now the first step that what I always do for this method is the differences between the two that I'm going to show you is one that I'm going to set out my tile. I'm going to set out my artwork space of what I'm giving myself to work on. The other method is how I basically start putting together my motifs. And as I go through, I then find the repeat within the pattern. Hard to explain, but I'm going to show you that after I've shown just using a boundary tile. I'm just going to set this up. Now, I'm just going to go over here to the rectangle tool. Now, I just want to create a square. Nothing too complicated just a square. I'm going to hold down shift and drag out the box, and I'm going to hold up there. Now, I really want to have all sides the same size. To do that, I'm going to come up to here. I'm going to put this to, I'm just going to round it off to 13130. There we go. I'm going to keep this just going to give it a slight color. Nothing too much. There we go. There we go. Now, what I also want to do is I want to make sure I can't accidentally move this box. So to do that, there's two ways. I can go to object, come down to lock, lock selection, or I can do the shortcut, which is command two. That just means I can't accidentally grab this or move it. My first step in creating this toss pattern is, I'm just going to start grabbing as that's on top. I'm just going to grab all my shapes here and right click, arrange and bring to front. Now, the two main things to be aware of is when you are designing a box like this is that if I was to grab this shape and put it right on the corner, While I'm creating my pattern, I have to remember that whatever falls off the edge here has to be repeated here because it falls off this side. What's technically happening is this is going to be mirrored and being placed on this side. I'll show you just now. So I'm going to I'm going to hold down option and just drag this so I can copy this. I want to put this shape here, and then I'm going to do the same with a few others where I'm just going to basically copy to me to rotate. Just going to place them so they fall off. But when you're doing this, just remember to look what's on the other side because you don't want or you may want, but I don't want any of my squares to touch another square. While I'm dragging these, I'm being very conscious of the fact that I don't want them to interact with another color. Say drag that and that goes about here. Now, I've done that side. Now, remembering that my shape, this square is 130 points wide and high. There's a sneaky trick to moving copying these to be on this side to be exactly 130 points, and I'm going to show you that. Selecting all the items that fall off this side, I'm going to right click, go to transform, move, and this magical box pops up. Now, what this box allows us to do is move and copy the artwork we have selected. Now, I want to move these horizontally across 130 points because that's the width of this box. I'm going to type in here 130. I don't want my artwork to go up or down vertically, so click zero. Then I'm going to click Preview, and you can see it previews for me, how it's going to look. Now, I will change the square because it's just a bit too close for me for this, but I can't do that right this second. So I'm happy with that, and I'm going to click Copy. Can you see there? Literally magically copies it across to that space there. Really nice, very simple. The one main key thing with this is you need to remember what your box size is. Click Transform move. Now this time, I want to go vertical. I don't want anything horizontally, but I'm going to want to do 100 and dam preview. Sometimes it's best just to click that on and off and it shows you there. I will move the s. But apart from that, it looks quite good. I click copy. There we go. Just going to move up to give a little bit more space. Just make sure that is all right. Now, as we've done all that and got that side done, which I'm really happy with. What I'm going to do is I'm now going to drop my pattern into my swatches panel so I can firstly check to make sure I haven't messed up this pattern. So I'm just going to go and I'm going to go command shift two, which releases this box. Now, what I want to create for me to be able to grab this pattern and drop it in my swatches. You have to remember, and I do this all the time. So when you do go ahead and do it and you wonder why it's not working, the best thing to do is just redo your boundary box. What a boundary box is is basically a duplicate of this box, which sits exactly behind it, so it's literally a brother that sits behind, and it has no fill and it has no outline. I literally is transparent but sits behind. But it allows illustrator to sit and they grab whatever is inside that box and drag it into our swatches panel. The best way to copy this and place something directly behind is to go command C, and then go command B. Now, what that does is places this exact box but behind. Now, if you look over here, I've got that boundary box selected, but it's put a fill in. So I have to make sure that doesn't have a fill. And it's just transparent on both of those. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to select this whole section. This whole pattern. I'm going to select it, and I'm going to drag it across over to my swatches. Say it's got a plus sign. That's a good sign. That means it's allowing us to do that. I'm going to let go of it, and there is my pattern there. Now, to check to see if the pattern is correct, correct, sorry, or if there's any errors. I'm going to select M or rectangle over here, and I'm just going to do a big box. Go to let that go, and I'm going to select my pattern, and they have it. That is this pattern here repeated. Really nice and simple way to create pattern. That is how to create a toss pattern using tile. Now, if you ever do find for one reason or another, in this design, it's quite easy to spot, but if you do happen to have say one of these boxes is cut off, it probably means that one of these shapes hasn't been duplicated across. I'll just show you that as an example. I'm just going to grab this box here. And I'm going to delete that box. Let's see what happens when I drag that. I'm going to grab my pattern, drag it in and let go. Now I'm going to come into the same box, and I'm going to click the new pattern pin in. Now see what's happened there. This box is narrower. You can see the repeat there. And that is because this hasn't been duplicated. So if I go here, and to be honest, I'm going to show you what happens when I refine this issue in one of my patterns, I if I ever see something missing? Just to be sure I haven't missed anything else is I select everything that falls off on that one side and I delete it. And then I come back on this other side. I'm just going to make sure I haven't got anything else clicked, and I do the whole thing again. It only takes 2 seconds, but it can save you a whole lot of pain trying to figure out, especially if you've just fixed one problem, and then you see there's another one you have to basically redo it again. It's quite frustrating. So what I'm going to do here. Now, just remember, It's the same process, but when we're moving objects from left to right. That is obviously going positive. That's going from say zero to 130. Because we are now going from right to left, it's going negative. For going left, we need to do -100. I don't want to go vertical. I want to keep that preview. Happy with that copy. So do the same again, grab it, pull over. Click this, put the new pattern in, and dip, that's that solved. Another way to create a pattern is, and this one can take a bit more time. If I'm wanting to create a very simple repeat, then this is another method. Very simple motifs, where it is literally one motif, and all I'm doing is repeating it. This method has always been the quickest for me. The one thing about this way is that you have to pretty much create your repeat pattern. And then in a way hunt to find the repeat, which in some ways is really fun and I actually quite enjoy it, but some people find it really frustrating. That's why people go with the tile method. But it's each to their own, it's just what works best for you. I'm just going to line these all up. Now, what I'm doing here is they're just going to be line stars. Nothing too fancy, nothing All I want to do is just line them up. Now, the one thing with this pattern is that when you're creating it, you've got to pretty much create a repeat pattern, not within any box, as you can see, I haven't used it. I'm not even taking into account this artboard. But in my head, I'm trying to create a design which repeats and looks very similar. Some people love this method. But this actually works really well if you're creating a piece which is very similar. One of my designs, Swedes honey was created this way, and it's just it's an easy way. H Right. So I've just created this simple pattern. Very easy. That. Now, what I want to do is, I want to find my repeat. So to do that, I need to pretty much create my pattern. And by doing that, I'm literally going to duplicate it. I just want to pre what I've already got. M. So there's the pattern there, quite happy with that. Now, I want to find the repeat. That is what the aim here is. So to do that. I'm going to make sure I've got no fil, no fill. I'm going to give myself just a background. I'm going to go to the rectangle. Now, what I'm doing is, I'm going to select the top of this star. And what I'm trying to do is find its sister, basically. I want to find the start of that and down to the next one. Now, You've got to remember that I want to find the top of that, top of that, but then I've got to find the other top. I. I'm going to go top of there and I go down to there found. Yeah, that's good. Where's the other one? Is there another one? Is there another one? I just don't think they're aligned correctly. So I'm going to let that go. And right now, that is my repeat pattern. If this was very similar to this one, this box is mimicking this design. The only thing that I really need to focus on now is I need to make sure my stars aligned, so they don't look like they're crooked. So to do that, I'm going to Oh, apologies there. Just going to go along here and just make sure nothing's grabbed. So I'm going to change this. I'm just going to put this into like a pale pink fill. That's my border. All right. I'm going to make sure that that background goes to the back, so go down to a range, send to back. There we go. Now, I'm just going to remove anything that I don't need, which is all this. Oops. Which is pretty much or that's grouped. Something's grouped. Where are you? I live again. Now, I'm just going to remove what I don't need. Now. With this design, I obviously want to make sure that that is exact. Now, yes, I have found the duplication here, obviously not perfect. But I want to make sure I remember the numbers. To make your life easier and every time this is what I do, I'm going to put that to 28, and I'm going to do that to one, two, three. It's a very small move, but it just works. 208 and 1123. I'm going to remove all the items on the right, and the same on the bottom. Then what I'm going to do is I'm going to select the ones on the right. And that's groups. Where have you come from? I'm going to just remind you just as a safety. I do forget, and it's just and I apologize. I've forgotten this time, but make sure you do lock that down. Just to save yourself any grief by accidentally creating your pattern, but then slightly moving your background, it will throw off your whole design and sometimes it's the last thing you think of. I'm going to go down to transfer. Move. I'm going to moving these 208 by zero. I want to see the preview, which is there. Yeah, pretty happy, click Copy. Now I'm going to do the same again. I is going to grab everything that's close to that top line just to be sure that tip doesn't rotate over. Move. I don't want to go horizontal, but I want to go vertical. There's the preview. Click copy. There we go. Now, I'm going to unlock this back box and do command option two to unlock it. I want to create my bounding box, which is going to sit behind, which is going to be command C for copy, command B for back. Then I want to make sure because I've just copied and pasted something, is what is the last thing that you've been left selected, which is behind this pink box. It's telling me that that actual object has got a pink fill. I'm going to make sure my bounding box has no fill, no lines whatsoever. I'm going to click that. There we go. Now I'm going to do what I did with the other one. I'm going to grab this and I'm going to put it in there. Now I'm going to check. I'm going to go check and make sure. This can also be the very exciting part I find. This checking to see if your design is correct. And there we go. Oh. Don't want you. That is my repeating pattern. So as normal, I tend just to run around it and just make sure I haven't messed anything up. But looking at that, I'm pretty happy with it. 6. BONUS: For this module, I'm going to introduce to you just little techniques to find out if you've got an issue within your actual design if you do how to check to resolve the issue and a few other little points that you may find within Illustrator and may concern you, but actually aren't really to worry about. Now, I've created this pattern here. And as you can see here, there's a few things aren't correct. Now, obviously, all the shapes that I'm working with were squares, but for some reason, I have some little errors happening here where I have some of my squares being cut off. Obviously isn't great. It's not what I'm really after and looking through the actual design and is popping up quite a few places so going to run through how to resolve this problem. Now, a lot of the time, especially if you're working with quite a detailed pattern. The best thing is is to remove pretty much two sides of your pattern. We're just going to do this just to show you exactly what I'm meaning. I'm going to remove this one side. Now you probably have already spotted my error, but I'm just going to show you here and this is what I do to resolve any of these cut off issues. I remove two sides, and then from the start of it, if I check, My artboard is 500 by 500. I'm just going to basically do the steps that I shown in the previous module. I'm going down, so I want that to be zero and that to be 500. Preview that. On tick for some reason. There we go. Copy. Then same again here, I'm going to do the horizontal. I'm going to move horizontal 500, zero. I want to preview that. Please thank you. Copy. Right. Now I'm going to do the same thing again that I did to actually create this one. So I'm going to grab my pattern, drag it in, come over, click, and then I'm going to press on the new swatch, and there we go. So my issue was that I had missed one of my squares when I was cutting and moving. And I actually can see if I just shuffle my pattern, just to the left, I can just check it all over. Another thing you can do, which I do quite a lot is just to mainly just scale back my actual patent, and then just obviously have a good look at it. Make sure I'm happy with it. Make sure there's nothing coming up. Yeah. No, I'm pretty happy with that. And that is a complete repeating pattern. Nice and simple, but this is basically to really give you an idea of how you can find certain issues within your design. So to run through that technique again, and resolving any issue that you may have with an actual object being cut off or a motif. I've got this pattern here, which is a lot more complicated than the previous one. So I'm just going to drag that over here. And then I'm just going to do the same thing again. I'm just going to pull out and then have a look to see if anything is obviously in error. I've seen one here. Cut off there on him. And then here as well, seem to have cut off there. Sometimes it is just a bit of hunting. Same again here, missing one. Yeah, it's one of these things that the more detailed your artwork is, the more you've got to spend that extra bit of time just checking over your design and seeing if there is something that just has been cut off. It can be quite tedious at times, and there's nothing more frustrating when you're checking out your pattern and excited to see how it's going to look and then you notice there's something missing from it. So, don't worry you're not the only one that happens to. It happens to me, and it's just one of those things that the quicker you get at resolving these issues. Then the quicker you end up coming up with your final design. If we end up going back to how we resolve this, I'm just going to click on my square here. I'm just going to quickly note down while I'm here, which is a good technique to do, especially if you're dealing with a lot of patterns in one day. I always tend to just note down the actual size of my artboard that I'm working with. Then what I'm going to do is I'm just going to once again just cut away. Anything that just so I don't need these because they don't fall off the artboard. That falls off the artboard, they do two. So I'm going to remove them. The same down the side two, I'm just going to grab them and then remove them, make sure I'm not moving anything I'm not supposed to be. Move that. Now, I'm just going to check here, make sure he's on the board. O's just ever so close. I'm just going to check myself. Just to be safe. I am going to remove him. There we go. Now, as I go down here, just going to go down right close. And then that's all of them. Now, I'm just going to come up and then go right click, move. And this is the long axis. I'm going horizontal, so this will be two, two, three, three, and then zero. Now that's my proof, pretty happy with that copy. Then same again top to bottom. Bring it down, stop. And just make sure I'm grabbing anything I'm not supposed to be. And then right click, move. And then I'm not going horizontal going vertical, 17, zero, zero. Preview, check that's all. Yep, seem pretty happy with that goes there that goes there, Cuppy. I mean, yeah, that's pretty much what you're looking for. So as you can see there, what I've done is I have moved So I've got this really detailed pattern, and I'm going to run through the same technique that we have just run through just to go through the process again. So I'm going to grab this. I'm going to drag it over here, create this pattern. No. I'm going to check and see if it's okay. Now, straightaway, I can see is not good here with this flow. It's cut off there. Just checking myself. Yes. And here as well. I seem to be missing something here. The main thing that I tend to do is it's a bit like a map. So I try and figure out where it's cut off now. I would guess I can't see him down there. So that's that one. And there's obviously something missing here. And I would guess. That's him there. He's not got a friend on the other side. So we're going to fix that right now. So obviously, I've moved and done something there along the way. Now, obviously, I'm going to be moving. I can see that's missing from there and that's missing from there. So what I'm going to do to see if I am indeed correct, and I haven't messed this up. So I'm going to move the motifs on that side and make sure there ones that actually are on the board. There's nothing there. That's fine. Yeah. And go remove them, remove. And then checking all this, go do the same here. Remove. And you two, just to be sure that I've actually got everything. Yeah, we're all still there. Same again that we've done before, but I'm just basically going to grab the motifs that are falling off the side. Transform, move. Now I'm going vertical, which is not horizontal, obviously, jumping down there copying. Yeah, pretty happy with that. Just have to be very wary that when you do do this, you are minusing. You're actually going back along the ruler I call it in my head. What I'm going to do is go right click, transform, move, and it was going to be minus two, two, 33, vertical zero. I'm going to check the preview. Yeah, pretty happy with that copy. I'm going to check my pattern again. I'm going to grab that and throw it in there. Now, I got to look at this. Click on my box. Click on the pattern. And I love when I see that happen. So you can see here the flower that was half missing has been resolved, and the little bit that was sitting with no friend at all. Has been refilled. So that is super exciting. That is how to resolve a pattern that you have an element that is cut off. Sometimes it can be quite time consuming, especially if your pattern has multiple layers, but it's worth it. It's the quickest way to really do it without really giving yourself a bit of a head spin. So that is my bonus. Fix a per. Now, another thing I will sort of bring out on, and I'm going to check to see if I've got it going on. But during my time working within the Illustrator, there has been times. I know Illustrator has done quite a few updates since I first saw it pop up, but I did have a few comments of people asking, how do you resolve with the Illustrator cause sometimes with the illustrator, you get a very thin and very faint, I might add white line. It's like you can see your tile box. You can literally pick this shape out of your pattern. Now, what I tend to do is I tend to export my pattern and into a JPEG and actually view it outside illustrator. When I do this, I never see the thin white line. So my only input really there is if it's not there when you export it into PNG or JPEG, then it's not there. It's not real. It's just something that Illustrator has spat out. And I have tried a few times to see if it was an error on my side. And then after a bit of research and communication with Adobe, the actual came back and said it's not there. And for my own peace of mind, especially when you're trying to send your artwork to printers, the last thing you obviously want is for that thin white line to be visible on your artwork. So when you ever have an issue, or you can spot it. I have to see in this latest update with Adobe Illustrator. I have not seen this white line. So just check your up to date, and if you do see a white line and you've gone through the steps as we've run through, and you're still seeing a faint white line, send me a little comment. I'd love to be able to see what the issues that you're coming against and I'd love to be able to help. So that is my bonus for this class. I really hope you've enjoyed it. It's been great to be able to teach you the technique that I use to create patterns, and I'm hoping to be able to bring a new class soon to you shortly. Have a great week, and I can't wait to see your class projects. And if you've got any feedback or would like to learn another technique in a different software, just drop me a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks. 7. Thank you: Thank you for completing my class. I hope this experience has actually been a rewarding one, and you've been able to pick up a new technique creating your repeating patterns. Please follow and like the class and share with any family or friends that are also looking to get into this industry. I'll be looking to upload some new classes. So if you click, follow or subscribe, you'll be able to get notifications on my new class coming out. Stay A and keep well and keep smiling.