Design Vibrant 70s Patterns in Adobe Illustrator

1. Introduction & Class Project: Welcome to this Skillshare class, or you will learn how to design vibrant seventies patterns in Adobe Illustrator. I'm Joanna Maria, a digital illustrator and graphic designer from Poland. I create mainly vector art and surface design. This class is a follow-up to my other Skillshare course called create retro geometric patterns in Adobe Illustrator, which was inspired by the fifties and sixties design. If you wanted to know more, go check it out. Today, I will teach you how to create eight different patterns inspired by the textiles and wallpapers from the 1970s. Vintage flower, peacock, flower bed, aquamarine, crochet, bubble, square, and criss-cross pattern. This class is for all levels. It means that you don't have to know all about Adobe Illustrator in order to design the patterns. If you feel comfortable with the program, you can jump straight into designing the first pattern. If not, check out the lessons that precede it: documents setup, color palettes and color settings, as well as pattern types. As a project, you will create a pillow mock-up of your 70s inspired pattern. You are welcome to use the empty mockup and color palettes created by me for this class. Check out the list of my favorite shortcuts that I've prepared for you in the class resources. I highly encourage you to publish your work in the class project section of this course. Without further ado, let's jump into the first class. 2. Inspiration: I have always been inspired by the design styles from the second half of the 20th century. The 70s is for sure, one of my favorite decades. Let's go for some of its phenomena. Flower power was a peaceful resistance movement that started in the US in the 1960s and developed in the 1970s. Flower became a symbol of peace and love. The movement spread thanks to the hippies. The so-called flower children dress the part. They loved, bright colored clothes with embroidered flowers. Their style was the symbol of nonviolent protesting. Make love, not war. Hippies had a significant influence on the mainstream fashion, but they weren't the only inspiration at that time. The seventies was a decade full of trends, often simultaneous. Victorian and then the word and the revival of Gypsy and peasant trend, punk and glam rock. This co, as well as the ethnic and Bohemian style. The last one also inspired mostly by Native Americans and European folk. It featured bright prints and floral patterns. Women loved to wear a peasant blouses, ponchos, and maxi dresses. Men's wear at the time included bell-bottom jeans, tie dye, and funnel shirts. Both men and women were homemade accessories made from natural materials, such as wood, leather, shells, and Indian beads. Back to nature trend was also permanent in the interior design. It was visible both in the environmentally friendly materials. Entity, earthy colors that gradually replaced the brighter neon colors. Patterns definitely wear a thing. They dominated, not only the wallpapers, but also curtains and carpets, the most popular, where geometric, floral and psychedelic patterns. One of the best examples of groovy home textiles were crocheting. Blankets. Don't forget, people in the seventies were very creative and resourceful. They also might crochet it vests, ponchos, tops, and waistcoats. I loved this DAY spirit so much that I decided to create one of the patterns to honor it. Man, get unsurprisingly crochet pattern. These were my main sources of inspiration for the patterns that I created for this class. You can now open Adobe Illustrator and go to the next class. Are, if you are familiar with the program and its settings, you can go straight into designing the first pattern, the vintage flower pattern. 3. Document Setup: Let's start with our projects by opening a new file in Adobe Illustrator. Now we're going to set up the document. I will name it. 70s patterns, skill share. As you can see, I said the width of the art board to 5,000 pixels and the height to 3,000 pixels. To color mode of it chose is RGB color. Because I'm working with the screen. Is your intention is to print the patterns are sent him to the printing company. You should choose CMYK. I also chose the highest resolution possible, 300s PPI pixels per inch. Let's create documents. Next we're going to do is check if the smart guides are set to on their own. So we are going to leave them like that. It will be very helpful with working with our shapes. Another thing that I want to see are the swatches, layers, and properties. We don't need all of these swatches. I will delete most of them. Click on the first one, holding Shift, click on the last one. Now we'll drag it into the bin. Now I will even parts. This works is that they want into the document. Go to Library user-defined swatches set that we'll use. Our seventh is palettes. We can either drag it and here are another way is to click on every folder icon that will import into the swatches panel. Can close this window. Now we have everything prepared to work with our documents. 4. Color Palettes and Color Settings: Best website for creating a color palette for app project will be Adobe Color website. So we go to explore and tweet type 70s as a tag. Now we can look for different color palettes that have already been created. We can add them directly to our library. So I select the ones that I like. And then from them, I will select the best ones. All of these colors are connected to seven days tag. You can type whichever you like. Then I go to my library and check out different motifs. I have nine, but I will select just a few of them. I download the file as an ASE format to open it later in Adobe Illustrator. Now we can go to Adobe Illustrator swatches, other library and access the files that we have just done, loved it. I opened all of them at once. Then to save them as a swatch as a swatch group, I'm going to click on the folder icon. As you can see, the purity in the swatches panel right away. I repeat the process for every color group. Now I'm going to delete all of the unnecessary swatches, leaving just the ones that I have just added to the project. And then I go to libraries, save swatches. I named them 70s patterns are other 70s palettes. I can access it directly in user-defined libraries. Now I can use this palette in every project that I created. Now let's go to creating websites and global colors. To do it, I double-click on the color in the swatches panel. And I click on global and the cube icon to make sure that it's safe for web. And I repeat this process for every color that I have. This will change them slightly, but it ensures that they will be displayed this way in every web browser, regardless of the platform, there are fewer web colors than the ones that are displayed in Illustrator. That's why we will have fewer colors in our swatches panel. If you're not working with web, you can leave the pilots as they were before. Us for the global colors. Let's see how it works. So I create two rectangles with the same fill, this bluish color. I create a new rectangle holding Alt and dragging their time rule. And now I double-click and change the global color. So it also changed the color of the rectangles at the same time. As for the CMYK to change the color modes, we go to File Document Color Mode. Here you can change directly from RGB to CMYK. The differences that's CMYK works best for print because it's a mixture of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. It's perfect for the ink to make sure that the color has been changed to CMYK. We double-click on the swatch, then you can see the color mode has been changed. So CMYK, RGB is red, green, and blue. So the color values are different. Now we can see CMY and k. If you are working just with the screen, not creating the file for print, RGB will be perfect for you. So don't change the settings. Now we can move on to pattern types that we have in Adobe Illustrator. 5. Pattern Types: Now that we have setup our new document, I would like to go through the pattern types in Adobe Illustrator. Let's start by creating a rectangle. So we'll click on the rectangle tool. And we click on the art board to pop up window shows us different dimensions that we can choose for our rectangle. I'm going to do hundreds by 100 pixel. Let's make a close-up. So let's change the fill color. Here. Fill and stroke, stroke, I will set to none. And color, maybe this bluish color. Now to create a new pattern, the easiest way is to simply drag the rectangle into the swatches panel right here. To edit the pattern, we double-click on it. So this is not good because it all blends into one shape. That's why I'm going to expand the width and height. Let's keep this proportion linked. So I'm going to 240 for the beginning. So this is the grid pattern, the basic one. I will show you other options that we have. There's also a brick by row. You can change the brick offset right here. Let's stick to the half. Then we have brick by column. So it's basically brick by row. But in reverse. Dan, we have Hex by Column or Hex by Row. Sometimes I like to make more copies. It gives me a glimpse to what it will look like. We can dim the copies so that we know which shape is the original one. When you're ready to save your pattern, you click on Done. If it's under one to save the changes, you cancel. You can also save a copy. So we've done to make any changes to the original pattern, but to create a new one with the new settings. You can also name your pattern if you want. Okay? So I click on Done. To prove it a pattern. I create a new rectangle, which will be ten times width times the height of the previous one. And the fill is now our new pattern. To make sure that it's this way. You'll see here that it's not the stroke, but that's the fill. Our shape. To see a different scale of this pattern it, you'll click the right mouse click. Tend to transform, scale and transform patterns, not the objects. Let's make it hundred and 50 per cent. The other way around 50% go further away from Jupiter. So these are different pattern options in Adobe Illustrator. These are the basics. And now we're going to expand our knowledge with some more elaborate patterns. 6. Vintage Flower Pattern: The first pattern that we are going to create will be the vintage flower pattern. Let's start by creating an oval shape. Here with the Ellipse Tool. You can see the swatches right here. But to make the process faster, I will use the Eyedropper tool. You can also use letter I on the keyboard to make it's faster. Now, I do Control C, Control V to paste it in the back. Now we will be editing the shape that is nothing different but in the back, I click right transform scale. Let's make it 130% and click Okay. Now I changed the color into this yellowish ones. So I on the keyboard, click. Let's repeat the process. Control C, control V. Click, alright. Transform scale hundred and 40 per cent. Okay? And to pick this greenish one, now we select our free shapes and we align them like this. I can see the difference between the shapes. I will make a few changes. Make it a bit wider. Also the middle one. It looks more or less like the original. Now I select all three shapes. I go to Object, repeat. Radio. In the Properties panel, I changed the repeat options. I choose six. Enter. And let's make it a bit closer together. One less step is to create this ellipse in the center. And now with the selection tool and holding shift, I make it bigger. I'm pretty happy with the results. To create the pattern. I select everything and drag it into the swatches panel right here. To edit the pattern, I double-click on the swatch. Now we have to select a different option, brick by row. And we'll leave the half. We have to make the gaps between the flowers smaller. Click right here and told that the arrow down. Actually, I want to change the height rather than the width. So this is about it. When you're ready, click Done. It is best to test the pattern right now. I select the rectangle tool. Click. Let's make it 500 by 500 pixels. It's a bit too small. So again, right-click Transform scale. And maybe 200 per cent and only have the transform objects selected not to transform patterns. Again. Perfect. If you don't see the same thing that I do, make sure that you have the fill selected, not the stroke. The stroke should be empty. Now let's move on to creating the second pattern. 7. Peacock Pattern: The second pattern that we're going to create is to pick a pattern. Let's start by creating an ellipse with the Ellipse Tool holding Shift. To make it even. Let's change the color with the eye dropper tool. With the pen tool, we're going to create two triangles. We click right, transform, rotate, hundred ten to 80. Coffee. We track the second triangle to the bottom. When you have smart guides on, you can see this little pink lines that help us create a perfect symmetrical shape. To make sure that it's all centered. We click here on Horizontal Align Center. Now we merge all three shapes into one shape with the Pathfinder tool. Click Shape Modes unites. Let's go to Effect war and bulge. Let's leave it on the 50 per cent. We aren't creating this shape. So now I will create the black one and then the yellow one. Control C, control V. Right-click Transform and Scale. Hundred and 20 for the beginning. Turn to feel color to black here, or with the eyedropper tool. Let's make it even bigger. Maybe hundreds and ten right now. And the final yield shape control C control V, right-click Transform, Scale. Hundreds. And for it to change the voltage, we can go to Properties, entity effects. I think I will make it 70% the same width. Other two shapes. To create a second shape, I copy and paste a different drive to try here. Towards we have to do is voltage -70% hit. Okay? What we did was the exact opposite of this shape. Let's bring it closer together. Tracking to the swatches panel, Double-click. Going to stay with their current, but make the cells smaller. Both the width and height. Let's test out the pattern. Going to create a rectangle. Let's say I'm thousand 1,000 pixels Transform, Scale transform patterns, and maybe 70%. This is the final result. Now we're going to move on to create interference pattern. It is called flour, butter, butter. 8. Flowerbed Pattern: To create the third pattern, the flower bit pattern, we're going to work with the pen tool. But first, let's create a rectangle, 500 by 500 pixel. We're going to use it as a guide for the basic pattern. So let's make the fill and stroke black so that we can see the rectangle. And let's turn it into a guide. So I simply lock it. We want to be able to move it and edit it at the moment. Now let's create the first petal of the biggest flower with the pen tool. I'm going to click in the center of the rectangle. Now, hold Shift C. It's most by 45 degrees. That will do. And now we click on the first anchor point. We have the first pets already. Let's make it blue with the eyedropper tool, we create the orange shape and the yellow shape. Control C Control F, eyedropper tool and scale transform. Scale. 70%, maybe 80. Okay, let's repeat this step for the yellow shape. Let's align it to the bottom. Let's take all three shapes, object, repeat, and radio. When it four petals. Enter. Let's bring them closer together. Now the ellipse in the center with the Ellipse Tool, eyedropper tool and blue. Let's turn off the lock on the rectangle for a moment and bring it to the center right here. Now it's perfectly in the center. It's looked again. Now let's work with the other flowers. So what I'm going to do is group the whole shape with Control G, Control C, Control F. And I am going to create the first flower right here. By transform. Move horizontal, that will be -250, vertical, -250 pixels. Okay? We have to be very precise. Otherwise the pattern won't work, will create a grid. And every cell of the pattern is going to stick to the other one. They have to be perfectly aligned. Actually the size is wrong. So I have to repeat this step. First, Transform and Scale. 80 per cent will be just fine. Okay, and again, move, Transform, Move. Now let's change the colors. So we need to change the center and two other colors. Let's ungroup the shape for a moment with Control Shift G. To change the repeat, we have to double-click. Now let's group this one. Hold shift and click on the Ellipse. And control G to group. Again, right-click Transform, Move horizontal 500s, vertical zero. And copy. Decreed the second flower. Let's do the same for the remaining two corners. Now let's work with the remaining four flowers. Control C, Control F. Transform Scale. 80% is fine. Now let's click Transform. Move 250, vertical zero. Let's do the same with this flower. Control C Control F, transform, move horizontal, zero, vertical, 500s. We have two flowers left. Let's click on this one. Control C, Control F, transform, move horizontal -250 and the vertical -250 hit. Okay, Let's change the colors. I'm going to actually scale down this flower because it's too busy. The pattern is too busy. Scale 80 per cent. To see if it's perfectly aligned. I'm going to go to view outline is just fine. So again, view GPU Preview. Let's move it to the right as well. I have unlocked the rectangle. Now I'm going to change the stroke color to none. And copy the rectangle Control C, Control F, and bring it to the top. Now I'm selecting everything and create a clipping mask so that we only have what's inside of this rectangle. So Control seven. To see if it worked. We take it to the swatches panel. Double-click. Let's make seven copies. Click on Done. Let's test the pattern. The pattern is a bit too dense, so transform scale transform patterns. And maybe 200 per cent. We have created a perfectly seamless flower bits pattern. Now let's move on to the aquamarine pattern. 9. Aquamarine Pattern: Our first pattern, the Aqua Marina pattern, is the most challenging one yet. But I'm sure you're going to rise up to this challenge. We're going to work mostly with the pen tool. But first, let's create a line with the line segment tool right here. When you're done, see it is after the rectangle tool holding Shift to make it perfectly horizontal. I'm going to adjust the length in the properties panel. It shouldn't be 500s pixel. Click Enter. I'm going to make it bigger so that you'll see better. Similarly to the flower bit pattern, I will use the line as a guide. So in the layers panel, I will look good. We cannot edit it at the moment. Let's select the pen tool and click at the very beginning of our line. Now let's go to the center, but don't click yet. I'm holding shift. You can see it moves by 45 degrees. And now I click at the very end of the line. We have just created a perfect wave. We don't need the line anymore so we can either hide it, are deleted completely. I'm going to hide it. Now. What I need to do is create two other waves like this. Right-click, transform and move. Let's move it by 30 pixels. Let's copy its first transform. Move and copy it. With Control D. I'm going to repeat this action. Now select all three and reflect like this. Right-click Transform, reflect vertically 90 degrees and copy. I'm going to move them down vertically. Let's make it 210 and see what we've got. The next step is to create a rectangle with the rectangle tool. It should intersect with our waves. So width is 500 pixel. I'm going to change their properties. The height, 420 pixels. And let's align everything. The next tool that I'm going to introduce is the shape builder tool or Shift M. It's Create Shapes from the existing ones. With the plus, you create a shape with minus, you delete it. I'm going to delete this part and this part and create shapes from the existing ones. The next step is to change the fill color and delete the stroke. That easiest way is to click Shift X. Now everything is black, so I click on the shapes and with the eye dropper tool, change the colors. I select everything and bring it to the swatches panel. Double-click. And I will select brick by row. Let's change the height. We have our aquamarine pattern ready? Now let's move on to the fifth button. There, crochet pattern. 10. Crochet Pattern: Our next pattern is called crochet pattern. It's made up of circles. So let's start by creating an ellipse to 140 pixels. Okay? Let's change the color. Right-click Transform Scale. Let's make it 70 per cent. Copy. Change the color. Transform scale. 70% copy change the color. For Dell highest ellipse. For the green ellipse, I hit Transform Scale and 30% copy. Final step with the patterns cell is to go to Effect, Distort and Transform, roughen. The size will be absolute. Four pixels, detail 10/" and smooth. Hit. Okay. Now we group all four circles. We take them to the Swatches panel. We wanted the gaps to be smaller. Let's maintain the proportions. So we change both the height and width. I want to bring them as close as possible. It's done. And let's see what it looks like. In a rectangle. We have created a crochet pattern. The next one will be the bubble pattern. 11. Bubble Pattern: Our next pattern, the bubble pattern, is also based on circles. We can use the ones that have created for the previous pattern did crochet pattern? First, let's ungroup the shape with Control Shift to treat. Now, we have to make sure that there's no effect on it. In the properties you see. There is nothing. If there was, you'll simply go to Effect are often need to make sure that it's all non-zero and TikTok. And align this to the bottom. I'm going to make the green shape bigger and take it a bit up like this. Holding Shift. I scale it up. Now I changed the colors. The next step is to create three more circles like this. What I need to do is first crop it. Now holding Alt, I take it to the right, leaving a bit of space. Now I'm going to reflect it, Transform, reflect, and copy. The next step is to rotate the circles. So first I'm going to modify the patterns cell. I will rotate it to make sure that I do it right. Hold, shift and rotate. The circles facing right will be at the top. Let's crop everything. Now we have our basic patterns, so let's take it to the swatches panel. Double-click. Go to create Hex by column. I'm going to change the lips. I wanted to gaps to be similar. So both the width and the height. I think like that's happens. It means that we had our circles selected. I need to go back and change the pattern again. Window history. Let's go to New Swatch. Closer history. Let's make sure that it's not selected. Double-click and taken Brick by Column. Width and tight. Best test out the pattern. If you are worried about the lines, you can see that they disappear when resuming. They won't be visible at all in the JPEG and PNG experts. Now let's move on to creating the square pattern. 12. Square Pattern: Let's create our next pattern, the square pattern. First of all, let's create a rectangle, 250 by 250 pixels. Let's make the field read and stroke none. With the selection tool, the direct selection tool. We're going to round the corners just a little bit. Double-click here, just drag it a bit like this. This should be enough. When they ate more red rectangles. I'm going to go to Transform, Move horizontal 270, vertical zero. Hits, copy it. With Control D. We're going to repeat this step. Let's select all three rectangles. Transform, move horizontal and vertical. 270. Hey, it's copy. And control D. To repeat this step. Now we need to create the yellow, orange, and brown rectangle inside of the square. Let's start with the middle one. Transform scale. 70 per cent. Copy. Change the color. Let's do the same for the orange and brown. What we need to do is first group, these two, the orange and the brown one. We're going to copy the yellow square and align it correctly in every rectangle. Holding Alt, I'm going to drag it. Now it's time to move the brown and the orange rectangle holding Alt. This is one way to do it. Another way is to start with all four rectangles and copy them eight times. Den, you block the red square and you move the rectangles inside of it. Each time. I find this way faster and easier for me, you can try both ways. Let's select everything and bring the squares into the swatches panel. Double-click. The next step is to create a width and the height that will be similar so that each distance is the same. Let's maintain the proportions. I will make it 20 pixels bigger. Hit Done. Let's create a rectangle to test it out. Different fill color. You see now we have the stroke selected so we can see the pattern. Let's change it up and make the stroke none. We have our square pattern ready. Now let's move on to creating the crisscross pattern. 13. Crisscross Pattern: Our final pattern is called crisscross pattern. Let's start with creating a line that is perfectly horizontal. To make sure just hold shift. Their lunch should be 200 pixels is difficult to adjust the length so you can just go to Properties and change the width into 200. Hits Enter. Let's deselect the line and create a new one that is 300 pixels long. Again, you can hold Shift to make sure that it's vertical. 300 pixels. I can change it in the properties panel. This time we change the height, 300. Click Enter. Select both lines and align them. Horizontal Align Center, and also vertical aligned center. Let's go to layers and lock both lines. We're going to create the boundaries of this diamond shape. Now let's go to the pen tool and click on the anchor points. We don't need the lines anymore so we can delete them or turn the view off. Select the diamond shape and turn the stroke into fill with Shift X. Let's make it red. Now. Transform Scale 90% to copy. Change the color. Let's do the same for the rest of the diamonds. Now select everything and group. Take it to the swatches panel, double-click. We select brick by column and a half. Now we need to change the width, the height. I will zoom in so that we make sure that we do it correctly. We want to close these gaps Done. And let's see what it looks like. Change the stroke color into fill color with Shift X, again, Stroke None. We have our final pattern, the crisscross pattern. Ready? Now it's time to export the pattern files. 14. Export: We have created eight different 70s inspired patterns in Adobe Illustrator. Now it's time to export them. First, let's expert all of the patterns, samples. Makes sure that the rectangles are the same size. In the properties panel. Let's make the width and height 1,800 pixels. And the same for every pattern sample. Let's select every sample. Holding Shift and clicking on the rectangles. Right-click collects for export as multiple assets. You can select either PNG for a transparent background. Our JPEG. I recommend JPEG if you want the background to be colored, but you should color it first in Adobe Illustrator to make it easier. Otherwise, you will have to later delete the background by hand. The easiest way to create a background in Illustrator. Let's make it with the example of the flower beds pattern is to hit Control C, Control V to paste in the back. Now we can easily change the color. Let's select something from the swatches panel, e.g. this dark blue. Now to export it as a JPEG, you select both collect for expert as single asset. If you want to later change the background, e.g. in Adobe Photoshop, I recommend exporting it a PNG format with a transparent background. The expert, the patterns as swatches. You have to make sure that in the swatches panel you only have them visible. Click on Save Swatches and save the patterns. You can also save it in a different format. E.g. as, VG or EPS. Both formats are readable also in other programs. As VJ is better for web and EPS is better for high-quality image printing. Before we save the file, let's make sure that the color mode is CMYK or RGB, depending on the use of the patterns. Rgb for screen and CMYK for print. When you have saved the file and export it the patterns. Let's move on to creating a pillow mock-up with your chosen pattern. 15. BONUS: Pillow Mockup: To see how your pattern will look as a textile design, it is best to create a mockup. I have uploaded a file pillow mock-up to the resources section of the project. You can open it up in Photoshop. This is the base of the mockup. To enter your pattern, you double-click here on this icon of the Smart Object. You go to the folder with your patterns and tool to drag the assets into Photoshop. Now we click on Control T to transform. And we make the pattern as big as the canvas. Now it's time to change the background. You can turn it off if you want. We double-click here. I want to make it as organic as possible. So I take the eyedropper tool, click somewhere onto pattern e.g. on this brown color. I make it a bit darker like this. Now we save the smart object Control S and we can close it. This is what it looks like now. To make the pillow brighter, we click here. You can change the brightness. I'm going to leave it on 50. Now it's time to change the background color. Again. I will take the color from the pattern, this greenish one. And let's make it a bit brighter. You can save the file with Control S are exported right here. Let's select the JPEG option. The highest quality. And okay, this is what the finished pattern looks like on the pillow.