Designing with Grids in Inkscape 1. 3+

1. Introduction: With the power of Inkscape Shape Builder tool, we can easily turn a grid into a polished and professional looking logo. In this class, we'll first learn exactly how the Shape Builder tool works. Then we'll see how to use it to create designs with a variety of grids. Including grid templates that Inkscape provides for us, isometric and polar grid extensions, and our own custom grids for more complex designs. If you're ready to unleash the power of grids and take your design scales up a notch, and I'll see you in class. 2. Class Project: Your class project, I would like you to create your own design either by using one of the grid templates or extensions that Inkscape provides for us, or by using your own custom grid. I would love to see your work, so don't forget to submit it once you're finished. 3. The Shape Builder Tool: The secret to creating grid designs efficiently and inkscape is to use the Shape Builder tool here, which was introduced in Inkscape version 1.3 Before we start creating grid designs, we need to know exactly how the Shape Builder tool works. First, in order to use the Shape Builder tool, we first need to select some shapes or paths, and preferably ones that are overlapping. If we now activate the Shape Builder tool, it hides everything on the canvas that isn't selected, and the selected objects are now all the same gray color. It also puts an outline around each segment of the selected objects. And we can use these segments to build shapes. As we can see, the cursor has a plus sign next to it. And as we hover over a segment, the segment gets highlighted in blue. If we click a segment, it becomes a darker shade of blue. This indicates that the segment will be included in the shapes that we're creating. If we click and drag over some segments, they will be combined into a single segment. If we look up here in the controls bar, we have two modes to choose from, Add and Delete. We're currently on Add mode, which lesses add segments to a shape. For delete mode, we can either enable it with this button or while still on add mode, we can hold down shift to temporarily switch to delete mode. The cursor now has a minus sign next to it. As we hover over a segment, it gets highlighted in pink. If we now click a segment, it gets deleted. We can also click and drag over segments to delete them all at once. It's actually not entirely necessary to manually delete segments, though, because any segments that we leave gray will automatically get deleted when we apply the result. To apply the result, we can either come up here and click the Checkmark button next to finish. Or we can press the Inter key. And now we have all of the different shapes that we created. If I undo all of that, select the objects again and go back to the Shape Builder tool, which I can do by pressing the X key. If I perform an action and decide I don't like it, I can press control Z to undo it. If I want to cancel everything and get the original objects back, I can either click the X button up here or I can press the escape key. One more thing to know about the Shape Bolder tool is that when we combine segments of objects that have different colors, the color of the resulting shape will be the same color as the segment that we start with. Starting from a red segment will make the resulting shape red. And starting from a yellow segment, we'll make it yellow. All right, now that we know how the shape builder tool works, let's see how we can use it along with the grids that create some pretty cool designs. 4. Using Grid Templates: The creators of Scape were kind enough to provide us with some good templates that we can use to test out the Shape Builder tool. To access the templates, we can go up to the file menu and choose New from template. Here we can select the Shape Builder tab. Now we can choose from various grid templates like diamonds, crosses, celtic patterns, et cetera. Some of these are pretty good for creating tile, lobal patterns like this Celtic flower grid here. Let's give it a try to open up the template. We select it in here, then we click the crate from template button. This starts a new inkscape document containing the Celtic flower grid. The grid is actually a single group of objects, so we can select the group, activate the Shape Builder tool, and get to work. However, one issue that you might notice when using the Shape Builder tool on circles is that the segments become a bit warped. To see this better, I'll create a few overlapping circles over here. Now if I select them all and activate the Shape Bader tool, we can easily see the jagged lines at the segments where the circles intersect. To stop this from happening, we first need to turn the circle objects into paths so that we can access their nodes. Let's do so by going up to path, then object to path. Now we can grab the node tool, then we can drag a selection box over all of the circles to select all of the nodes. Now just need to click this button up here to make all of the nodes symmetric nodes. This will stop the segments from getting warped, as we can see if we activate the shape or tool. All right, I'll delete these circles. Let's come back over to our grid group. If we grab the node tool, again, we're able to select the individual objects inside the group. If we select one of the circles, we can see that each one is actually a big path consisting of multiple circle subpaths. Because they are paths we can already access their nodes. We can select all of the nodes of this one and turn them into symmetric nodes. Then we can do the same for the other three circle paths. All right, now we're finally ready to start building some shapes. Let's grab the slug your tool and slk the entire group. Then activate the Shape builder tool. I'll combine these two outer segments here by clicking and dragging over them. Then I'll do the same for the other quadrants. Now I'll get this flower part in the center. I might have to zoom in a bit to get these tiny segments. Finally, I'll create some small shapes like this. Then I'll press Enter to apply the results canal. Select all of these outer shapes, give them a fill color. And turn off the stroke. Then I'll do the same for these small shapes. Finally, the flower parts, making sure to get the tiny center shape as well. I'm not sure why it decided to give this shape a white field color, but it's no big deal. All right. Now if you want to turn this into a tylobal pattern, we can first select all the shapes and group them together. Let's shrink it down a bit. I'm holding down shift and control to keep it centered and proportional. Now we can go up to the Object menu, down to pattern, and choose object to pattern. Okay, now we can create an object, open up the fill and stroke dialog. And if we click the pattern fill button, we should see our new pattern here. If we click on it, it will fill the object with the pattern. All right, in our first grid design is finished. 5. Using Grid Extensions: Isometric: Inkscape also provides us with some extensions that we can use to easily create grids. To use them, we go up to the Extensions menu, then down to Render. Then, grids we can choose from, Cartesian grids, normal grids, isometric grids, and polar grids. If we choose, for example, isometric grid, a dialogue pops up. That gives us a lot of settings for defining the grid. If we check Live Preview, we can see what the grid will look like using the current settings and it should create the grid somewhere around the page. I actually like how the grid looks for the default settings, except I want to get rid of all of these thin lines, leaving only the thicker ones, because having too many lines will just make things difficult. When trying to build shapes to get rid of the thin lines, I can set both of these subdivision settings to one. All right? Now, to finish creating the grid, we can click the Apply button down here. Then we can close out of the dialogue. The grid it creates is a group of paths, so we can easily move it around. When we're ready to start creating shapes, we can grab the shape builder tool. I'm going to create a cross shape here at the top. Another one here on the left side, one more on the right. Then I'll get these little triangular pieces on the sides and the bottom. Finally, I'll create some square shapes here in the center. Right? To finish creating the shapes, we can press the Inter key. It's going to make it much easier to select the individual shapes if we give them all a random fill color first. Okay, Now I'll grab all of these upward facing shapes and I'll give them a light red fill. Then I'll get all of the shapes facing to the left and make them a slightly darker shade of red. And finally, I'll make the right facing shapes and even darker shade. I'll turn off the stroke for all of the shapes. For another quick design, I'll create the exact same isometric grid by going to extensions, previous extension. Then I'll grab the Shape builder tool and I'll create a V shape here. I will create the same shape on the left side, another one on the right side. Then I'll create some triangular shapes here at the bottom center. All right, I'll press the Enter key to finish it, and I'll use the same colors that I used for the other design. 6. Using Grid Extensions: Polar: For the next design. Let's go back to Extensions, Render Grids, and let's choose Polar Grid. If we go ahead and check Life Preview, we can see that this creates a grid consisting of concentric circles with lines dividing them into segments. There are a lot of settings we can change in here, but I only want to change a few of them. First, I want to remove all of the subdivisions, which are the circles that have a thinner stroke width. To do this, I'll change subdivisions per major circular division here to one. Next, I want to decrease the amount of lines for this. I'll go to the angular divisions tab. And I'll set angle divisions here to something like 16. I also want to make it so all of the lines extend all the way to the center of the grid. To do this, I need to make angle divisions at center here, the same as angle divisions, also 16. Now I click Apply and close this out. All this gives us a group consisting of circle objects and straight line paths. Now as we learned earlier in the class, if we try to use the Shape Builder tool on circles, it will cause some warping in the segments. Let's cancel that. Let's ungroup the grid. Now we want to select just the circle objects. To do this, we can first de select everything. Then right click one of the circles, go to select same and choose object type. Now let's turn the circles into paths by going to path, object to path. Then let's use the node tool to select all of the nodes and click the Make selected node symmetric button. Let's also make them a different stroke color to show you why. If we now select everything and activate the Shape Odor tool, again, the warping should be fixed. However, some of the lines now don't extend to the outermost circle. To fix this, we can go back to the selector tool. De select everything. Select all of the lines by right clicking one and going to select same stroke color. Then let's duplicate them and scale them up a bit while holding down shift and control. All right, now let's select everything again. We're actually going to use this grid for two different designs. So let's duplicate it. And move it over here. Can is activate the Shape builder tool. And I'll create some random shapes in here. Okay. I'll press Enter to finish the shape building. And now I want to give these shapes some random fill colors. To do this, I'll first turn off the stroke and make the fill color black with the shapes still selected. I'll go up to the Extensions menu, then down to Color and choose Random. Yes. If I check a live preview, I can use this dialogue to apply random colors to the shapes. I can use these sliders to adjust how much certain aspects of the colors can change, including the hue, the saturation, the lightness, and the opacity. But I'll leave opacity at 0% so they stay fully opaque. Each time I uncheck and check a live preview, the result will be different. All right, I like how that looks, so I'll click Apply and close this out. Let's scroup these shapes together, then let's move over to the other grid. Let's select at all and activate the shape Oder tool for this, I'm going to individually click each of the segments to keep them separate. For the very center, I'll just combine all of the segments into a circle. I'll press Enter Can say I want to randomize the fill colors of all of the shapes, but I want them all to be a shade of a certain color such as red. To do this, I'll first turn off the stroke and give them a red fill color. Now I'll open up the randomized extension dialogue again by going to extension previous extension settings. If I check live preview, I can make all of the shapes stay a shade of red. By lowering the hue range slider to 0% I can adjust the other sliders as I like right now. I'll click Apply and close this out. One thing you might notice after doing this is that the background might show through a bit between the shapes. To fix this, we just have to duplicate all of the shapes. Now we can group everything together. 7. Using Custom Grids: If we want to make more complex grid designs, we can create our own custom grids For this design, We'll do so by creating a model gram logo inside a shield shape. To start creating the shield shape, let's grab the ellipse and arc tool, then click and drag in the canvas and hold down control to create a perfect circle. Let's turn off the field color and let's give it a black stroke. We want the stroke width to be pretty thin that we'll be able to see everything easily. I'll go with about half a millimeter here. All right, now let's duplicate the circle while holding down control to keep it horizontally aligned with the other circle. Let's move it to the right a bit. The space between the circles will determine how wide or narrow the shield shape will be. Can just grab the pen tool. Let's click over here. To the left of the space between the circles and above the center point. Then let's hold control to keep it horizontal. Click on the other side and right click to finish the path. Right now we're going to use the Shape Builder tool to get just the shape between the circles and the path. But first, as we know by now, before using the Shape Builder tool on circles, we want to turn all of their nodes into symmetric nodes. Let's go to the Node tool and Slk both circles, turn them into paths by going to path, object to path. Then let's slect all of the nodes and click this button up here to turn them into symmetric nodes. Right now we can select all of the paths. Grab the Shape Builder Tool. Click on the segment in here and press Enter. Now we have our shield shape. Okay, next we're going to create a grid inside the shield. To start, let's grab the pin tool again. And let's create a vertical path over here for the moment. And we want it to be longer than the shield shape. All right, now we can slect both the vertical path and the shield shape. Let's open up the Align and Distribute dialog. Click this button to align their left edges can at deselect everything and duplicate the vertical path. Then this whole shift inslect the shield in the Align distribute dialogue. We want to make sure that last selected is chosen as the anchor so that the shield stays in place. Now we can click this button to align the right edges. Okay, now we want to put ten more vertical paths between these two. And we want them all to have equal horizontal spacing between them. One way to do this is to first select both vertical paths and combine them into a single path. By going to path combine. Now we can open up the path effects dialogue. Then add interpolate subpaths to the path. If we change steps in here to 12, we'll get a total of 12 vertical lines across the shield. Okay, now we can finalize this by going to path, object to path. All right, now let's grab the shield and move it out of the way for the moment. Then let's duplicate the path with the vertical lines. Let's click one of the rotate 90 degree buttons up here to make it horizontal. Now let's duplicate this one to show its rotation handles. Then grab a rotation handle while holding down Alt to snap the angle. Let's rotate at 45 degrees. Let's duplicate one more time. Let's click the object. Flip horizontal button here. All right, now we can grab the shield again. And let's click the rays to top button here to put it above everything else that we'll be able to see it better. Let's give it a different stroke color. Okay, now we want to hold shift and select any one of these other paths. Then let's go back to the line and distribute dialog. And click this button to center this shield vertically on the paths. Now we can select just the shield, turn on snapping, hold down control, and move the shield up until the top of it snaps to the topmost horizontal line. Okay, to finish up the grid, let's duplicate the shield path. We're going to shrink this one down and we don't want its stroke width to change as we do this, let's toggle off this button up here. Right now we can grab one of its scale handles, Hold down shift and control, and scale it down until the top of it snaps to the second horizontal line. Now we can turn, snapping back off. All right, the grid is finished. Now we can select everything. Then grab the shape, boot our tool, and start creating our logo. The vertical center of the grid is right here. I'm going to start one block to the left of the center block and rough in a C shape that spans the three center blocks. I'm not going to worry about all of the small missing segments at the moment right now. Starting from the left side, I'll draw an S. I'm going to keep an empty column of blocks between the letters. I want to make the S follow the curvature of the shield on this side. All right, and for the right side, I'll draw a D shape, making sure to follow the curvature. Now I'm going to zoom in and get all of these small pieces that I missed. When we're done creating the shapes, we can press Enter. Then we can give them a field color and turn off the stroke. If you want to thicken up the letters a bit, we can first combine them into a single path by going to path combine. Then we can go to the pat defects dialogue and add the offset path effect. Now we can grab the node tool and use this orange circular handle to offset it. We can finalize that by going to path object to path. Another thing we can do is add some curvature along the top edges of the first and last letters. To do the subscrab the ellipse and arc tool and create an ellipse over here for the moment. Let's give it a different field color. Then we can turn on snapping and move the ellipse into a left quadrant point snaps to the top left corner of the first letter. We can hold shift and adjust this height a bit. Then we can scale in the right side until the right quadrant point snaps to the letter. All right, now we can duplicate the ellipse and bring it over here into a snap to the last letter. Let's make sure it snaps to both sides. Okay, now we can select all of this. Grab the Shape Builder tool. Click on the parts that we want to keep and press Center. The shapes are now separate again, so we can give them different colors if we want. All right, and with this design finished, our class is finished as well. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope it inspires you to use grids more often in your work. Thank you very much for joining me.