From Basics to Brilliance-Pattern Progression with Tools in Adobe Illustrator

1. Class Introduction: As you progress through your days of early surface pattern making, it's easy to look back and see just how simple your first designs truly were. The beginning of learning Adobe Illustrator can be overwhelming. It's a ton of work just to make the pattern in the program, let alone to think about how to make it stand out or be unique. But now that you're gaining more confidence with the program, you can clearly see that your patterns need to move to the next level. If this is you, this class is the perfect place. Your brain is telling you it's time to get creative and to really use the tools in Adobe Illustrator. Oddly enough, these tools are basic, but with a few tips and tricks, they can be used to their full advantage. Watch how your patterns become more detailed, elevated, and dynamic. In this class, we're going to take a basic star shape. Instead of allowing the program to make the shape for us, we're going to use the creative tools in Adobe Illustrator to design a unique, one of a kind completely pattern that is far from beginner. While we will be focusing on one basic shape for this class, imagine how you could use these tools with your own designs and motifs. My name is Kimberly, and I have been working through the exact same processes as I continue through my own surface pattern design journey. Join with me and other artists in this community, and let's get creative. 2. Class Project: Your class project is pretty simple. Make a pattern. Use the tools learned about in this class to create a unique pattern. Start with the basic shape and make it all your own. Then design a fantastic pattern that is unique and ready to add to your portfolio or to a print on demand shop. Be sure and share your project with the rest of the students in the class by uploading an image to the class project and resources section. Sharing your project is quick and easy. And not only will you inspire the rest of the class, but you inspire me as well. This is the best form of community building around. 3. Rectangle Tool: Creating shapes and forms is at the heart of surface pattern designing. While you might sketch, draw, paint, or photograph images and motifs, knowing how to create shapes digitally can add to the depth of your designs. Plus, learning some unique features of these shape tools will open up some great creative possibilities. Let's start with a rectangle tool. The keyboard shortcut for the rectangle tool is M. But to access all the shape tools, they are located in the toolbar on the left side. If you click on the small triangle underneath the shape, it will bring up the options for the shape tools. I also like that the keyboard shortcut is listed just in case you forget. Select the rectangle tool and move to your artboard. Click and drag to create a rectangle. You can see how you can choose the exact look of your shape. However, if you're wanting to create a square as you click and drag hold down shift. This will constrain the sides. Once the shape is made, the fun can begin. Change the color of the shape by using a color palette you have created or use the color tool to create your own colors. Click on the stroke panel and add color to the outside edge of the shape. To start with, the stroke is very thin, use the stroke panel and increase the size until it has the visual look you desire. Now let's look at the options for these simple squares. Using the selection tool or keyboard shortcut V, click on a rectangle. Several icons will show up on the image. The small squares on the outside edges are anchor points. The circles are for corners. You can see the cursor changes to have a little curve underneath it when hovered over a corner handle. When a corner handle is clicked, the corners can be rounded. Click and drag to round the corners to your desired look. On the next square, switch to the direct selection tool or the keyboard shortcut A and watch the power of this. When a corner handle is clicked with this tool, it doesn't select all the corners, only this one. You can see that it's selected because the inside of the circle turns white. Now when you click and drag, one corner rounds. How about two corners rounded. Use the direct selection tool again, but hold shift down while clicking on a second corner handle circle. Click and drag the round to round the top two corners. Then try three corner handles. And well, you know, using all four handles will get you a circle. Try opposite handles. Make your shape thick or thin. There's another tool to mention very quickly, the Delete Anchor Point tool. You can choose this tool from the toolbar on the left. Click a square icon or a shape and the anchor point, and it will remove it. It will leave a triangle. But let's mix that with corner handles. We've got some pretty unique shapes happening here. The possibilities are endless, and as always, with Adobe Illustrator, there are 1 million ways to create shapes. But this is a great place to start creative play. To give you an opportunity to practice using these options with the rectangle tool, I have created an Adobe Illustrator file for you with squares already on the artboard. You can download the file in the projects and resources, which can be found underneath the class video. Have fun getting creative. 4. Ellipse Tool: Just like the rectangle tool, the ellipse tool is located on the left side tool bar. It also has a keyboard shortcut, which is L. Once the tool has been selected, click and drag on the artboard to create the shape you desire. To create a perfect circle, hold the shift key down while dragging. Again, just like the rectangle, the color and the stroke can be changed on the circle. One very cool and unique feature the ellipse tool has is the ability to remove a slice of the proverbial pi. The handle sticking off the side is where to control this option. When you hover over it, you can see Pac Man appear underneath the cursor. Click and drag to choose the look that you desire. One control option for ellipses is available at the top that we haven't talked about yet. It is possible instead of a randomly sized circle, you might need a specific size. At the top, you can change the width and the height. Just make sure that the constraints are locked with this chain. This is also an option with the rectangle. In the next lesson, we will take a look at the polygon tool. 5. Polygon Tool: There is no keyboard shortcut for the polygon tool. So pop on over to the handy dandy toolbar on the left and choose the polygon tool. Click and drag on the artboard to create the polygon. Before letting go, however, use the arrow up and down keys to change the number of sides your shape has. The color and stroke can be changed just like the other shapes. Once your shape is placed on the artboard, notice on the bottom the little diamond icon. When you hover your cursor over that, a plus and a minus sign show up underneath. Click and drag that icon right or left to also change the number of sides. This is a great feature. No number of sides is permanent. You can also see a corner handle on this polygon. So round away on the corners as well. Are your creative wheels spinning? Admit it. You stopped paying attention to the class, and you're just now making shapes all over your artboard. Let's wrap up the shape tools portion with a look at the star Tool. 6. Star Tool: Again, there is no keyboard shortcut for the star tool. But you already know how easy it is to find any shape tool you want on the left side toolbar. Four lessons in, and look, you're already using powerful tools in Adobe Illustrator without thinking. Gold star for you, click and drag the star shape on the artboard. It's kind of clunky this way. But if you hold shift while you click and drag, the star shape will build from the center of the shape, which seems smoother or easier or whatever to my eye. Before letting go of the mouse button, use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to add or remove points. With a selection tool, there doesn't seem to be many adjustment options for this star. To change that, use the direct selection tool or the keyboard shortcut A. Now the anchor points and corner handles all appear. Because this is the direct selection tool, only one corner handle will work at a time. Remember, to grab more than one handle at a time, hold down shift while clicking each handle you wish to use or activate. There are a ton of possibilities here, which is perfect for your personal creativity. When making a star in the artboard, sometimes the bounding box around the shape ends up angled. For someone like me who needs everything lined up, it can make you crazy. To fix this, select the star at the top, choose object. Then transform, then reset bounding box. And presto back to a nice and straight rectangle bounding box. Are you ready to get even more creative? Just wait, there's more. These next tools we're going to talk about are where the magic really starts to happen. 7. Scale Tool: Yeah, the scale tool is pretty obvious. Use it to make your objects larger or smaller. But there's a really cool way to use the scale tool that is super helpful to people using it for illustrative purposes. To start with, the scale tool can be accessed a few ways. The first one being at the top. Go to object, then transform, then scale. Scroll up and down to change the size or manually type the percentage in if you know it. You can also use the keyboard shortcut S. When the object is selected, click S on the keyboard and drag. However, this can lead to uneven scaling, resulting in walky shapes, and that might work for your project, but it might not. To keep the object constrained, click S and while dragging, hold down shift. Also, drag down from a corner at an angle to help keep things all even. Here is the cool tip. Let's say you want to change the shape of the wings on this butterfly. Using the direct selection tool, we know we can click an anchor point and drag to change the shape. The problem comes in is when you want to make the other side the exact same. It's tough to do. Instead, try this. Using the direct selection tool or the keyboard shortcut A, click the anchor point you want to move. Then holding Shift, click the other anchor point. Hit S on the keyboard and drag. Keep the drag horizontal for this example. But as always, when you're using these tools and techniques on your motifs, make it in your style. The next tool is the align tool. And for someone like me who likes things all straight and organized? It may be my favorite. 8. Align Tool: The align tool is insanely valuable to a designer. Instantly get objects lined up, space perfectly centered, all that good stuff. You know, the picky things that normal people don't get fussy about, but makes designers eyes twitch. The align tool is a separate window that can be found at the top under window. Click and the window will open in your workspace. Because I use this tool constantly, I have it attached to my workspace at all times for easier access. The top row is align objects. The visuals of the icons truly explain what happens when you click them. The second row is distribute objects. This is powerful for groups, as you'll see in a moment. The bottom row is in two parts. The left side is distribute spacing. You can control the spacing horizontally or vertically. The right side has three icons. First, a align to artboard. Second, a align to objects, and finally, a align to key object. Let's make some stars and watch this tool at work. Create three stars quickly. Note that to make them each exactly the same, use the Alt or option key, click, and then drag it to make a copy. That is a hugely helpful little shortcut there. To put the stars in a row, select all of them with the select or keyboard shortcut V by dragging a box around them. Make sure the align two objects is selected and then click a Ln to center. The stars are now on the same plane. To equalize their spacing, choose distribute spacing, and three perfectly aligned and spaced stars. But they are too close to one another. Let's move the stars farther apart and over and repeat the same process. Ah, much better. Now, let's make a grit of stars with just a few more steps. Select the stars and use the alter option to click and drag to create copies. No need to worry about alignment because the tool will fix that in a moment. A is, if you attempt to align all these stars, you can see it doesn't work. The stars are individual objects, so they react as such. To get the stars to behave in rows, they must be grouped. Select the three stars and go to object, then group. Or the keyboard shortcut is Control G for whichever objects you have selected. Memorize this one. I use this tool all the time. Repeat the process for each row. Now they will align as a group. Keep in mind, this is going to change how the tool works. But honestly, just click on these buttons. If it's the wrong choice for you, controls to undo. Continue to manipulate the grouped objects until you're happy. Before moving on, ungroup the objects because somewhere down the road, you'll end up scratching your head, trying to understand why that star won't behave itself in the middle of a pattern. Go to object, then group, or use the keyboard shortcut Shift Control G to ungroup your objects. This step is setting you up for the next amazing tool, which is the transform tool. 9. Transform Tool: These stars are just fine. But that's all they are. Fine. They're way too blow, but check out what the transform tool can do with these stars. Located at the top under object, then transform, scroll past the other cool options and go to the bottom to transform each. This will open a window in your workspace. Starting at the top is scale. Change the size of all the stars equally. The constrained button on the left keeps things even. But unclick and see what happens to your shapes. For these stars, this is not a great option, but it might be for your design. Change the percentage back to 100 and reset the constraint. Changing the size of all the stars is once again fine. But if you go down in the window, you can see a random box that can be clicked to activate. Now, each star randomly gets a new size when the scale slider is used. The move slider helps randomize which star gets changed. It's like musical chairs for scale. Click and drag on the angle line in the circle. Each object moves at that angle. But wait, there's more. Choose the reflect x or y at the bottom, and the angle randomizes two. Keep manipulating until the grid has the unique look that you desire. Because this transform tool is so cool and because it gets my wheel spinning in the next lesson, we're just a kind of play around and see what creative things happen with all the tools in Adobe illustrator. 10. Transform! Transform!: The idea of this lesson is to show, albeit quickly, how combining the tools we've been learning about individually can be combined together to create unique and totally designs. Consider this lesson a place to get your creative juices flowing, the start of something amazing. Now, this is a great group of stars, much more conducive to interesting pattern making. But using the tools, how unique can we go? Let's make another star. But instead of using what Adobe Illustrator creates, let's make it personalized. I'm going to try the corner handles first shift and clicking on each handle to use them all, dragging and well. Oh, not a fan. Next. How about the anchor points instead? Shift and click each of those. But this time, use the scale tool or the keyboard shortcut S. Click and drag to change all the points. Ooh. I'm liking this. Try a little corner rounding. Click the corner handle and drag. Uh huh. Very nice. Time for a color change and a little more color with adding a stroke? This is off to a great start. My brain is swirling with thoughts now, making another star. But instead of changing all the spots, what would happen if only one anchor point was moved. Using the direct selection tool or the keyboard chart at A, let's see how the star can change going for that country star style or Halloween Walkie star, maybe. And no. That is not working. But the process and the idea is something to file away for another project. For this pattern, that two colored star is working. Time to grid these stars up. Aliign the first stars, then group using Control G. Fiddle around for the look. And honestly, the fiddling around part is my favorite. Open the transform and then transform each tool and have more fun. One thing to notice is if for some reason, you're not seeing the changes happening as you adjust the sliders and turn the options off and on, be sure that the preview box is selected in the bottom left of the window. Just because the transformed tool created some great changes, doesn't mean you can't go back and change more. Adjust each star to your eye, bring yourself into your artwork. In the next lesson, let's look at the repeat and pattern tools and look for yet another way to elevate our designs. 11. Repeat and Pattern Tools: Time to take these stars to yet another level. When using the tools in Adobe Illustrator, it's amazing what happens to shapes. I discovered this while creatively playing around, prepping for this very class. Who knew that a few clicks could end up creating something so unique. Select all the stars. Go up to object and then down to repeat. Repeat has three options, radial grid, and mirror. The last stud don't make any sense for the grid of objects we've created, so choose radial. It makes a lot of repeats in a circle. A lot. You use the slide on the right hand side to adjust that. To make this a shape that can continue to be manipulated, the object needs to be expanded. At the top, click on object, then expand and say to the window that pops up. Now, this is a usable and editable motif. Adobe Illustrator has a pattern making tool. While not something I would personally use all the time, it is very beneficial for creating geometric patterns. It's also helpful for seeing how patterns lay out visually. So I highly recommend using the tool, but don't forget to create patterns in the old fashioned way, as well. With the objects selected, go to the top to object, then pattern, then make. The pattern window pops up with a ton of options, which is an entire class on its own, but click through. Make it happen for your eye. Once the pattern looks how you want, click done at the top. The pattern will then save into your swatches panel. This is a seriously cool pattern. Just watch for a little bit, as I manipulate a few of the things with this pattern like scale and color. A A. As I work with another set of stars and another pattern. Start thinking about your latest pattern? What could you do to the motifs to add more visual interest? Like these stars, for example, instead of one single star, there are stars with different sizes, stars turned at different angles, stars with different stroke sizes, and a layer of stars was added to the top for even more color. How can you combine the tools and techniques in Adobe Illustrator to your motifs for excitement and interest? Learning all these tools can be overwhelming. Make a list of the tools. Spend time using each one to become more familiar with it and what it can do. Learn its keyboard shortcut. Use the practice sheets in the projects and resources section as a great place to start. Let's start building up your creative muscles. 12. Bonus Lesson One: Adding Background Color to a Pattern Swatch: When you use Adobe Illustrator to create a pattern swatch with the pattern tool, it doesn't create a colored background. This always stumped me until I figured out how to add a color background. I thought it might be helpful lesson for you to have in your arsenal of tools as well. Let's start with making a quick pattern using the pattern tool. Select the four stars. Then at the top, go to object. Then pattern. Then make the pattern tool pops open and you can adjust the pattern in here. Play around with the settings, including width and height until the objects are aligned the way you desire. When you're happy, click done at the top. This will close the pattern tool and automatically drop the pattern swatch into your swatches panel. To access the pattern, click on the image of it in the Swatches panel. You can see how it shows up in the fill boxes above. Click on the top fill box and drag straight down without releasing the mouse button. Drop the pattern swatch onto the artboard. The pattern and the objects in it are all currently grouped to change the background color, ungroup the objects. Do this by selecting them all and choose object, group, or use the Control Shift G or Alt if you're on a Mac. Find the box that is around the objects, which is the bounding box of the pattern. Select it and choose a color. Because you just added color, that box is no longer holding the pattern in place. Copy the colored box by using control or Alt C, And then using control or Alt B for paste behind. This will keep those boxes perfectly aligned. Before clicking anything else, go to the Swatches panel and remove the color fill in the fill box. Now the bounding box is back in place. Select that whole group and drag it to the swatches panel. Now, let's take a look at the difference. The first pattern with no color in the background, and then switch to the second pattern with color in the background. Simple and quick. And, quite honestly, I'm kicking myself for how long it took me to figure this out. I hope this helps you out a ton. 13. Bonus Lesson Two: Keyboard Shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts are a pretty essential time saver when using Adobe Illustrator. At first, they are weird and uncomfortable. But as you continue to get familiar with them, they become second nature. I mean, I've gotten so used to them. I try using those shortcuts and program like word. It doesn't work. In the class resources section, you will find a free downloadable and printable keyboard shortcut chart. It's a small printout that can be kept next to your computer as you work. For me, this was the most helpful tool as I grew in my Adobe Illustrator proficiency. The biggest reason for getting comfortable with not only the basic tools we've covered in this class, but also with the keyboard shortcuts is the fact that when you stop focusing on process, your brain and your creativity can flow. The work on making a pattern becomes second nature. This allows your eyes to see the pattern and where the pattern needs to go. You can begin to develop and find your signature style and find ways to innovate and be a unique voice. 14. Class Wrap Up: We've only scratched the surface of the ways to use the tools in Adobe Illustrator to elevate your pattern designs. These lessons are starting point for your imagination, creativity, and heart. Use your new knowledge from these lessons to find 1 million more ways to create stunning patterns that let your true creativity shine. I cannot wait to see what you design in the class project section. Be sure and share your project with the rest of the students in the class and inspire us all. For more tips, patterns, and inspiration, join me on Instagram. I would love for you to be a part of my little community there. You can find me at Sincerely yours Kimberly. And if you share any parts of your projects on social media, be sure to tag me because I would love to share your creativity with others. If you enjoy this class, please leave a review, and also give me a follow so you're notified whenever I post a new class. Thank you for taking this class. I hope that you are inspired and more confident for the next time you start a new pattern. Ah.