Isometric Cube Pattern in Adobe Illustrator - A Graphic Design for Lunch™ Class

1. Graphic Design for Lunch Cube Pattern Introduction: Hello, I'm Helen Bradley. Welcome to this graphic design class, create an isometric cube pattern in Adobe Illustrator. Graphic design for Lunch is a series of classes that teach a range of tips and techniques for creating designs and for working in applications such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and Procreate. Today, we're looking at creating a cube pattern in all versions of Illustrator. I'm going to cover everything, including CS4, CS5 CS6 and CC. They're going to be different techniques for each of these applications because of the tools that you do or do not have available to you, but we're going to deal with all of that. As you're working through these videos, you're going to see a prompt which lets you recommend this class to others. Please, if you're enjoying the class, give it a thumbs up. These recommendations help me get my classes in front of more people, who just like you, want to learn more about Illustrator. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do so. I read and respond to all of your comments that I look at, and respond to all of your class projects. If you're ready now, let's get started creating this cube pattern in Illustrator. 2. Pt 1 - Make The Cube: To create our queue pattern, we're going to start with a new document File and then New. My Documents, 1000 by 600 pixels RGB color mode. The really critical setting here is this one, do not enable a line new objects to pixel grid. You want this checkbox disabled. Of course you can see it by just clicking, open this advanced panel and click "Okay". Now I'm going to draw a hexagon. It shares a toolbar position here with a rectangle tool, and it's a polygon tool that we'll draw our hexagon for us. So I'm going to click on the polygon tool, I'm going to click once in my document because that lets me set up how many sides and the radius. Six sides and a radius of 200 is just fine, so I'll click "Okay." Now I'm going to flip my default stroke and fill color, so I have a fill and I'm going to turn off my stroke. I'm also going to target my fill and just find a slightly lighter color to work with for now. With the selection tool I've just selected on the shape, what I wanted to do next is to rotate it so it sits on one of these points. So with it selected, I'm going to choose Object, Transform, Rotate. This rotation is a very simple rotation that rotates any shape around its center point. We're going to rotate this around 30 degrees, turn preview on so you can see what it looks like and then just click "Okay." Now we've got our hexagon shape, which is the basis of our pattern, we need to draw some lines through it. For this I'm going to the pen tool, I'm going to click on the Pen Tool, I'm going to with the shape not selected. So I don't want to change the properties of this shape, but I just want to change the properties for my new object. I'm going to flip, fill, and stroke. So it has no fill, it does have a stroke, but I want the stroke to be something that's going to contrast with this shakes or need to be able to see what I'm doing effectively. So let's actually go and get a red. So with the pen tool that's going to hover outside and above this shape. I want to be above this point and the smart guide should help you there, and if they don't work, it's fine we're going to sort that out in a minute. So I'm going to click once and I'm going down here well underneath the shape holding the shift case, so I create a perfectly straight line and click once again. Then I'm going to move out of the way, hold the Control or Command K and just click once and that just stops the pen tool from drawing. So we've got a pen line. We need to make sure before we progress that it's actually centered right above this shape. So we're going to the selection tool, we're going to select both these objects, and then we're going to the Align panel because we need to set some options here. So if you don't see your Align panel here, go and choose Window Align. Then open up this little flyout menu, choose Show Options, and we're going to align to selection, so that these two shapes and are going to be aligned to each other. All we need to do is to click here Horizontal Align Center. That's going to make sure that this line is aligned perfectly over the center line. Then we're going to click here on Vertical Align Center, that's important too, because we want the centers of both these objects to be exactly in the same place. Now you can click away from the shape, select your line without moving it, you're going to choose Object, Transform, Rotate. This time we're going to rotate it 60 degrees. With Preview turned on, you can see what it looks like and just click "Copy" because that makes a duplicate of the line and rotates it. Then you can do and undo that again, Object, Transform, Rotate, the settings are exactly the same as they were just click copy, and then you can click away. So we have three dividing lines now which divide up our hexagon. We're going to use the shape builder tool. Now the shape builder tool was new in Illustrator CS5, if you're using CS4 or early, I'm going to add a video in the very end of this to show you how you can do that in CS4, but let's assume that you're working in CS5 or later, you're going to selection tool, you're going to select over all of these shapes and you're going here to the shape builder tool, so I'm going to click on that once. The shape builder tool allows you to join things together to make shapes. So you can see here that we've got two triangles and there's two here, and two here. These are the ones we want to join, so with the shape builder tool, you just going to click and drag across the two shapes that you want to join together, and then click and drag across these two to join them into a single shape, and then do the same over here. So now we've got our shapes, now we don't need these lines here so we can hold the alt key and just click on the lines that we don't want. That will just remove those, the Alt or the Option key if you're using a Mac. So now we have our three shapes, they're just shapes, so they've lost all their properties. There's no stroke and no fill. But we can solve that by going to the selection tool then we can select on each of these shapes in time. Now if you can't see your shapes, just go to the Layers panel, and you should have three shapes in here. So we're going to start by selecting the top one, which is this one here. This is going to be our darkest shape, so we're going to target the fill color double-click, and we're going to choose a color for this side, so this is going to be the darkest of our color. So I'm going to choose a blue here, and it's now a filled shape. Now let's go to one of the side panels, this one here. Now this is going to be the lightest of our panels, but because I want them to color coordinate, I'm going to select the Eyedropper tool. I'm going to click on this shape. So I'm using the exact same color as a starting point. Now if I double-click on this color, I can go and get a lighter version of it. So I'm just going to go up here and get a light version. Then we're going to the last of our three paths, which is this one over here, and it's going to be a mid time somewhere between these two colors. So with it selected and with the fill targeted here, I have my eyedropper tool, I'm just going to go and get the same color, double-click on it and choose a color that's somewhere between the two of them. Say something like about this color here. So I have a light, medium, and dark. So at this point we've got the basic shape from which we can make our pattern, but what you do next is going to depend on what version of the Illustrator you're using. If you're using Illustrator CS6 or CC the most recent versions, then you have a tool called Pattern Make that you can use to make your pattern, and so we're going to look at that in the next video. If you're using Illustrator CS5 or earlier, then you have to do it a different way. So I have a separate video for CS4 and CS5 users, so you should identify that in the video list and go straight to that video, and we're going to pick up from this point forward. 3. Pt 2 Make the Pattern Illustrator CS6 and CC: If you're using Illustrator CS6 or CC, you're now ready to create your pattern. So go to the selection tool and select over the cube, choose object, pattern, make. If you don't have this option, you will need to skip forward to the next video because you're using a different version of illustrator. As soon as you click, Make you can click Okay, to just add the new pattern to your swatches panel, but you need to configure your pattern because right now there's a big hole in the middle of it. That's because the tile type is not correct. Open up this panel and choose Hex by Row, and Hex by Row creates a perfect tile for this particular cube pattern. You're done with this dialogue, you don't need to make any other changes to it. Don't be concerned that your pattern tiles might look light that's just a function of what you're seeing on the screen, it's not going to affect the final pattern. You can look at the little preview in here that's more indicative of what your pattern is going to look like. But since you're finished in this dialog, you can go ahead now and just click Done. You're left with your cube here and you have a new pattern in your pattern swatches. I'm going to go out and get my cube, I am just going to move it out of the way because we don't need it right now. I'm coming back here, I'm going to add a rectangle the size of my artboard. I'm going to click the rectangle tool, my artboard was a 1000 pixels by 600 pixels. You make yours any size that you like, but I decide to cover my artboard up. I'm going to the Align panel and I'm going to align to the artboard this time, select my shape, and then center the shape on the artboard. At the moment it has a blue fill, and you can see that fill is the targeted one of these swatches. That's exactly what I want, so I'm going to the swatches panel. I'm just going to click once on the pattern that I created and that's added the pattern to the shape. Now we've got some fracture lines through this pattern. They'll probably disappear when we re-size it. I'm going to choose Object Transform Scale, and I'm going to disable transform objects, I don't want to transform this rectangle, what I do want to do is to make my pattern a little bit smaller. I'm actually going to take it down to about 50 percent, and click Okay. It appears that the fracture lines, these fine white lines that sometimes you get through your patterns in illustrator have now disappeared. If you find that your fracture lines are still there, re-select your shapes, choose Object, Transform, Scale, Set your scale back to a 100 percent because that'll take it back to what it was when you came into this dialogue, and then just adjust the scale down one percent at a time until the fracture lines disappear. Now if the fracture lines still persist, there's another option you can use. Before you save your pattern ready for use, go to Edit and then Preferences and General. On a Mac you would choose Illustrator Preferences General, and you want to reset this setting here, you want to disable Anti-aliased Artwork and click Okay. You might find that your shapes are a little pixelated, but since you're saving them, probably as a JPEG image to make fabric or scrapbook paper or something out of, that won't be an issue. But just be aware that that can help you get rid of the fracture lines that sometimes you get through patterns in Illustrator. It's an ongoing problem that's been a problem in Illustrator for years at something Adobe has not addressed, and it's just something we have to find workarounds and solutions for. There is your cue pattern here in Illustrator. If you're finishing up with this class at this point, your class project is going to be to create this pattern for yourself and to post an image of your completed pattern in the class project area. I hope you've enjoyed this class and that you've learned something about creating patterns in Illustrator. As you're working through these videos, you will have seen a prompt to give it a thumbs up. Please if you're enjoying the class, give it a thumbs up and write a few words about why you enjoy the class. These recommendations help other students discover my classes and to ascertain whether they too might enjoy them. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do so. I read and respond to all of your comments, I look at and respond to all of your class projects. My name's Helen Bradley, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Graphic Design For Lunch, and I look forward to seeing you in an upcoming episode soon. 4. Pt 3 Make the Pattern Illustrator CS5 and earlier: If you're using Illustrator CS5 or CS4 or earlier, we're now going to create the pattern in those applications. To start off with, I'm going to select over this shape and group everything. Choose Object and then Group. That makes it a single shape. I'm also going to shrink it. I'm going to hold the Shift key as I just drag down to make it a bit smaller because it's going to be a little bit easier to work with. I need a couple of copies of this shape, so I'm going to hold the Alt or Option key as I drag a duplicate away. I'm just going to place it down here, roughly in line, and now I'm going to Alt-drag to create a second version of it. Now, this is the point at which it's really critical that you didn't have that Align New Objects to Pixel grid enabled because Illustrator really would make a big mess of this. But we're going to make sure that everything is aligned perfectly. Select over both of these shapes and go to the Align panel. You're going to open up this align to option and choose Align to Key Object. It doesn't matter which of your objects has this blue line around it, this heavy blue line, just that one of them has it. You're going to set zero pixels in the spacing and just click once to horizontally distribute space. What that does, is it just aligns these two objects up along the edge, so they are perfectly aligned. We're going to select over these two and group those. Object, Group. Then, we're going to make a duplicate of this. I'm going to hold Alt or Option and just move a duplicate up here. What we want to end up with is something that looks like this. We need to make sure that everything is nicely centered because we made a group out of this, and a group out of this, and a group out of this. If we select all three of them and go to Align To Selection, we can just click once here on Horizontal Align Center, and that just makes sure that everything is nicely center-aligned. That's critical to this working. If you've got everything aligned nicely, and you can zoom in here a bit to check and just make sure that everything looks like it's aligned really neatly, then you're ready to go ahead and to create your pattern pace. I'm just going to press Control or Command zero just to zoom back out. Now, to create our pattern pace, we need to take a slice of this document that goes from here, across to here, all the way down here to this point, across here and back up. We're going to make a rectangle. I'm going to click on the "Rectangle" tool, and I'm going to make a no fill, no stroke rectangle. It's going to be easier to work that way. I'm going to hold my mouse pointer over this anchor point here, and I'm going to click and drag. I want to go all the way out to here, and then all the way down to here, and I'm using the smart guides to line everything up. That will be really helpful. Once you've got your shape, just click away. Now, you can go through the last panel, and you can select your rectangle, and then just double-check that it's in the right place. I'm just going to zoom in to make sure that it's lined up over these points here. If it's not lined up over those points, then just choose the Selection tool and make sure it is lined up. Looks pretty good here and pretty good here. It looks fine down here. I think I've got a good selection there. I'm going to press Control or Command zero to move back out. At the moment, my no fill, no strike rectangle is at the very top of the last stack. To make a pattern, we have to put this at the bottom. We need to have it underneath everything that we want to be part of our pattern. I'm just dragging it in the layers panel, so it sits underneath everything. Then I'm going to select the whole lot, all of these cubes and my no fill, no stroke rectangle. I'm going to open up my Swatches palette, and I want to locate the place where I have swatches. If you don't have all your swatches visible, just click on this option here and choose Show All Swatches because this is the place that I need to drag my pattern. It won't go into a color group here, but it will go in here. With the selection tool selected, I'm going to click and drag it and drop it right up here in the swatches panel, and that makes a pattern out of this shape. Now, I've finished with this shape, but just in case I made a mistake, I'm just going to move it all out of the way. I'm just going to take it off the very edge of the artboard here. I'm going back to my artboard. I'm going to make a rectangle the size of the artboard. It's 1,000 pixels by 600 pixels in size. Click "Okay." At the moment, it's no fill, no stroke, but you'll see that the fill is the activated swatch here. I'm going to the align panel. I'm going to align to artboard, and click the center option. This no fill, no stroke shape is now centered over my artboard. I'm going to click Open the Swatches panel and just click to fill it with my pattern swatch, and you can see here that the pattern swatch is just beautiful. It's working just perfectly. Let's go to the Selection tool. Object, Transform, Scale. This will allow us to make the pattern a little smaller. We need to disable transform objects. We don't want to transform the rectangle, we just want to transform the pattern. I want to bring my pattern down to about 50 percent and click "Okay." There you have the cube pattern created in Illustrator CS5 and CS4 and earlier versions. Of course, you can also create a pattern this way in later versions of Illustrator. It's just that the pattern make tool makes many patterns in Illustrator a little bit easier to make, and certainly, this one is one of them. If you're using Illustrator CS5 or earlier, your project for this class is going to be to go and make this pattern in your version of Illustrator, post a picture of your finished pattern in the class project area, and tell me if you're using one of these earlier versions of Illustrator, because if you are, you really deserve extra kudos for making this pattern, and I'd like to give that to you. As you're working through these videos, you will have seen a prompt to recommend the class to others. Please, if you're enjoying the class, give it a thumbs up. These recommendations help me get my classes in front of more people who, just like you, want to learn more about Illustrator. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do so. I read and respond to all of your comments. I look at, and I respond, to all of your class projects. My name's Helen Bradley. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Graphic Design for Lunch, and I look forward to seeing you in an upcoming episode soon. 5. Pt 4 - Make the Cube in Illustrator CS4 and earlier: If you're using Illustrator CS4 or early, you don't have the shape build at all. So you're going to come in here, you've got your lines all created and your shape. I'm going to make sure that everything is centered because this is really critical. So go to the Align panel, make sure you have aligned to selection selected, and make sure that everything is centered horizontally and vertically. Because that means that these lines are now going to intersect this shape perfectly. I'm going to select over everything. So I have selected all the three lines and the hexagon. I'm going through the Pathfinder palette. If you don't see it here, just choose window and then Pathfinder, and we're going to click here on divide. That's going to use these lines to divide up the shape underneath. If we go to the last pallete, you'll say that you've got a group here with six objects. Now you might have an extra dot or two, don't worry about those, but basically what you're looking for, is these six colored objects. So I'm going to select my group, so click here, and I'm going to choose Object Ungroup, because they don't need them in a group at this stage. Now with my Selection Tool, I'm going to select over this bottom corner and that selects these two objects. They're going to create one panel of our cube. So with them selected, we're going back to the Pathfinder and we're going to click Unite, and that just makes them into one shape, and then we can fill them with our color. Now this is going to be the lightest colors. I've already got some colors here that I can use. Click away. Go back to your Selection Tool, select this time over this corner. So you grab these two shapes here and unite those and fill them with color. So we're going to go, in this case, for our second to darkest color. So I'm just going to choose this one here, and then these two shapes here. Again, in the Pathfinder, you're going to unite them and then you're going to color them with your darkest color. So this is now the cube that you need to create your pattern and you'll need to look out for Part 3 of this series. Part 3 of this series is making the pattern for Illustrator CS5 and earlier, and that's the one that you'll need to watch.