Learn Adobe Illustrator CC : Master the Basics

1. Introduction : Hi, everyone. My name is Geetanjali, I'm an artist, illustrator, surface pattern designer, and Thangka painter based in Goa, India. Welcome to my class. If you're new here, I would like to tell that this is the second class in the series of 'how to take a creative approach to patterns'. In this class, we will go through everything you need to know in order to get started with Adobe Illustrator CC. There are various classes about Adobe Illustrator basics. Initially, I wanted to create a class just to share my own workflow. But then I realized, even to share my workflow, it's better if I first share my approach to the program and how I see the tools. Because there are so many ways of doing a certain thing in Illustrator. Also, my approach towards pattern design has changed a lot in the last few years. With the new updates from Adobe, Illustrator has become much more than a vector artwork design program. I use Illustrator for every single pattern I create. And I also keep combining Illustrator with other programs like Adobe Photoshop and Procreate to get the desired results. This class is designed for people who are completely new to Illustrator or if you need a refresher in the basics. Though this class includes general information on all the tools and features, I have given special emphasis on what is more helpful in the pattern design process. So without any further ado, let's get started with our first lesson. 2. Class Overview and Project: Hi everyone. Before we begin, let's have a quick look at what you can expect from this class. We will start with the introduction to Illustrator. Then learn about creating a new document and the workspace overview. Then we will understand the vector shapes and free transform, document overview. Next we will discuss the fill and stroke color. How to transform, arrange, align, and distribute multiple objects. About group, lock, hide, and isolation mode. Then we'll start with the selection tools. Essential drawing tools like pen and curvature tool. Freeform drawing tools like pencil, brush, and blob brush tool, shape builder tool and path finder, then type tool. Next we will learn about the eraser, knife, and scissor tool. Then we'll discuss the eyedropper, gradient, and mesh tool, the swatches panel, some smart drawing tools like width, blend, and repeat tool. We will also learn what is expand and expand appearance, compound path and clipping mask, different ways of working with raster files in Illustrator. Finally how to save export and export files for screens. I have also included a small visual demonstration that will help you with the class project. Your project for this class is to learn Illustrator tools and practice them regularly. You can use the practice sheets provided in the resources. Once you're comfortable using the tools, design a vector artwork using your own hand-drawn sketch, or you can use the reference I have uploaded. Your project artwork should include at least one or more effects and attributes like brush, stroke style, blend, gradients or clipping mask. Once ready, feel free to share your artwork in the student's project gallery. I have included various practice sheets, list of keyboard shortcuts, and some templates which will help you follow along the lessons. You can download them from the resources gallery. I'm really excited to see what you create. Let's get started with our first lesson. 3. Introduction to Adobe illustrator: Today we have various design programs available that can be used to create and edit digital artwork. Adobe Illustrator is one of the most popular graphic design application that is used to create vector graphics, illustrations, posters, patterns, logos, and much more. Its native file format is AI, that stands for Adobe Illustrator, and some of the other most common file formats are: PDF, EPS, and SVG. The vector images and graphics created using Illustrator are made up of points, lines, shapes, and curves based on mathematical formulas, rather than a set amount of pixels. You can create very simple to complex artworks in Illustrator, and since it's vector-based, the artwork can be scaled to any size without losing quality. But in my opinion, Illustrator is a complete package where not only you can create high-quality graphics, but also use some of it's amazing editing features and combine with other programs to make your design process a lot more efficient. Illustrator provides various drawing and editing tools using which you can create artwork with different styles. Here are some of my favorite styles. Creating a flat color artwork using just solid blocks of color to define shapes. Creating a more loose and hand-drawn style using the free form drawing and painting tools. Using gradient to add more dimension to the artwork, adding multiple textures and blending modes to add more depth. Creating precise and complex geometric patterns using repeat tool features. Creating unique artwork using editable custom brushes. Using Live Trace feature to convert your hand-drawn or hand painted artwork into a vectorized style. Playing around with the type tool to create beautiful typography art, and finally, adding some cool 3D effects like inflate, emboss, drop shadow, and more which results in a three-dimensional artwork. Once you learn the fundamentals of this program, you can play around and figure out which styles you would like to explore more, or you can even come up with something completely new and even more interesting. The possibilities are just endless, so without any further ado, let's get started with our first lesson. 4. Creating a New Document : I'm working on the Illustrator latest version. But most of the things you will find same if you are using the Adobe Illustrator CC version. You can also download the trial version from the link in resources. Once you open Illustrator, click on this "Home" icon and you will see the home screen. Right now, it's on my homepage where I can see my recent files. On the left, you have file settings where you can create a new file or open an existing file. When you click on "Learn", you get to watch the tutorial videos by Adobe. Next option is Files. These settings are for Adobe Cloud users, where you can save and share your files online. Coming back to Homepage. To create a new document, either click on "New". You can also go to File and click "New" or press Control or Command N on your keyboard. This will lead to the New Document window. Here you can see the different file presets available. Illustrator offers a number of file presets and templates to choose from depending on your project. On the right, you can customize these settings. Let's see the preset details. You can start by giving the document a name. I'll name it as illustrator basics. Select the measuring unit from this dropdown menu, and enter the required width and height for the document. For surface pattern design, people normally use inch or pixels. Let's keep it 10 by 10 inch for now. Next we can choose the orientation from here as portrait or landscape. Here you can choose the number of artboards. Illustrator allows you to work on multiple artboards within the same document and they can all be of different sizes and dimensions. For now, I'll keep it as one since we can edit this later as well. Bleed is taken into consideration when you want to get your artwork printed. As the printer sometimes might shift a little while printing or cutting and that will result in getting a white line on the edge. To avoid that, we normally put the artwork in such a way that it extends the art board by a little bit to bleed. Most printers will tell you how much bleed they need and you can design accordingly. When you are designing artwork for surface pattern, it is designed as a time that repeats endlessly and the print size always depends on the end product. so Here the bleed will be zero. Now let's move on with the advanced options. Here you get to select the color mode, which you can keep as CMYK or RGB depending on your project. For now, I'll keep it as RGB. Resolution or the Raster Effects is taken into consideration. When you are using a raster image in your document. Or you want to upload or export your file for web or print. For web use, like uploading on a website or online portfolio, you can keep it at a minimum 72 dpi. For print purpose, go for 150 dpi or higher. Let's keep the preview mode as default for now, we will discuss this in upcoming lesson. One thing to note about Illustrator is that all these settings are editable even after creating the document. Now click "Create". Let's see where we can find and edit all these settings in an existing document. To change the file name. Go to File, Save As, or Save a copy, you can enter the new name here. To change the document size and unit, go to File, select Documents Setup, and you can change the units and bleed value here. To edit the artboard size. Click on the "Edit Artboard". and Now in the Properties panel, you can edit the width and height here. Click on this icon to lock the proportions. You can also simply drag the corners to resize the artboard. You can change the artboard name here. To add more artboard, click on this "Plus" icon. To delete an art board, click on this "Delete" icon with the artboard selected. Click here to change the orientation. Click on the "Rearrange All" button to arrange the artboards. Click "Exit" to return. Now to change the document color mode, go to file document color mode, and choose CMYK or RGB. To change the resolution, go to Effects, choose document raster effects settings and here you can change it. Click on this "Home" icon to go back to the home screen and this small arrow to go back to your document. Finally, to close and open document, click on this small "x" or go to file and select Close. In the next lesson, we will discuss about the workspace 5. Workspace Overview: You can create and manipulate your document and files using various elements, such as panels, bars, and windows. Any arrangement of these elements is called a workspace. The workspace in illustrator can be separated in various parts, and knowing them will help you make the most of it. Everything you see on screen right now can be customized and moved around. On the very top, we have the header. Here you will find all the menu. There are multiple ways of doing a certain actions in Illustrator, and most of them you can find in the menu. On the right, we have the application header with options like share documents, where you can now quickly invite people to your document when you have it saved as a Cloud document. Here and you can search and discover new tips and tutorials. Next is the arrange document icon. Click this icon to arrange all your open documents in grids and tile formats. For example, I'll open another new document, keep the settings as default for this. Now we have two documents open. With arrange document, I can choose the display of these two documents on my screen. With the two up option, I can work on the two documents side-by-side. Similarly, when you have multiple documents open, you can choose the display option from here. Let's close this file by clicking on this X. Next we have switch workspace icon. Click this icon to view different workspace options. Illustrator provides different workspace presets for different work flows based on your project. You can even customize and save your own workspace. For now, let's select essentials classic preset, just so we are both on the same page. Below that we have the control bar. It is one of the most helpful elements of the workspace, and its content will change depending on the object or tool you have selected. Next, we have the document tab. You can arrange multiple document tab layouts from here and work on them simultaneously. On the left side, we have the toolbar, which contains all the tools in Illustrator. If you hover the mouse over a tool, Illustrator will show you the tools name, it's keyboard shortcut, and a small video explaining what the tool does. If you see a small arrow on the corner of the tool, you can click and hold to open up similar tools. For example, clicking and holding on the rectangle tool opens up a menu containing similar tools like rounded rectangle, ellipse, polygon, and more. Click on the Edit toolbar icon, which is the three dots at the bottom to view the complete list of tools. Tools in Illustrator are divided into six categories based on their application. Select, Draw, Type, Paint, Modify, and Navigate. On the right side, we have panels. Illustrator has several different panels, and they are all used to perform different actions like color, gradient, swatches, brushes and more. They can all be opened through the window menu. Panels can be expanded or collapsed using the arrow symbol on the top right corner, and arrow symbol within each panel. You can add, remove, or move panel as per your preference. To remove a panel, right-click on its tab and select close. To add a panel select it from the window menu and dock it wherever you want. To move a panel, drag it by its tab. To move a panel group, drag the title bar. To Stack floating panels, drag a panel by its tab to the drop zone at the bottom of another panel. To change the stacking order, drag a panel up or down by its tab. Next we have is the properties panel, which lets you view settings and controls in the context of your current task or workflow. It's quite similar to the control bar. When nothing is selected, the properties panel display the art board settings. The properties panel is available by default in the essentials workspace. You can also select Windows, choose Properties to view it. At the bottom of the workspace, we have the status bar, it shows the zoom level, selected art board, and selected tool. and Finally in the center of all, is the art board, the white rectangle, is the size of art board that we have selected while creating the document. We can also customize the user interface setting. To do that, go to Illustrator in Mac or edit in Windows. Now select Preferences and choose User Interface. You can choose one of the following color options, dark, medium dark, medium light, or light. You can also choose the canvas color to either match brightness, which will set the color of the canvas to selected brightness level or you can choose white. To adjust the tool icon size, click and drag here. Now once you have customized the workspace, to save it, go to Window. Now choose Workspace and select New Workspace, enter a name and click OK. The names of the saved workspaces appear in the workspace switcher in the application bar. You can use this workspace for any document. In the next lesson, we will understand the basic vector shapes and how to transform them 6. Vector Shapes and Free Transform: Before we begin, I would like to change our toolbar setting to basic. To do that, go to Window menu, choose toolbars, and now select Basic instead of Advanced. You will notice we have a much simpler toolbar now. This is enough to get familiar with the tools in Illustrator and create any artwork. Once you get an understanding of these basic tools, you can change it back to advance and explored the other tools. You can even customize your own toolbar. Now before we get into the tools, it's important to understand vector shapes. All the vector shapes are made up of paths and anchor points. Now what is a path? As you draw, you create a line called a path. A path is made up of one or more straight or curved segments. It could be an open path, which is a connected series of line segments where the start and end points are not joined with each other, or it could be a closed path where the start and end points are joined together to form a shape. Now what is an anchor point? Anchor points mark the end points of the path segments. On curve segment, each anchor point displays one or two direction lines ending in direction points. The positions of direction lines and points determines the shape of the curved segment. Moving these elements reshapes the curve in a path. Smooth curves are connected by anchor points called smooth points. Sharply curved paths are connected by corner points. When you move a direction line on a smooth point, the curved segment on both sides of the point at adjusted simultaneously, but when you move a direction lines on a corner point, only the curve on the same side of the point as the direction line is adjusted. Uniform or simple shapes will have the minimum number of anchor points that is required to create that shape. For example, a straight line will have two anchor points, a triangle will have three, a rectangle will have four, a circle will have four, and so on. To add more movement or curve to the path, we need to add more anchor points. To make the path visible, we can either use a fill color, stroke color, or both. Next we'll see how we can transform a path or shape. We will understand this using some simple shapes. Since we have a tool for that, let's begin with the rectangle tool. You can find this in the toolbar on the left and the keyboard shortcut for rectangle tool is M. To select the tool, click on the Rectangle tool or press M on your keyboard. Now to draw a rectangle, all you need to do is click on the Artboard. A small window will appear, and here you can enter the dimensions for the width and height of the rectangle, and click OK. Another way is to hold and drag to draw a rectangle. Holding Shift while dragging will make it a perfect square. To draw another shape, click and hold on the Rectangle tool and now choose ellipse tool or press L on your keyboard. Click to enter values or drag to draw freehand. Holding Shift while dragging will make it a perfect circle. For polygon tool, you can choose the number of sides by selecting the tool and clicking on the Artboard. Enter the value here. If you just select the tool and drag to draw, it will use the settings of the last used polygon shape. To draw a straight line, select the Line Segment tool from the list and just click and drag. Holding Shift will constrain the movement by a multiple of 45-degree. Now we have few shapes on our artboard. Let's understand the free transformation using these shapes. For that we will use another tool, which is the selection tool, and it is also one of the most used tool in Illustrator. You can find this tool in the toolbar as the black arrow. The keyboard shortcut for selection tool is V. This tool is used to select entire object. With this tool, you can hold and drag the object to move around. Click on an object to select the entire object. Hold Shift and click on multiple objects to add to selection. Clicking once will select the object and clicking again will deselect it. When you click on an object a bounding box appears around it, which helps to transform the object. Now when you hover the cursor around the corner, you will notice a small two-sided arrow switching between a straight diagonal and rounded shape. When it is diagonal, you can click and drag the bounding box to scale the object. Holding Shift while dragging will keep the proportions locked. Remember when the object has no fill, you can also select it by clicking inside as the area is empty. Either click on the stroke, or click and drag over the outline to select the object. Now when it is rounded, you can hold and rotate the object in clockwise or anticlockwise direction. Holding Shift while rotating will constrain the rotation by a multiple of 45 degree. You can also stretch or flip the object by holding and dragging the sides of the bounding box. To make a copy of the object, just select the object and now hold Alt on PC or Option key on Mac, and drag it. Release the mouse before releasing the Alt or Option key. You can also go to edit copy and then choose an option from paste in front, back, in place or based on all artboards. To delete an object, select the object and press Delete on your keyboard, or you can go to Edit and choose cut or clear. Another amazing feature here is the live corners. You can select one or more corner points in your artwork. When selected, a live corner widget appears next to each corner point. Dragging the widget causes the corner points to change shape into one of the three available corner types that are round, inverted round and chamfer. To use the light corner widget, select the shape and drag the live corners. When you hold Alt on PC or Option key on Mac and click on the live corners, it shuffles between the three options. We can also use this to individual or selective anchor points using another most commonly used tool called direct selection tool or the white arrow. You can find this in the toolbar, and the keyboard shortcut for this tool is A. With the direct selection tool, click on an anchor point to select only that anchor point. Hold Shift and click on another anchor point to add to selection. Now, edit the live corner widgets accordingly. Keep in mind, live corner only works on the corner points. Use this reference image to practice the life Corner Widget features. In the next lesson, we will discuss some of the basic document properties 7. Document Overview: Now that we have understood our workspace and basic vector shapes, let's discuss a little about the document overview, as it will be really helpful while creating any artwork in Illustrator. The first one is the properties panel. Properties panel in Illustrator lets you view settings and controls in the context of your current task or workflow. If you don't see it, go to Window menu and select Properties. When no objects are selected in your documents and the Selection tool is selected. The properties panel displays controls related to the Artboard, ruler, grids, guides, snapping, and some commonly used preferences. In this state, the Properties panel displays quick action buttons that let you open the document setup and enter the Artboard editing mode. For any selection, the properties panel displays two set of controls, transformation and appearance controls like width, height, fill, stroke, opacity, etc. Dynamic controls that are available depending on the content of your selection. For example, you can adjust the character and paragraph settings of text objects. Next is the layer panel. You can find it in the panels or go to Window and select Layers. Layers panel is used to list, organize, and edit the objects in a document. By default, every new document contains only one layer, and each object you create is listed under that layer. However, you can create new layers and rearrange items as per your need. The Layers panel include a visibility column that indicates whether items in a layer are visible or hidden. The edit column that indicates whether items are locked or unlocked. The lock icon indicates that the item is locked and cannot be edited. A blank space indicates that the item is unlocked and can be edited. To change the layer name, Double-click on the text and edit it. Next is the target column, which indicates whether the items are targeted for application of effects and attributes. When you click on this item, a double ring appears, which means the layer is targeted. I can edit any attribute like opacity of the entire selection in the appearance panel. Lastly, we have the selection column that indicates a color box when one or more items on that layer are selected and disappears when nothing is selected. To create a new layer, click on the Plus icon at the bottom. To delete a layer, select and drag the layer to the Delete icon. There are a lot more actions available when you click on the Layers panel menu on top that you can explore later. But these are the most common actions and will be helpful while creating Artworks. Next, we have is the Appearance panel. If you don't see it, go to Window menu and select Appearance. Appearance panel is used to view and adjust the appearance attributes for an object, group, or layer. It is especially useful when you have to modify an effect applied on an object. For example, here I have a rectangle with drop shadow effect applied to it. Now, if I want to adjust the shadow settings, I can select the object and click on the Appearance panel. Here I can adjust the settings. Now let's check the ruler and smart guide settings. Illustrator provides separate rulers for documents and Artboards. You can select only one of these rulers at a time. The difference between Artboard rulers and Global Rulers is that if you select Artboard Rulers, the origin point changes based on the Artboard selected. Whereas the default origin point for Global Ruler is at the upper left corner of the first Artboard. To show or hide Rulers, choose View, Rulers, and select from here. To set the general unit of measurements for the current document or change the Ruler type. Right-click on the ruler bar and select from here. You can also edit it in the properties panel. Smart guides are temporary snap to guides that appear when you create or manipulate objects or Artboards. They help you align, edit, and transform objects or Artboard relative to other objects, Artboard or both. When you transform an object, smart guides automatically appear to assist transformation. To turn Smart Guides on or off, go to View, select Smart Guides and choose here. Next feature is the View mode. You can view your Artboard in four different ways. Use the outline mode when you are working on details. To do that, go to View and choose Outline from the overhead menu. The keyboard shortcut for Outline mode is command or control Y on your keyboard. It allows you to see whether the lines or objects are intersecting. Repeat the same keyboard shortcut, or click on Preview to return to Preview in color. Next is the Overprint preview. The keyboard shortcut for this is Alt Shift Control plus Y, or Option Shift Command plus Y. Before sending your artwork to print, you can preview how the colors, shadows, and other effects will look by choosing Overprint Preview. Choose the pixel preview when you want to see how your design will look on a web browser or once it's rasterized. The keyboard shortcut for this is Alt Control Y or Option Command Y. You can zoom in to see individual pixels. Finally, choose the Trim view option to view only the Artwork within the Artboard in Illustrator. GPU is the shortcut for graphics processing unit. It was designed to speed up the graphics rendering process. You can enable or disable GPU performance from the Illustrator application menu. Go to Preferences choose Performance and GPU Performance. With the latest version of Illustrator, the GPU Performance is enabled by default. If you see a lag in Illustrator performance due to your GPU card, you can either disabled GPU performance or change the preview mode to preview with CPU in Illustrator. Now finally, some keyboard shortcuts that we will use frequently while working in Illustrator. Zoom in and zoom out. You can find the Zoom tool in the toolbar or press Z on your keyboard. Click the area you want to zoom into one or more times. Or drag to zoom in within an area. To zoom out, Hold Alt on PC or Option key on Mac, and click or drag over the area. In case you have zoomed in or out too much, use Control or Command 0 on your keyboard to fit to Artboard. The hand tool lets you navigate through the canvas and Artboard in an Illustrator document. Click the Hand tool in the toolbar, or press H on your keyboard. Click and drag in any direction to move the Canvas around. You can also use Space key and drag. But in this case, the hand tool disappears once you release the space key. The Rotate view tool lets you change the Canvas view at any angle. Click and hold the Hand tool and select the Rotate View tool or press Shift plus H on your keyboard. Now, drag to rotate the canvas to desired angle. To undo an action, press Command or Control Z on your keyboard. To redo an action Shift Command Z or Shift Control Z on your keyboard. You can also go to Edit and select undo or redo. To De-select a tool, click on Selection tool or any other tool from the toolbar. In the next lesson, we will learn about Fill and Stroke color. 8. Fill and Stroke Color: The Fill and Stroke tool lets you add colors, patterns, or gradients inside an object or on its outline. Controls for setting the fill and stroke are available in the tools panel, the control panel, properties panel, and the swatches panel when the object is selected. To specify a color using the tools panel, double-click on the Fill button and select a color using the color picker. To select the color for the stroke, double-click on the Stroke button and select a color using the color picker. Click on the small arrow to swap colors between the fill and stroke. Click on this default button to return to default color setting, which is white fill and black stroke. Click on this color icon to apply the last selected solid color, on this gradient icon to change to last selected gradient, or on the none icon to remove the selected objects, fill or stroke. Remember the selection applies to whichever icon is on top out of the color or stroke. You can also specify color and stroke for a selected object by using the controls in the properties panel and the control panel. Click to open color panel or the swatches panel, and choose a color for the fill or stroke of the selected object. We will learn more about the swatches panel in the upcoming lesson. Let's understand the stroke panel now. You can find this in the control panel or open the stroke's panel. If you don't see it, go to window and select Stroke. We will use an open path and a closed path to understand the stroke properties. Now starting with the stroke weight, use this up and down arrows to adjust the stroke weight or choose a value from the drop-down menu or you can enter your own value. Next, you can choose different cap in the case of an open path, which will decide how a path ends. Corners are for joins or corner points in an open or closed path. You can choose from milter join, round join, or bevel join. Next is the stroke alignment. This is basically how the stroke is aligned to the vector path. This can make a huge difference when the stroke weight is more. You can choose from align stroke to center, align stroke to inside, or align stroke to outside. We can also use dashed line to enhance the stroke appearance. I use these a lot in my fashion technical drawings to draw stitch lines, embroidery effects, rib textures, and more. To create a dashed line, select this stroke and now select the Dashed Line option. You can enter same or different values in the dash and gap boxes and play around to get the desired result. It can also give a strip effect if the stroke weight is more, just like the rib texture shown in the example. Another variation of this is dotted lines. To create this effect, change the stroke cap to rounded and keep the dash value zero. Now adjust the gap relative to the stroke weight and this will create a dotted line. Make sure to check the two boxes on the right to see how you would like the corners to look. Next option is arrowheads. Select the path and you can choose arrowheads for one or both sides in the same or different designs from the drop-down menu. You can also choose alignment of arrowheads tip from these two options. Another very interesting feature is the stroke profile. This is basically a stylized shape for the stroke and you can select any profile from the given set or create your own. Select one or more strokes and choose the profile to apply it to the selected strokes. Click on this icon to flip the effect. One more option that you see here is the brush. Now why it is include it in the control panel is because brushes have the properties of a stroke. All the drawing tools in Illustrator will either have fill property or stroke property. We'll discuss this in detail with each tool. Another simple yet important feature in strokes is in the Effect menu. You can choose a simple stroke and go to effect, choose distort and transform, and select Zigzag. Click here to adjust the size and ridges per segment. You can also make it rounded. There are a lot of other effects, but this could be really helpful in some projects. As I mentioned earlier, to edit the effects, go to Appearance panel with the object selected, and you can edit the settings here. In the next lesson, we will learn how to transform, arrange, align, and distribute multiple objects. 9. Transform, Arrange, Align and Distribute Objects: When you have multiple objects on your art board, you can transform, arrange, align, and distribute them, and create beautiful compositions. You can find these tools in the toolbar, object menu on top, or when you right-click on the object, and even in the properties panel when the object is selected. Let's start with the first transform tool, move. Now, the simplest way to do this, would be select the object using selection tool or press V on your keyboard, and drag the object around to move. But to move it by an exact distance like we do it in repeat patterns, would be moving it vertically or horizontally by a certain value. For example, I'll create a rectangle here, which is one by one inch. If I want to move it by one inch horizontally, what I need to do is select the object, now, go to Object, choose Transform, and Move. Now in the window, enter the horizontal value as one inch and keep the vertical value zero. To move the original copy, we can click "Okay" and if we want to create a copy, we can click on Copy. You can also move your object by selecting an angle and distance. Click on the Preview to see change in real time. To repeat an action, press Control or command D on your keyboard, which is the shortcut for transform again. Now, this transform object and pattern comes into picture when you have an object filled with a pattern. For example, let's fill the rectangle with the pattern from the swatches panel. Now, when I try to move my selection, these options are enabled but I can choose whether I want to move just the object, just the pattern fill, or both. With transform objects selected, you will notice the object when moved by an inch to the right, the pattern fill inside looks different. This is because the pattern fill inside is not moving and we see another section of the repeat pattern. Now, let's try with the select Transform Pattern option. In this case, the object remains at its place, but the pattern inside moves to the right. Finally, when both are selected, the objects move to the right along with the pattern, so it looks exactly the same. Next transform tool is rotate. The simplest way to rotate an object is by selecting the object and dragging the bounding box using the rounded arrow icon clockwise or anticlockwise. Hold Shift to restrict the rotation by a multiple of 45 degree. Another way is to open the rotate tool. The keyboard shortcut for rotate tool is R. Click once to select the tool and double-click to open the tool settings. You can also use the Object menu or right-click on the object to open the tool setting. In the dialog box, enter your desired value and chose to apply the changes to selected object or make a copy. You can also set the center of rotation, for example, with this rectangle selected, click on the Rotate tool, and now drag and place the center anywhere you wish. When you rotate the rectangle now, it will use the new center point. Holding Shift while dragging will constrain the angle to a multiple of 45 degree, and if you click Alt or Option key before releasing the mouse, it will make a copy. To repeat the action, press Command or Control D on your keyboard. Make sure to check the other options when you have an object with pattern fill. Next transform tool is reflect and the keyboard shortcut for Reflect tool is O. To reflect an object, you can just drag the bounding box to the other side but for a more controlled action, we can open the reflect tool by double-clicking on the reflect tool in the toolbar, or right-click on the object and select Transform, choose Reflect. Choose the axis from horizontal, vertical, or put any angle, and click Okay to reflect the selection or Copy to make a duplicate. It is quite similar to the rotate tool, where you can change the center of rotation by moving the center around. Select the object and click once on the reflect tool. Now, move the center to the new location and drag the object to reflect. Hold Alt before releasing the mouse to make a copy. Make sure to check the other options when using an object with pattern fill. Next transform tool is scale. The keyboard shortcut for scale tool is S. This tool, again, works in a pretty similar way, you can just hold and drag the bounding box to scale up or down, and holding Shift while dragging will keep the proportions locked. To scale the object more accurately click on the Scale tool and place the center to the desired location and now drag to scale up or down around that center. Hold Alt or Option key to make a copy. To open the scale tool Settings, double-click on the tool and enter a value less than 100 to scale down or more than 100 to scale up. Click Okay to apply the changes to the selection or Copy to make a duplicate. Here we have some extra options like scale corners, and strokes and effects. Let's understand this using an example. Here we have a rectangle with stroke weight 10 points. Now, if we want to scale it up by 200%, this will help us decide whether we want the object to have 10 points stroke weight even after resizing. Upon selecting Scale Strokes and Effects, the object will scale up proportionately. Similarly, for an object with rounded corners or any other corner widget applied, select this option to scale the corners proportionately. Check for the pattern scale option if your object has pattern fill in it. The last transform tool is shear. Select the object and click on the Shear tool. Place the center and now drag to shear the shape around that center. Hold Alt or Option key to make a copy. Double-click on the tool to open the settings, and in the dialog box, enter the desired values. Click Okay to apply the changes to selection or Copy to duplicate. There is another feature that is Transform Each, which is really helpful in pattern design. Here you can transform multiple objects with just one command for example, when we want to resize multiple objects, if I select them all and transform, it will treat the selection as one object. But when I choose Transform Each, it will transform each object separately. In this way, it's easier to modify the positive and negative space while designing a pattern. You can choose any action from here and click Okay or make a copy. Arrange is basically what objects comes on top or back when you have multiple objects overlapping on each other. You can select the object and go to Object, Arrange or right-click on the object, select Arrange, and choose from Bring to Front, Bring Forward, Send Backward, or Send to Back. Next we have is Align and Distribute. You can find these options in the object menu, control bar on top, and in the properties panel when the object is selected. To align multiple objects, there are three reference points. Align to art board, align to selection, and align to a key object. With the reference point as align to art board, when you click on an object and align it to the center, it will bring the object to the center of the art board but when you choose multiple objects and then align to center, it will bring all objects to the center of the selection area. Now, to align to a key object, we need to choose the key object first. To do that, select the objects, and now click once more on the key object. You will notice a highlight on the object. Now, when you select align to center, it will align all the objects to the center of the key object. You can select multiple objects and distribute them vertically or horizontally. Choose the reference point for the alignment. For example, two objects with different sizes can be aligned in different ways. In Vertical Distribute setting, you can keep it top, center, or bottom aligned. Similarly, for the Horizontal Distribute setting, it could be left aligned, center aligned, or right aligned. You can also combine distribute option with align to a key object and distribute the object at a specific distance from the key object. To do that, select the objects and now select the key object by clicking once more on that object. Now, in the distribute option, choose Alignment, and enter the value for distance. In the next lesson, we will learn about group, lock, hide, and isolation mode. 10. Group, Lock, Hide Objects and Isolation Mode: You can combine several objects into a group so that the objects are treated as a single unit. You can then move or transform a number of objects without affecting their attributes or relative position. To create a group of objects, select the objects and go to Object menu and select Group. You can also right-click on the selection and choose Group. Or use Command G on Mac and Control G on PC on your keyboard. To ungroup, select the group and use keyboard shortcut Shift Command G or Shift Control G. You can also go to Object menu on top and select Ungroup, or just right-click on the group and select Ungroup. Keep in mind that if you select objects in different layers and then group them, the objects are grouped in the layer of the topmost selected object. Groups can also be nested that is, They can be grouped within other groups to form larger groups. Locking objects prevents you from selecting and editing them. You can lock multiple objects, groups, and layers. To lock, select the objects or group of objects, and go to object menu chose lock selection. To unlock all objects in the document, choose object, unlock all. To lock the contents of a layer or sublayer, you can use the lock icon on layers panel. Click on it again to unlock. To hide or show objects or layers, choose object and hide selection. To show all objects, choose object and show all. Another way to hide one or more objects, in the layers panel, click on the eye icon next to the item you want to hide. Click again to redisplay the item. If you hide a layer or group, all items in that layer or group are hidden. To delete an object or group, select it and press Delete on keyboard. You can also choose Edit and select Cut or Clear. To delete objects using layers panel, select the layers with object and click on the "Delete" icon at the bottom, or select Delete Layer from the layers panel menu. If all the artwork is on one layer, you can choose the sub-layer with that item and then delete it. Next thing we need to understand is isolation mode. This happens sometimes when you double-click on an object by mistake. When you do that, everything except for the selection will look washed out and you won't be able to edit anything other than the selection. This is a really helpful feature as isolation mode isolates the object so that you can easily select and edit particular objects or parts of the object. The layers panel displays only the artwork in the isolated sub layer or group. When you exit isolation mode, the other layers and groups reappear in the layers panel. To isolate a path object or group, double-click on it using the selection tool, or select the group object or path, and click on the "Isolate Selected Object" button in the Control Panel, or right-click on the object and choose "Isolate Selected Path". You can also select the object in the layers panel and choose "Enter Isolation Mode" from the layers panel menu. When you exit isolation mode, press escape on your keyboard, or click exit isolation mode one or more times or click anywhere in the isolation mode bar. while using the selection tool double-click outside the isolated group. We will use this simple example here. I have an artwork of a bird and some flowers which are grouped within groups. Now, if I want to change the direction of these strokes in the wings of the bird, I'll isolate that group. To do that, double-click on the artwork. It will enter the first subgroup. Now double-click again to enter the group inside and keep doing it till you reach the group with the strokes. In case you double-click once more by mistake, and want to go back, click on the previous group on this isolation bar. Now select the group, and change the angle of the strokes. To exit, click anywhere on the bar or just press escape on your keyboard. The artwork will be updated with the changes. Practice this with the reference file provided in the Resources tab, it is going to be really useful once you start creating complex artworks. In the next lesson, we will learn about selection tool 11. Selection Tools: In this lesson, we will discuss about the different tools for selecting objects. Before you can modify an object, you must distinguish it from the other objects around it. One way to do it is by using layers panel. You can select a single object, a part of it, the entire group, or even the entire layer with just one click. When a selection is made, you will see this rectangle with a fill color. To change this color, double-click on the layer and you can change it here. Click outside to deselect everything. The selection tool or the black arrow, is the most commonly used tool, with keyboard shortcut V. It lets you select objects and groups by clicking or dragging over them. Direct selection tool or the white arrow, is the next most commonly used tool, with the keyboard shortcut A. With this tool, you can select individual objects, path segments, anchor points, and it does not depend on the group settings. You cannot select an object within a group using selection tool without entering the isolation mode but with direct selection tool, you can do that. To edit a part of group, select the objects using direct selection tools while holding Shift and now click on the selection tool to view the bounding box and now you can edit it. When you click on an object using the white arrow, you can see all the anchor points and paths. Select any anchor point or path segment and move it around to edit the shape. When you click on an anchor point, it's properties will appear in the control panel where you can change the corner type, adjust handles, delete or add anchor points. Click on multiple anchor points while holding Shift to add to selection and edit them simultaneously. Next we have is the group selection tool. You can find this tool in the toolbar by holding on the direct selection tool. This is quite similar to working in isolation mode in a reverse manner. Since here we are adding to our selection rather than isolating it from the selection. For example we have the same artwork here with the bird and flowers, which have group within groups. Now when I click on the Stroke in the wings using group selection tool, it will select that shape. Now when I click again, it will select the entire group of strokes. Click again, and it will select the entire bird then click again and it will select the entire artwork that the bird is a part of. This is good when you want to edit only a part of the group without ungrouping everything. Next selection tool in the set is lasso tool with keyboard shortcut Q. It lets you select objects, anchor points, or path segments by dragging around all or part of your object. It is really helpful when you have multiple ungrouped objects placed close to each other. Simply start dragging your cursor around the objects that you want to select and once you are done, click on the selection tool to view the bounding box. You can group them, edit them, or delete them at the same time. There is one more tool which you can find in the advanced toolbar menu, which is magic wand tool. You can open the tool setting from Window menu and select Magic Wand. We can edit the settings here as it will only select items with the same attribute. For example if I select fill color here. Now in my artwork, when I click on a shape with the red color using the magic wand tool, it will automatically select all the shapes, with that same red color. Now I can change or edit the color using the color picker. Similarly, you can choose different attributes in the tool setting. Another common way of selecting objects in illustrator is by going to select menu. Here you can choose to select objects within an artwork with same attributes like same fill color, stroke color, stroke width and more. You can also find this tool in the control panel. Select one object and go to select, Same and choose the attribute and it will select everything with that attribute in the artwork which you can edit. In the next lesson, we will start with essential drawing tools. 12. Essential Drawing Tools: One of the most common drawing tools in Illustrator is the Pen tool. You can find this tool in the toolbar, and the keyboard shortcut for pen tool is P. It might seem a little tricky and difficult to get started with this tool. To make it easier for you to follow along, I've included some practice sheets in the resources. You can download them and practice as much as possible. Open the file in Illustrator, you might notice that the drawing looks washed out. It is because I have converted the layer into a template layer. Template layers are locked non-printing layers, which we can use as reference to trace. Since the layer is locked, we'll create a new layer and draw on that. Now let's see how we can draw a straight line segments with the Pen tool. The simplest path that you can draw with a Pen tool is a straight line made by clicking the Pen tool to create two anchor points. By continuing to click, you create a path made of straight line segments connected by corner points. To do so, select the Pen tool or press P on your keyboard. Position the Pen tool where you want the straight line segment to begin and click to define the first anchor point. The first segment you draw will not be visible until you click a second anchor point. If the direction lines appear, you have accidentally dragged the Pen tool, undo the step by pressing Control or Command Z on your keyboard and click again. Continue clicking to create straight-line segments following the reference. Hold Shift, and it will constrain the movement to a multiple of 45 degree. The last anchor point you add always appears as a solid square, indicating that it is selected. Previously defined anchor points become hollow and de-selected, as you add more anchor points. To complete a path, you have two options. In case you want to leave the path open, you can either press Enter on PC or return on mac, or choose selection tool or any other tool to deselect. To create a closed path position the Pen tool over the first hollow anchor point, a small circle appears next to the Pen tool pointer when it is positioned correctly, click to close the path. To modify the shape, you can add or delete anchor points. To add an anchor point using Pen tool, place your cursor on the path and you will notice a plus sign next to the Pen icon. Click anywhere on the path to add anchor point. Now when you place the cursor over an anchor point a minus sign will appear. This is when you can click to delete an anchor point. To modify the shape using direct selection tool or the white arrow, you can click and select individual anchor points or path and move around or use the Control Panel Settings to edit. You can also select an anchor point or path segment and press Delete or Backspace key on your keyboard. To join two anchor points, select the anchor points, go to object, choose path and join, or press Control or Command J on your keyboard. Now let's draw curved lines with Pen tool. Few things to keep in mind while creating curved lines with Pen tool. To create curved lines with Pen tool, what you need to practice is instead of click and release, here you will click and drag towards the direction of the path. Don't move your cursor too far while moving the handles trying to match the line as you can modify the handle directions later as well. Curves are easier to edit if you draw the shape using as few anchor points as possible. Using too many anchor points can introduce unwanted bumps in a curve. Draw widely spread anchor point, and practice shaping curves by adjusting the direction handles. To create a curve line, select the Pen tool or press P on your keyboard. Position the Pen tool where you want the curve to begin and hold down the mouse button and drag to set the slope of the curve segment you are creating, and then release the mouse button. Hold the Shift key to keep the angle at a multiple of 45 degree. Position the Pen tool where you want the curve to end and continue to add more anchor points. Remember to drag and not click. You can edit the direction handles later as well. To close the path, position the Pen tool over the first hollow anchor point and click or drag to close the path. If you click, it will become a corner point where the two direction handles will move independently. If you drag, then it will become a curved point where both direction handles will move together. To leave the path open, simply click Escape on your keyboard, you can also press Enter or Return on keyboard. Selecting another tool, or the selection tool will also end the path. Now how we can combine straight lines with curves? For this start with a straight or curved path, click for the straight path and click and drag for curved path. Now click on an anchor point you want to make corner. You will notice a small arrow symbol, which is also the anchor point tool, and now it has turned into a corner. You can continue with the straight or curved path. To modify any of the anchor points or path segments, you can use the Control Panel Settings with the anchor point or paths selected. Next we have is the Curvature tool. This is a really interesting tool that Adobe introduced in 2014 with the release of Illustrator CC. Simply put, in Pen tool, you need to think about where to put the next anchor point, but in Curvature tool, you get a better control over the curve, and also a preview of the line segment is available that you are about to draw, which is really helpful. To use this tool, select the tool from the toolbar and click once on the art board. Now place your mouse on the next point, and depending on the movement of your mouse, the Curvature tool will create a curved path. With Curvature tool, you click once to get a curved point and double-click to create a corner point. This tool can be used in different ways. Let's understand this using an example. As you can see in this reference, the corner points are pretty obvious, we will use the Curvature tool to draw these anchor points first. We will Start with one-click, but rest all will be double-click to create the corner points. Now place your Curvature tool on top of the straight path, and you will notice a plus sign. Hold and drag the path to match the curve in the reference. You can move this around until you find the closest match. Upon release, you will notice a new anchor points added to the path. With the help of Direct Selection Tool, you can edit this anytime. Repeat the same for all the other path. You can also combine Pen tool with Curvature tool to get the desired result. For example, use the Pen tool to draw the corner points and now adjust the curves in-between using the Curvature tool. In the next lesson, we will learn about some free form drawing tools like Pencil, Paintbrush and Blob Brush. 13. Freeform Drawing Tools: In this lesson, we will discuss some free form drawing tools in Illustrator. Let's start with the pencil tool. You can find this tool in the toolbar. The keyboard shortcut for pencil tool is N. Pencil tool lets you draw open and closed paths as if you were drawing with a pencil on paper. It is most useful for sketching or creating hand-drawn look. Once you draw a path, you can immediately change it if needed. The points are set down as you draw with pencil tool, you do not determine where they are positioned, however you can adjust them once the path is complete. Position the tool where you want the path to begin and drag to draw. As you draw, a dotted line follows the pointer. The path takes on the current stroke and fill attributes and remains selected by default. Anchor points appear at both ends of the path and at various points along it. Hold the shift key and use the pencil tool to draw straight segments Constrained to 0, 45 or 90 degree. You can adjust the pencil tool settings to get the desired results depending on your project. Double-click on the "Pencil tool" to view the settings. If you keep fidelity to accurate, it will follow the exact movement of your mouse or pen in case you are using a pen tablet. If you move it towards smooth, your line will get a smooth path. Choose the preset that suit your drawing needs best. Selecting Fill New Pencil Strokes, apply the fill to pencil strokes you draw after selecting this option, but not to the existing pencil strokes. Alt or Option Key toggles to smooth tool option. With pencil tool selected. If I click "Alt" or "Option", it will change to smooth tool and I can draw over the path to smoothen it. This tool is also available in the advanced toolbar menu. Another setting we have here is closed paths when ends meet within 15 pixels. As you can see this time the path closed automatically when I move my cursor close to the starting point. The last two options determine whether or not you can change or merge the selected path when you are within a certain distance of it. Next free form drawing tool is the Paintbrush Tool. You can find this tool in the toolbar or panel in the Window menu. The keyboard shortcut for paintbrush tool is B. Paintbrush has basically the stroke properties, but it gives a freehand drawing experience and with different brushes, you can enhance the appearance of path. You can apply a brush strokes to existing path, or you can use the paintbrush tool to draw a path and apply a brush stroke simultaneously. For brush settings, double-click on the tool to open the Settings menu adjust the fidelity between accurate to smooth depending on your project requirement. If you have edit selected paths clicked, you can select the path and continue drawing to change the path. The number will determine how close the path needs to be to modify. Holding shift will constrain the movement to a multiple of 45 degree. To create a closed path using paintbrush tool, we need to press "Alt" or "Option key" before releasing. In case you want to have a fill color as well, you can keep the fill new brush stroke box check. With the brush tool selected, you can use the keyboard shortcut, square bracket keys to change the brush size. Where clicking on the left bracket will reduce the size, and clicking on the right bracket will increase the size. There are different types of brushes in illustrator. Calligraphic, scatter, art, patterns and bristle brushes. Calligraphic brushes create strokes that resemble those drawn with an angled point of a calligraphic pen. Illustrator also provides with a set of calligraphic brushes that you can use. To create your own calligraphic brush click on the "Plus" icon here, or open the brush panel menu and click "New Brush". Select "Calligraphic Brush," click "Okay" and In the brush options Window, give a name and now set the angle, roundness and size. Now click "Okay", select the brush and draw your path or you can also apply the brush to an existing path. Scatter brush dispose copies of an object along the path. To create one, select the object, and now click on the "Plus icon" and select "Scatter brush." Click "Okay". Now play around with the settings with preview on so you can see the changes in real-time. You can also choose the color option from tints and shades or hue, click "Okay" to save. To edit an existing brush, double-click on that brush and you can edit the changes here. If you want to keep a copy of that brush, duplicate it in the panel menu, and make changes to the copy. Art brushes, stretch a brush shape or object shape evenly along the length of the path. Bristle brush creates stroke with the appearance of a natural brush with bristles. Pattern brushes are made of individual tiles that repeat along the path. You can use simple to complex shape to create your own custom pattern brush. To create a pattern brush, select the artwork and click on this plus icon here. Choose "Pattern Brush". In the brush option window, select the Scale, add spacing and you can choose up to five tiles for different sides and corners of the path. Click on this arrow to see the available options. On the right, you can flip the brush, adjust the fit and color. Click "Okay", to save the brush. To edit it double-click on the brush again. Play around with this using simple shapes first and then move to complex shapes. Illustrator offers a wide range of brushes you can check out by clicking on this Brush Library Menu icon. To delete a brush, select the brush and click on this delete icon. To save a brush library that you can use in future or access from another document, go to brushes panel menu and choose "Save Brush Library". Enter a name and save. To check create a new document and in the brushes panel, go to Panel Menu. Open Brush Library, user-defined select your brush library. Next we have is the blob brush tool. You can find this tool in the toolbar by holding cursor on the brush tool. The keyboard shortcut for blob brush tool is Shift + B. The way you draw using a blob brush is quite similar to the paintbrush tool. Except blob brush works with a fill color instead of a stroke. It actually creates a filled area with no stroke. Though you can use the calligraphic brushes to define the appearance, but the final output will be a fill shape. You can add just the fidelity and other settings by double-clicking on the tool. You can also adjust the brush size using the square bracket keyboard shortcut. Where left bracket reduces the size and right bracket increases the size. When you draw a shape over another with the same color using blob brush, it will merge the two shapes. For different colors. It will be two different shapes. This tool comes very handy when you want to draw some freehand marks and shapes. Even if the stroke color is selected while drawing, it will automatically convert to fill color. These are some of the best drawing tools when you want a more free-form style of drawing and you have a drawing tablet connected. If you are using mouse, pen tool and curvature tool works best. In the next lesson, we will discuss about shape builder tool and path finder 14. Shape Builder Tool and Path Finder: To explain these two tools, I'll use the same examples and use the tools one by one. Shape builder tool you can find in the toolbar. With shape builder tool, you can create new shapes by combining and erasing parts of simpler ones. The keyboard shortcut for this tool is Shift plus M. It can be used in three different modes. First, as a merge mode where we combine two or more shapes to create a new shape. Select the shapes and now select the shape builder tool. With the cursor movement, you will notice that now the individual shapes are shaded in grey. Now, if you click and drag over these shapes, you will notice that the shapes will then be merged as one final shape. One thing we need to keep in mind is that the path needs to be closed for this grey area to be seen. This way, you can combine as many shapes to make them as one by simply dragging over the gray area. Second is the extract mode, which allows you to extract any section out of the multiple overlapping shapes. Select the shapes and now choose the shape builder tool or press Shift plus M. As you can see, the sections are highlighted in grey. To extract a section, just click on that shape once. Now with the selection tool, you can move around each section individually. Third and the last is the subtraction mode, where you can delete or erase a particular section. Select everything and choose the shape builder tool. When you press Alt on PC or Option key on Mac, you will notice the small plus icon next to the cursor will turn into a minus. Now whichever section you click will be erased. One thing to note here is that with shape builder tool, you can control which sections you would like to delete. Let's try these actions using Pathfinder now. You can open the pathfinder panel from the Window menu. To use Pathfinder in a merge mode. Select the objects and click on the "Unite" option in Pathfinder. It will merge the objects as one. To use it in an extract mode, select the objects and click on "Divide" option in Pathfinder. With Pathfinder, the final shapes are grouped as one. To move them individually, right-click and choose Ungroup. I'll go to Object and select Ungroup. Next is the subtraction mode. Unlike shape builder where you can control which section you want to delete, here you need to choose the appropriate pathfinder option. For example, when we select the two objects and choose minus front option, this will delete the object that is in front along with this section of back that is intersecting. Choose the Intersect option and it will delete the two shapes, except for the intersecting shape. Exclude will only delete the shape that is intersecting. Next, we have trim option. Let's try this using three sets of overlapping shapes. One with fill and stroke, second set with only fill, and third set with only stroke. When we apply trim to the first set, it divides it into two shapes which can be ungrouped and moved around individually. But the shapes are left with only fill and the stroke is lost. In the second set, the result is pretty same, except there was no stroke from the beginning. When we try it on the third set, you will get to know that it only works on fill path. Merge option is quite similar to the trim option and it also works only on fill path. You will notice the difference only when the path have same fill. For example, here we have two sets of objects, one with two different colors and second with the same fill color. When I use the merge option on the first set, it will just divide the two shapes. But when I use it on the second set with same color objects, the final shape will merge the two objects into one. Crop option plays an important role in the pattern design process. To explain this better, I'll draw two sets of stripes. First, one using strokes. To do that, draw a line. Now drag and hold Alt or Option key to make a copy. Now press Command or Ctrl D to repeat the action. For the second set, draw rectangle with fill and no stroke. Now press Alt or Option key and drag to make a copy. Press Command or Ctrl D to repeat the action. Now draw a rectangle on top, smaller than the stripes height on both sets. Select the first set and choose Crop. You will notice the rectangle on top remains, but there is no stroke to it and the strokes inside are also lost. When you crop the second set, only the shapes inside the rectangle remains and become one group. The crop only works on fill objects and it removes everything outside the object on top. Outline option basically divides everything and converts to outline. You can ungroup and use these shapes individually. Last one is minus back, where the shape on back is removed. Now all these shapes can be achieved by using either shape builder or Pathfinder, but knowing when to use which one is important. For example, when you have multiple overlapping shapes with lines like this and you want to make it one shape, with shape builder tool, you will have to drag over each intersection to merge the shapes. Whereas with Pathfinder, you can just select everything and click "Unite". Another example is when you want to edit multiple sets of objects. For example, I want to merge these plus icons and color them individually. I can just select all of them, click "Unite", and now ungroup to color each of them separately. Apart from building shapes, there is another way of using shape builder tool, which is to clean up your drawing and coloring them without creating closed paths. For example, if I want to create this fish shape using the reference, I can just trace over it with lines intersecting and extending the edges. My focus here is to just create the different shapes that need to be colored. Now select everything and select the Shape Builder tool. Pick the color you want to fill a section with and click on that section. Repeat the same with each section using same or different color. Even if we use the same color, it will create separate shape, which you can recolor later. Once all the sections are filled with color, all we need to do is remove the strokes without fill. There are multiple ways to do that. Using the Shape Builder tool, hold Alt or Option key and click on the anchor points or path you want to delete. Choose, Select Same Appearance from the select menu and click on the stroke without fill and it will automatically select all the strokes without fill. You can delete them at once. Double-click on the tool to check the settings. Just make sure the selection is set at free form and the pick color is from swatches or else it will choose the colors only from the artwork. You can play around with this tool and create so many interesting shapes. This is one of my favorite and most frequently used tools in Illustrator. In the next lesson, we will learn about the type tool 15. Type Tool: With this tool, learn how to add text, work with type objects and wrap text in your vector art. You can find this tool in the toolbar, in the header menu and in the panels from the window menu. The keyboard shortcut for Type Tool is T. There are different ways you can add text in your artwork. Now to add text at a point, select the Type Tool or press T on your keyboard. Just click at a point and type along the cursor. To enter text in an area, you can either drag to define a bounding area or convert any existing shape to bounding area by clicking anywhere on the path of the object, your object will be filled with the placeholder text. To enter text on a path or shape outline draw the path. Now select the type on a path tool by holding your cursor on the Type Tool, click at the beginning of the path, or at any point on the path. Replace the placeholder text with your text. Another thing we can do is wrap text around an object. To do that, grab the type tool and click and drag to create a bounding box where you would like the text to be on your art board. Replace the placeholder text with your text. I will just use the placeholder text for now. Place your shape over the text. I'm using a simple ellipse shape, but this works with any shape or object. Whatever shape you choose, make sure it is placed on the top of the text. Once you have the text and shape in place, select both, now go to Object, choose Text Wrap, and select Make. If you want to edit the space between the text and the object, go to Object, Text Wrap Options, and in the window edit the offset value. Check the preview and click Okay. You can also move around the object and the text will adjust accordingly. Next we have is the character panel. If you don't see it, go to Window, choose Type, and then choose Character. You can also edit the character and paragraph settings in the control panel and properties panel with the text selected. In the character panel, you can choose the font from the drop-down menu. Below that, you can choose the style from the available option. Now on the left we have font size. You can adjust the size with these arrows or enter a value. On the right, we have leading, which is the vertical space between lines of type. Click here to adjust the value. Then we have kerning, which is the process of adding or subtracting space between specific pairs of character. On the right, we have tracking, which is the process of loosening or tightening the spacing between the characters in an entire block of text. Below that, we have vertical scale and horizontal scale, which can stretch the text vertically or horizontally. Then you can use the baseline shift to move selected characters up or down relative to the baseline of the surrounding text. On the right, we have character rotation. Here you can enter the angle value for rotation. You can use all these settings to edit your text as per your need. Another interesting feature here is the touch-type tool. It is included in the Advanced Toolbar menu. But here you can find this in the panel menu. The keyboard shortcut for this tool is Shift plus T The touch-type tool lets you move, resize, rotate, and overlap individual character by dragging. Select the Touch Type Tool or press Shift plus T on your keyboard and now select any character and drag the handles of the bounding box to modify the character. Let's check the paragraph panel now. You use the paragraph panel to change the formatting of columns and paragraphs. At the top, we have alignment and justification where you can align the text to left, center, or right. Justify with the last line aligned to left, center, or right. Next we have bullet points and numbering. We have left indent. Indention is the amount of space between the text and the boundary of the type object. It affects only the selected paragraph, so you can easily set different intentions for different paragraphs. Next option is to set the space before and after paragraphs. With hyphenation, you can specify how words break using automatic hyphenation setting. Little more about how you can use type on a path tool for your artworks. Suppose I want to type something that is in an arc shape. Now to create this, I'll create a path that is in an arc shape.The easiest way is to draw a circle and cut it in half. Now select the type tool. When you move your cursor close to the path, it will turn into type on the path tool since the shape we are using is an open path. If it is a closed path, then it will type inside the area. Now click on the path and enter your text. Start from the left corner so it will be easy to align. To align the text to center you can use the normal paragraph setting. To check more options, select the path and go to Type, select Type On A Path option. In the option window, you can choose an effect. Align the text to center, ascender, descender or baseline, and adjust the spacing. Click on the Preview to see change in real time. Click, Okay to save the changes. You can also get similar results with warp effect. Select the text and go to Object, choose Envelope Distort, and select, Make With Warp. In the Warp Options window select the style from the list, horizontal or vertical bend value, and distortion value. Check the preview and click, Okay to save the changes. Once the effect is applied, you can edit the settings in the control panel and properties panel as well, with the objects selected. To edit the text characters, double-click on the text to enter isolation mode and you can edit it. To pick a text style and apply it to another text, you can use the eyedropper tool. Select the text you would like to change and now with the eyedropper tool, click on the source file, and it will replace it with the new text-style. In the next lesson, we will discuss about the eraser, knife, and scissors tool. 16. Eraser, Knife and Scissors Tool: Eraser tool lets you remove parts of your artwork. You can find this tool in the toolbar. The keyboard shortcut for Eraser tool is "shift" plus "E". Select the Eraser tool and drag over the area that you want to remove. You can adjust the eraser size with keyboard shortcuts, square bracket keys where the left bracket reduces the size, and right bracket increases it. If nothing is selected, it will erase a part of everything. Select an object, and it will only erase a part of the selected object. Double-click on the eraser tool to open the eraser tool settings. You can customize the erasers angle, roundness, and size here. Knife tool cuts the shape into multiple shapes. You can find this tool in the Advanced Toolbar menu, along with the eraser and scissor tool. The knife tool cuts object along a freehand path you draw with the tool and does a precise cut and divides the object, but does not remove any part. When nothing is selected, it divides every object that the knife tool passes through. When an object is selected, it only works on that object. The scissor tool splits a path at anchor points or along segments. You can find this tool in the toolbar by holding the cursor on eraser tool. The keyboard shortcut for scissors tool is C. Select the scissors tool or press "C," and now click on any path and it will split the path. When you cut a closed path with fill inside, the resulting shapes remain open with the fill inside. There is another thing called stray points. Anytime you use the text tool or pen tool in Illustrator, there is a good chance you may have created a stray point in your file. Using the text or pen tool, if you simply click somewhere and then choose another tool, you end up with a stray point. Accidental stray points are also created when you try to delete line segments while using Direct Selection Tool instead of using Selection tool. Removing these extra and unwanted points and paths is important to prevent any possible error on your data and easy to do. From the Object menu, go to path and select "Clean Up." This will open a small window where you can select what type of items you would like to clean up. To check, make a selection, and you will see if they're still there. In the next lesson, we will discuss about the eyedropper, gradient, and mesh tool 17. Eye Dropper, Gradient and Mesh Tool: The eyedropper tool lets you pick a color from an object or image and apply it to other objects. You can find this tool in the toolbar, and the keyboard shortcut for eyedropper tool is I. Select an object with the selection tool, click on the eyedropper tool or press I on your keyboard. Select the color you want to sample, and the sample color is applied on the selected object. A gradient is a graduated blend of two or more colors or tints of the same color. You can find this tool in the toolbar, or in the panel from the window menu. The keyboard shortcut for gradient tool is G. To get started, let's create two rectangles, one with fill and the other one with fill and stroke. To apply a gradient, select the object and double-click on the gradient tool to open the settings. Illustrator provides a predefined set of gradients that you can find by clicking on the arrow next to the gradient thumbnail. There is also a wide range of gradients in the swatches library. To use them, click on the swatches panel menu and open the swatch library and choose gradients. When you click on one, it will open in a new window and when you click on them, it will be added to the swatches panel. After the gradient is applied, you can edit the gradient properties in the gradient panel, control panel, and properties panel with the objects selected. The gradient slider includes these small circles on each corners and along the bar. These are color stops. Clicking once will select it and double-clicking it will allow us to change the color of the stroke. Here you can see we have three options available to choose from. The first one is most versatile. You can choose the RGB color spectrum. If you don't see other colors, change the gradient grayscale to RGB by clicking on this menu. The second option is swatches. Here we have illustrated default color swatches. The third option is color picker, which you can use to pick any color from our document or an image. Once you have selected the colors, you can choose the location of your stops, and this will change the look of the gradient. To do this, just click and drag the color stops left or right. You can also edit the location of the midpoint, which is the small diamond here, by dragging it to the left or right. You can also add extra color stops to the gradient by simply clicking below the slider. You will notice when the cursor is moved close to the bottom of the bar, a small plus sign appears. This is when you can add another color stop by clicking on it. Now to edit the color of this stop, simply double-click on it and change the color. To delete a color stop, select it and click on this Delete/Stop button, or dragging downwards. In Illustrator, you can create three types of gradients. First one is linear. Use this gradient type to blend colors from one point to another in a straight line. Next is radial. Use this gradient type to blend colors from one point to another in a circular pattern. Third type is pre-form, and you can use this gradient type to create a graduated blend of color stops within a shape in an ordered or random sequence. Here you can see the preview of the active or the previously used gradient. Next to it is a small arrow with the drop-down menu of existing gradients. Below you can choose if you want the gradient to be applied on the fill color or the stroke. Under that, you can see the small icon which can help reverse the gradient colors. To edit the appearance even further, you can choose an angle from the given preset or enter your own value. We can also edit the opacity of a color stop and play with the transparency. When you are using gradients for strokes, make sure to check these extra settings for the corners. To save the new or modified gradient as a swatch in the current file, you can click the Add to Swatches in the gradient menu. To fill an object with a gradient, simply drag the gradient over the object, or select the object and click on the gradient from the swatches menu. You can adjust most of the settings on the object itself, like the angle, origin, midpoint location, by pressing G on your keyboard with the selected object. Next tool is the mesh tool. You can find this tool in the toolbar by holding the cursor on the gradient tool. The keyboard shortcut for this tool is U. To use this tool, first, we need to create a shape. Once the basic shape is ready, select the mesh tool and click on the object. You will notice the object is converted into a mesh with a minimum number of mesh lines. Continue clicking to add more mesh points. To add vertical planes click on the horizontal axis, and to add horizontal planes click on the vertical axis. You can edit a mesh object by adding, deleting, moving, and coloring the mesh points individually with gradients. To delete a mesh point, click on the mesh point while holding Alt on PC or Option key on Mac with the Mesh Tool selected. To move a mesh point, drag it with the mesh tool for direct selection tool. You can select multiple mesh points using the Lasso tool as well. After selecting, pick a color from the swatches or use the eyedropper tool, and those mesh points will have a gradient effect with that color. You can continue doing it, and it will give a 3D rendered look. For converting a mesh object back to a path object, select the mesh object, go to Object menu, choose Path, and select Offset Path. Now enter zero for the offset value, click Ok. When you move the mesh object, you will see the object as outline. In the next lesson, we will learn about the swatches panel 18. The Swatches Panel: Swatches are named colors, tints, gradients, and patterns. The swatches associated with a document appear here in the swatches panel. You can find this in the panels. If you don't see it, go to Window and select Swatches. Swatches can appear individually or in groups. You can view them as list or thumbnails. To change the thumbnail size, click on the panel menu and choose from here. Illustrator offers a wide range of swatches that you can find by clicking in the icon on the bottom of the swatches panel or in the swatches panel menu, by clicking on Open Swatch Library. Swatch libraries are a collection of preset colors, including ink libraries and thematic libraries such as camouflage, nature, greek, and jewel tones. When you open a swatch library, it appears in a new panel. You can view, select, and sort swatches in the library, the same as you do in the swatches panel. However, you cannot add, delete or edit the swatches in the swatches library panel. If you want to add selective swatches or groups to your swatch panel, you can do that by clicking and dragging individual swatches or the group icon to copy the entire group. The swatches panel and the Swatch Library panel can contain the following types of swatches. A process color that is printed using combination of the four standard process ink, by default, Illustrator defines new swatches as process colors. You can identify a global color swatch, by the global color icon when the panel is in list view, or a triangle in the lower corner when it's in thumbnail view. A global color is automatically updated throughout your artwork when you edit it. A spot color is a pre-mixed ink that is used instead of, or in addition to CMYK process ink. You can identify a spot color swatch by the spot color icon when the panel is in list view, or a dot in the lower corner, then it's in thumbnail view. Next, we have the gradient swatches, which is a graduated blend of two or more colors or tints of the same color. Next, we have pattern swatches, which are repeating paths, compound paths, texts with solid fills or no fills. Next is the color groups, which can contain process, spot, and global process colors. They cannot contain pattern, gradient, none, or registration swatches. The none and registration swatches are in-built and cannot be removed. Then a selected objects fill or stroke contains a color, gradient, or pattern applied from the swatches panel. The applied swatch is highlighted in the swatches panel. To create your own color swatches create a rectangle, and fill it with the desired color using the eyedropper or color picker tool. Now click on the plus icon that says new swatch, or go to the swatches panel menu, and select New Swatch. In the window, enter the name, choose the color type, and whether you want to keep it global , and the color mode. Click Okay to save it, and it will be added to the panels. You can also simply drag the swatch to add to the panel. Now to save a group, select the colored rectangles, or the artwork and click on the folder icon on new color group from the swatches panel menu. In the window, enter the name. Now choose whether you want to create the group from selected Swatches or selected artwork. You can convert them to global colors if you want. Click Okay to save. To save a new gradient swatch, select the shape filled with the gradient, and double-click on the gradient tool to open the gradient panel. Now click on the small arrow next to the gradient thumbnail and choose Add to Swatches, and it will be added to the swatches panel. If you just click on the rectangle and drag to the swatches panel, it will be saved as a pattern type, and not as a gradient. You can create patterns using two ways. For the first one, create artwork for the pattern, and now draw a bounding box around the artwork to control the spacing between the pattern elements, or to clip out portions of the pattern. Make sure the bounding box has no stroke often. Choose Object, Arrange, Send to Back to make the rectangle the backmost object. Now drag the artwork to the swatches panel. If you drag just the artwork without any bounding box, it will still save as a pattern, but you won't be able to add just the spacing between the motifs. Second, method to create a pattern tile is using the pattern option tool. Select your artwork, go to Object, choose Pattern, and Make. A message will appear saying the new swatch has been added to the swatches panel. Click Okay, and continue. In the pattern options dialog box, provide a name for the pattern. Tile type will decide how you want to lay out the tiles. It would be grid where the center of each tile is horizontally and vertically aligned to the center of the adjacent tiles. Brick by row, where the tiles are arranged in rows. Brick by column, where the tiles are arranged in columns. Second by column, where tiles are hexagonal in shape, and arranged in columns. Finally, hexagon by row, where the tiles are arranged in rows. Next option is brick offset, which only applies to brick by row or column. It determines by how much tile with the center of the tiles in adjacent rows or columns are moved. Width and height specify the overall height and width of the tile. To create more negative space between the motifs enter value larger than the size of the artwork. It will insert empty space between tiles. Size tile to art. Select this option when you want the tile size exactly same as the artwork size. Select Move Tile with art to ensure that moving the artwork causes the tile to move as well. Horizontal and vertical spacing. When you choose Size Tile to Art, you can add just the space between adjacent tiles using these values. When adjacent tiles overlap, choose which tiles appear in front. With copies, you can select how many rows and columns of tiles are visible while modifying the pattern. Dim copies determine the opacity of copies of the artwork tile preview while modifying the pattern. Select Show Tile Edge option to display a box around the tile. Select Show Swatch bound to display unit portion of the pattern that is repeated. In the bar below the control panel, choose to save or discard changes made to the pattern. Whichever way you create the pattern. To edit it, you have to double-click on the Swatch in the swatches panel, and enter this window with the pattern options dialog box to modify, and save it again. If you want to make changes to a new copy, duplicate the swatch by clicking on the Swatches panel menu, or click save a copy after making the changes in the pattern options dialog box. If you want to learn more about surface pattern design, I have explained the pattern options tool, and basics of surface pattern design in my first class. You can refer that too. Let's discuss some more features of the swatches panel. If you want to limit your swatches panel to only the colors that are used in the document. You can select all unused swatches from the panel menu and delete them using the delete icon. To select the entire group, click on the Color Group icon, and choose Delete. To move swatches into a color group, drag individual color swatches to an existing color group. Hold shift to select multiple swatches. To import individual swatches from another document copy and paste objects that use this swatch. The imported swatch appears in the swatches panel. In case you want to save your swatches in the library that you can access from another document, go to the Swatches panel menu. Choose Save Swatch Library as ASE, or Save Swatch Library as AI. Enter a name and click Save. Now open a new document, and open the Swatches panel. Go to the panel menu and choose Open Swatch Library, choose User Defined, and choose your saved swatches from here. It will open as a new panel, but you can simply drag the swatches or groups to add to your swatches panel. In the next lesson, we will discuss about some interesting modify tools like width, blend and repeat tools. 19. Width, Blend and Repeat Tool: The Width tool lets you create variable-width strokes and creates stroke profiles so you can apply styles consistently. You can find this tool in the toolbar and the keyboard shortcut for Width tool is Shift plus W. This tool works only on strokes and you can edit the settings in the stroke profiles. Let's start by drawing a path. It could be straight or curved, and we'll keep the width at 20 points. Now select the Width tool and place the cursor anywhere on the path and drag to adjust the width. You can make it wide or narrow by dragging the two ends. To make pointed ends, drag the points at the ends of the stroke. To delete a point, double click on the width point and in the window you can choose Delete. In the strokes panel, edit the properties like caps, corner and alignment. You can even apply dashed line effect and since this is a new stroke profile, you can add to profiles by clicking on the profile drop down menu and choose Add to profiles. Now you can select multiple strokes and apply the stroke profile to all of them with one click. To flip a stroke profile, select the stroke and click on this flip along icon, this is an amazing tool and you can change the look of an entire pattern using just this tool. Please note that Width tool does not work if the stroke has brush applied to it. Blend tool morphs shapes and colors between two or more objects. You can find this tool in the toolbar or go to object menu and choose Blend and select Make. To edit the blend settings, use Blend Options. The keyboard shortcut for Blend tool is W. You can blend objects to create and distribute shapes evenly between two objects. You can also blend between two open paths to create a smooth transition between objects or you can combine blends of colors and objects to create color transitions in the shape of a particular object. Let's understand each of these options using example. To create a blend between two objects, select the objects and select the Blend tool or press W on your keyboard and now click on the first object and then the second object. You can also go to Object, choose Blend, and click Make. Now to edit the blend options, double click on the tool. The blend could be smooth, specified steps or specified distance. When you choose smooth, it will give us smooth transition but for specified steps, you can choose the number of steps within the transition, and for specified distance you can control the distance between the steps in the blend. Once you create a blend, the blended objects are treated as one object. If you move one of the original objects or edit the original objects anchor point, the blend changes accordingly. In addition, the new objects blended between the original objects don't have their own anchor points. Now let's try it with open path. I have two half circle shapes here. Now select the two shapes and choose Blend tool. Click on the first path, and then on the second path, open the Blend Options and here I can adjust the steps with the arrow keys. Let's try the color option to create blend between objects with different fill colors. This is really useful when you want to create color palettes, especially for monochromatic and analogous color schemes. Select two objects with a dark and light hue, and then apply blend. In the blend options, specify the number of steps depending on how many steps you would like. Now, expand the blend object to divide the blend into distinct objects which can be edited individually. To do that, select the Blend, go to Object, choose Blend, and select Expand and click on the Group icon in the swatches panel to save the color group and you get the entire color palette. Next thing we need to know is how we can apply a blend to another custom path. In order to do that, select both the path or objects and go to Object, choose Blend and select Replace Spine. This will update the new path with the blend of it. You can edit the number of steps or distance and even the orientation of the objects along the path. If you want to reverse the blend of it, go to Object, choose Blend and Reverse Spine. Releasing a blended object removes the new objects and restores the original objects. Expanding a blended object divides the blend into distinct objects, which can be edited individually like any other object. This is another amazing feature you find in Illustrator if you are using the latest version as it was introduced in 2021. This is the repeat tool where illustrator lets you easily repeat objects and manage their styles with a single click. All you need to do is create the first object and choose a repeat type from radial, grid or mirror. And Illustrator will auto-generate the complete artwork for you. To create a radial repeat, select the Object and choose Object, select Repeat and Radial. The object is repeated in a radial repeat type with default options. By default, eight instances are repeated. To change the repeat instance count, select the repeated artwork and click the instances control on the canvas. Drag the controls on the circle to change its size, drag the splitter on the circle to remove some instances, drag from the corner to increase or decrease the size of the repeat. To create a grid repeat, select the Object and now go to Object, choose Repeat, and choose Grid. The object is repeated in a grid repeat with default options. To modify the repeat, use the on Canvas controls, drag the handles on bottom and right to add more rows and columns. Drag from the corner to increase or decrease the size of the grid repeat, drag the vertical and horizontal slider to increase or decrease the spacing in the grid. You can also change the grid type to grid by row or column. To do that go to Object, choose Repeat, and choose Repeat options, and in the window modify the settings for grid repeat, click Okay to save. You can also use the properties panel to edit the repeat options. To edit your artwork in any repeat, double click on the Object to enter isolation mode and you can update the artwork here. Click on the Back to exit isolation mode. Now for the mirror repeat, you just create the first half of the symmetrical artwork, select the Object, and go to Object, choose Repeat, and select Mirror. To edit, drag the handles below or above to rotate or transform the mirror part. You can also move the object away to adjust the spacing, drag the symmetry axis to control the angle and spacing between the two artworks. Once finished, if you click away and then click again, you do not see the control handles. Both shapes are grouped together and move as a single object. To edit them again, double click on the artwork. If you want to edit only a specific shape or object in the repeat pattern, use the expand option to create a group of shapes to independently edit them. However, you won't be able to edit the mirror repeat settings. In the next lesson, we will learn about expand and expand appearance. 20. Expand and Expand Appearance: Expanding objects enables you to divide a single object into multiple objects that make up its appearance. For example if you expand a simple object, such as a circle with a solid color fill and a stroke, the fill and stroke each become a discrete object. If you expand more complex circle, such as an object with a pattern fill, the pattern is divided into all the distinct paths that created it. We normally choose to expand an object when we want to modify the appearance and other properties of specific elements within it. As once expanded, you cannot edit the effects and attributes like before. Let's understand this using few examples. Here, I have two sets of strokes with 10 point weight, with different effects and attributes applied to them. To see the path in these strokes, click Command or Control Y to enter the outline preview mode. As you can see, the path of all the strokes is same. Now press Command or Control Y to return to view the artwork in color. Let's expand the first stroke which is a basic stroke with 10 point weight. To do that, go to Object and choose Expand. For the next stroke that has a stroke profile applied, select its copy and go to object. You will notice the Expand option is dimmed. In this case, choose object, select Expand Appearance, and now choose Expand. Repeat the same for rest of the strokes which have brush, zigzag effect and pattern brushes applied to them. Now, to view them in the outline mode, press Command or Control Y and you will notice when the stroke is editable, the outline path for all of them is same. Whereas once expanded, they become individual elements which can now be edited separately but they lose the stroke editing feature. Similarly here I have two sets of objects that are filled with gradient and pattern. Select the gradient copy and go to Object, Expand. In the window you can specify the number of objects you would like to have in expanded object. If I select 10, it will make the gradient effect with 10 steps. If I change it to 20, it will change accordingly. Repeat the same for the pattern fill. Now you get to edit these individual elements but cannot revert the action back. I would always recommend to keep a copy of the objects or layer before expanding. In the next lesson, we will learn about compound path and clipping mask 21. Compound Path and Clipping Mask: Compound path allows you to take multiple objects and compound them into one path without affecting the freedom of editing them separately as well. You can find this in the Object menu, and the keyboard shortcut for compound path is Command or Control 8. Let's try to understand this using an example. I want to create this flower with the same gradient effect. To do that, I'll create the shape of one petal using the shape builder tool. Select the Rotate tool and while holding "Alt" or "Option key", click on the center of the circle to move the registration point. In the Rotate tool option window, enter the angle and choose "Copy". Press "Command or Control D" to repeat the action. Another way to create this is by using the radial repeat feature. Select the petal shape. Go to Object, choose "Repeat Radial". Adjust the on canvas controls to create the artwork. Once completed, expand to convert it into individual shapes. Once the drawing is ready, you need to add the gradient to the petal. I have the gradient swatch saved in the panel, so I'll just click on the swatch. To get this radial gradient effect I need to edit individually gradient setting, but the easier way is to convert the petals into a compound path. To do that, select the shapes. Press "Command or Control 8" on your keyboard. Even though there are multiple shapes, with compound path it works as one single path. The best thing is you can revert it back by release compound path in the Object menu and edit them individually like before. You can create the same effect with the text objects also. One way to add gradients to your texts is by expanding them. When I apply a gradient each character has its own gradient setting, but once I've converted into a compound path I can use one gradient over the entire text. Another great use of compound path is while creating clipping mask. What is a clipping mask? A clipping mask is a shape that masks any object below it, so only what's inside the clipping path is visible. Only vector objects can be clipping mask, however, any artwork can be masked like an object, image, or a pattern. You can find this feature in the Object menu, and the keyboard shortcut for clipping mask is Command or Control 7. A few things to keep in mind when you are creating a clipping mask. The objects that you mask are moved into a clipping mask group in the Layers panel. If you use a group or layer to create a clipping mask, the first object in the layer or group masks everything. Regardless of its previous attributes, a clipping mask changes to an object with no fill or stroke. In case your shape is on the same layer, make sure to bring it to front before creating the clipping mask. Let's try it with the raster image. Select the two and press "Command or Control 7" on your keyboard. You can use any vector shape as a mask. To edit your contents in a clipping mask, go to Object, choose "Clipping Mask", and select "Edit Contents", or double-click on the object to enter isolation mode. Double-click outside the object to exit isolation mode. To release the clipping mask, use the Object menu and select "Clipping Mask", choose "Release", or use the Control panel or Properties panel command. This is when you have a single shape to use as mask. I will use a text shape as a mask this time. Expand the text to use as shape. With the shape on top along with the image, when I use clipping mask nothing happens. It's because only the object that is on top masks everything. To make them as one, we use the compound path command. Select the text shape, and press "Command or Control 8" on your keyboard to convert it into a compound path. Now Select the shape and image and press "Command or Control 7" to create the clipping mask. You will see all the shapes have the image mask inside them. You can edit or release the mask using the same settings. Another thing I would like to share is the three drawing mode options that you see on the toolbar right below the color fill and stroke. By default, you have Draw Normal selected. Next option is Draw Behind. When this is selected you draw or select a shape, and then whatever you draw will go behind that object. Everything will still be there, but it will be like a mask. The third option is Draw Inside where do you draw or select a shape, and then click on this option. Now whatever you draw will stay inside the shape. It is a clipping mask and you can edit it like any other clipping mask. In the next lesson we will discuss about working with raster files and images in Illustrator. 22. Illustrator for Raster Images: To add a raster image to our document, we need to place it on the art board. To do that, go to file, choose place, and select your file. Now you can either drag over an area and the image will be placed within that area. Or you can just click on the artboard and then resize using the free transform. You can place multiple images at a time on one or multiple art boards. Once we have the image placed we can use the bounding box or the transform tools to scale, reflect, rotate, and duplicate. We can also create a clipping mask with this image using a vector shape on top. To do that, select the shape and image and click Command or Control 7 on your keyboard. Now with the image selected, let's check the properties panel and the control panel settings. Here we can adjust the opacity of the image, and by clicking on the opacity panel we can also choose a blending mode from this drop-down menu. Same as we do in Photoshop. When you add image to your document by using the place command it can be linked or embedded. You can use the control panel command or the properties panel command to embed an image. In simple words, when you embed images in Illustrator file, the image file is stored within the document. Whereas if you share a file without embedding the image to other device, it will show that the file is missing image. Another option is to link the image to your document. That way you can update the image using any editing program and it will be updated automatically in your Illustrator document. Use the links panel to determine if the file is linked or embedded or change its status. To display the links panel, go to Window and choose links. You can click here to crop the image. Drag the crop marks and click "Apply" to update the changes. Another very commonly used feature in Illustrator is live trace, where you can convert a raster file into editable vector file. To view the live trace settings, go to Window and select Image Trace. Illustrator offers a range of presets to choose from. Like high fidelity photo, logo, sketched art, line art and more. You can choose depending on your project. When you click on view, you get to see the selected view of tracing result over the source image. With mode, you specify a color mode for the tracing result. When you choose color mode you can also choose the palette settings and decide the number of colors. For gray-scale and black and white option. You can choose the grays and threshold. In the advanced control, you can add just the path settings, which controls the distance between the traced shape and the original pixel shape. Corner specifies the emphasis on corners. Higher values result in more corners. For noise setting, keep it higher value for high resolution image and lower value for low res files. Method specifies a method for tracing. You can choose abutting or overlapping. Choosing fills will create filled region in the tracing result and strokes will create Stroke Path in the tracing result. Snap curves to lines specifies if slightly curved lines are replaced with straight lines and if lines near to zero or 90 degree are snap to absolute zero or 90 degree. You can choose this option for geometric artwork. Or if the shapes in your reference image are slightly rotated, Ignore white. Choose this if you want, the white fills to be replaced with no fills. Click preview to see the result. When you are satisfied with the results of tracing, you can convert the tracing objects to path. To do that, click "Expand". The resulting parts are grouped together to ungroup press Shift Command G or Shift Control G on your keyboard. To simplify paths by removing excess anchor point, choose object path, and simplify. Few more things that you can do with the raster images. Please note that these artworks won't be editable as vector shapes, but you can save or export them as JPEG, PNG, PSD, or other raster file formats. You can add raster images to pattern swatches and also edit them using the pattern option tool. We will discuss this in detail in my next class, where we will focus on pattern design in Illustrator. You can fill any vector shape with this swatch. You can also add them as brushes and the brushes panel. Use any raster image or motif to create a scatter brush, art brush or pattern brush. To edit the settings double-click on the brush and here I can also adjust the spacing and other details. Apply to an existing stroke or create a new stroke with the brush selected. These are some of the ways I use raster images in my design process. Even though Illustrator is a vector graphic program, I feel it's also really helpful for raster image editing. In the next lesson, which is also the final lesson, we will learn how to save export and export files for screen in Illustrator. 23. Save, Export and Export for Screens: To save a file in Illustrator, choose File Save. If you're saving your file for the first time, or if you want to update your file, with the changes. Choose save as if you want to the file name or format. Choose save a copy if you want to make a copy of the existing file. Choose the location from saved on your computer or save to creative cloud. Saving on creative cloud gives many benefits, but you need to have a creative cloud account to use it. By default, auto save or auto-recovery is enabled for all Illustrator files. To manage auto-save settings, navigate to preferences. File handling and here you can check or edit the settings. Illustrator saves files in its native format, AI. Another common format for saving your files is PDF. In the window, enter your file name and location. in the settings window select high-quality print and you can choose to preserve illustrator editing capabilities but this will increase the file size. Whereas if you turn it off, the file size reduces a lot but you won't be able to edit the file in Illustrator anymore. Though the file quality remains same and you can use these for email attachments and more. Here's a quick comparison between the file size for both options. There are few more formats like EPS, AIT, and SVG, which are also editable, and sometimes clients for printers might ask for a particular format. You can choose them based on your requirement. Now let's see how to export files in Illustrator. The simplest way to export a file is go to file, choose Export As and it will give you a few options. You can edit the file name here, choose an existing folder location, or create a new folder here. Next, select the format from the drop-down menu. Most common formats for exporting files are PNG and JPEG, but you can choose any other format from the list. Below, we have few more options. Select use Artboard if you want only what's inside the artboard to be exported. Also, if you do not select this option, everything that is on the Canvas will be exported as one image. Let's see this using a quick example. I have a document here with few art books on three artboards. Some of the artwork is extending out of the artboard. Now when I choose Export as PNG and keep Use Artboard deselected and choose Export. You can see in the preview, all the three artboards are included in one image along with the extended parts. Now when I choose use Artboard option, it enables the other three settings. I can choose all to export all the artboards as individual files or I can choose a range of artboards and it will only export those Artboards. Suffix is the text that will be added in the filename here. Next in the PNG options, you can select the resolution from the list. The next option is anti-aliasing, which is used to smoothen jagged edges. Here you can choose Type Optimized if your artwork contains a lot of text or art optimized that applies to all objects and text. Below, you can choose the background color from transparent, white, or black. Check the preview here and click Okay to export. Now let's export the files as JPEG. Go to File, choose Export As, and choose JPEG from the drop-down menu. Select the Artboard options as before. In the JPEG option, you can choose image, color model, and quality from low, medium, high, or maximum. Below you can choose the compression methods. Baseline standard recognizes JPEG to most web browsers, and it's the basic and standard one. Baseline optimized optimizes the color quality of the image and produces a slightly smaller file size. Embed ICC profile helps view your file in other applications. Click Okay to save or Cancel to discard. The export for screens workflow is a new way to generate assets of different sizes and file formats in one action. When you choose export for screens, two tabs are available, artboard and assets. Once you select artboard, you get to choose from the artboards available to export. Click an Artboard to select or deselect it. Hold shift and click to make multiple selections. Below you can choose the thumbnail view and clear selection. On the right-hand side, you can choose artboard by selecting all or a range. Click here to select Bleed. You can also choose full document to export the entire document on one page. Next, you can select the folder location here and choose to open location after export. In case there are multiple files, you can make sub-folders based on scale or format. The next option, export as PDF gets enabled, once you choose the PDF format from this menu. You can choose to export your document as a single file or multiple files. Next, in the format section, choose the scale, suffix, that is the texts added after the file name and the format. Now the best thing here is that you can add multiple scales with different suffix and file formats and it will all the exported at once. Once we click Export, the folder will open automatically. Since we selected the open location after Export option. Next is the Assets tab. This is useful when you have multiple objects, such as icons, logos, images, and more that you use frequently. To export assets, go to File, select Export for Screens, and now click on the Assets tab. It says drag artwork to the Assets panel to have it ready for export. Click on the Assests panel, you can also find this in the Window menu. I have a few shapes here, which I would like to export as assets. Select the shapes one at a time or collectively, and drag to the asset export panel. We can either enter the other details like scales, suffix, and format in this window or go to File, select Export for Screens, and adjust the settings. Click Export and check the assets files in the folder. In the next lesson, I'll be sharing a visual demonstration of creating an artwork in Illustrator using a simple sketch. Do, join me if you are looking for some guidance or inspiration for your class project. Thank you so much for your time and I'll see you in the next lesson. 25. Final Thoughts: Wow. You made it to the end. Honestly, I was worried that I made the video a little long. But this program has so much to offer that I wanted to share as much as I could. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop them in the discussions page of the class and I'll be more than happy to help. If you like the class, please leave a review and follow me on Skillshare to get updates on my new classes. I would love to see what you create. So do upload your projects in the students' gallery. You can also post them on Instagram and don't forget to tag me @geetanjali.b so I can like and comment on your designs. Now what's next? If you liked working with Illustrator even a bit, I would recommend just keep practicing and you will become a pro in few weeks. You can also join me in my next class where we will discuss about how to create surface pattern designs in Illustrator using different ways. I'll also share my own workflow. Once again, thank you so much for joining me and I hope to see you again in my next class. Till then, happy creating.