Transcripts
1. Intro Optimized Workflow for Designing Pattern Collections: my guys. My name is the Lord's aspirin. I'm coming to you From Sunny Manitoba, Canada. I've been a graphic designer and teacher for over 40 years. Love course I published was called Simple and Quick folk Art Inspired Patterns. Once I completed that course, I decided to complete the whole collection. As I was doing that, I thought to myself, this would be a really great course to help people fully understand how to optimize their workflow for pattern design. There will also be 1/3 course in this series and that one's called the Power of the Pattern tool. An illustrator for polishing your patterns in that class. I'm gonna help you recognize, avoid and repair rookie mistakes. So I'm gonna share all of my secrets. One of the things I do is I use a master camp late, Doc Emit. I have attached that document here, and we're gonna be working through the use of that document throughout this class. The other thing I have attached is the template that I used for creating half drop repeats . I did touch on that in the last course. I'm going to go into greater depth in this course. I'm hoping that you'll realize the true value of this template when you start using it. And when I demonstrate it, then I'm gonna touch on how the use of your motifs, icons and brushes really help. When you're flushing out your full co ordinate set, I'll show you exactly how I used. Um, once you have all of your core nets designed and ready to go. I'll also explain to you the methods that I use for exporting the assets that I use or creating my mock ups, as well as for exporting the full swatches throughout the whole class. I'm going to be talking to you about different ways that you can improve your productivity and different things that I do that helps speed up my whole process. If you find I'm speaking too quickly, definitely slow down the playback speed and you could do that in the lower left hand corner of your screen. Here. I know what this class outlines a bunch of steps that may seem unwieldy at first, but I guarantee that if you get into the habit of using them and you repeat the use of them often, you will definitely notice an increase in your efficiency. The repetition is the key. I hope that your take away from this course is at least one or two methods to increase your productivity and efficiency. This class is intended for designers who are at the point that they are creating full collections and are just looking for a way to streamline the process. I use Illustrator for the entire class, but there are a lot of concepts that can be transferred to other programs. So it's the concepts that are important. Are you ready to get into it? Okay, let's get started.
2. Organizing Your Workflow: Hi, guys. Welcome to lesson one. So in this lesson, we're just gonna talk about organizing your workflow and I'm going to review with you the use of this document. Let's get started. So optimizing your workflow can take a lot of different forms for myself. I felt really disorganized when I first started working on pattern collections. Full collections, like what you see here. You'll probably recognize this particular pattern. We were developing this in that last class where we developed all of the motifs and I did all of the arranging of the elements. I have done quite a few changes since I posted that class. You'll probably notice I would consider this my fully finished hero pattern keeping organized when doing all of this supplementary work was what was difficult for me when I first started out. I eventually developed this document here, and I've saved it as a template. I'll show you that real quick because this is what I'm going to be attaching and giving you guys so you can use it instead of developing your own. You probably eventually will figure out a way that you can improve on this or something that works better just simply for you. I've got it. You can use it, and this is the one that I have been using. So it features 16 art boards. So each of these art boards is individual and people your art or jewel. You'll see that they have all been named. So this one, for example, is called Coordinate one next to it, Coordinate to next to it, coordinate three and so on. I've names that went. I output them as our or this would be the name that would be on that particular after as it is exported, click on any other tool to get out of the art board tool. Now here is the actual area where I have my collection. So you see online that I've got She's now filled with the different patterns that I have developed on the temporary. I assure you, I also have a working area. This is where I usually start. So when I was in that other class and working, you would have seen this area where I was developing the actual brushes, motifs, shapes, whatever was needed to create the individual patterns that I also have workspace at this end and I just use this for when I'm out putting patterns so you'll see me later on in one blesses, take individual patterns here for my swatches hand and dragged the moat. And then these are what I used to create individual documents. And it's a little bit different than out putting it straight from the art boards because the art boards don't necessarily have the actual repeat. For example, here, you see that if I was to output this art board here, it doesn't actually have the repeat elements, So that might be a little bit confusing to you right now, but as we work through this class, you will see what I mean about that and what the differences. So those four areas are going to be featured in this class as we go through and use document that I've been closed. So that's this one here. So for now, I'm just going Teoh start by showing you how I went through and created individual patterns and how the art words figure into this original development part of the process. So let me show you real quick how that looks in my layers palette is going to shrink this all too fish smaller and not going to open up my layers here. So here you see all of my difference Art board areas that I've been working on. I've named them from 1 to 60 just like you saw with the art or tool. So these member coordinate one coordinate to they are named exact the same over here in my layers palette. This is actually my hero print here, which is this big swatch. But I've got on this side. I generally keep that one as my first art board. And I know I've called it Coordinate one. It's not the coordinate its the hero, but this is the way I keep it straight in my own pint. So then what I have over here, our fields watches. So those have been filled with the patterns from my swatches palette here. And so that complete set is there East watches are what I find the most useful for when I'm creating my mockups is kind of a fast way to create mock ups. And I will explain that a little bit later on. And then I've got, of course, the one layer that has my brushes, motifs and shapes. So my other class, you would have seen me, Probably way up in here. This started out empty, and I did all of my positioning of my motifs. So I got them much laid out, you know, close to what I wanted. And then we did a bunch of testing in a document that I have as a template called my transformations for 1/2 drop. Repeat. So in the next lesson, I'm gonna show you how that optimizes my workflow. So I'll see you next lesson where we're gonna take a look at that.
3. The Value of Transformation Templates: Hi, guys. Welcome to lessen. To listen to is all about using the template that I have set out for your half drop. Repeat, this is a transformation template. So everything happens in alive kind of away. Let's get into it. In my last class, I did talk about transformations and why I find them so incredibly useful. But I'm not sure I explained really thoroughly about how they really optimized my workflow . So I've got an older version here of the pattern that I was working on my main hero pattern . This was, uh, kind of an interim Save that idea. I'm gonna use it someone to copy it. And I'm going to open up that transformation template that I am actually gonna supply with this course for you to use. So I've got it saved in the projects upload folder here. The project assets that I am going to be giving everybody who takes this course. Don't know if you noticed there when I went to open it that the file has dot ai t at the end. That's the way illustrators saves templates. So if you open up the template, it copies that template into a blank file. So this file is actually currently called untitled. I got two of them there because I just did to I'm gonna shut this one down. So this is the one that you would have and you would open. And it has the half drop Repeat based on a 10 by 10 square. So you notice here. I've got a text that says place icons in the main art board area. Now, that's because all of these surround the main aren't board area are actually transformations of that original. So if I were to show you that inthe e appearance panel No, I gotta go back. Clears panel, make sure that I'm targeting that layer. As soon as I target that layer in the appearance panel, you will see all of the different transformations, which then make up our single pattern. Repeat. So I was to just grab a brush and start painting in this area. It would do the half dropped. Repeat everywhere on this document. Now, that is super helpful. When you're at the stage where you are placing, I'm gonna under that you know, when you're placing icons in the image area, I've got one of the sort of interim copies of my pattern. So before I was actually completely finished, I had saved an iteration of this so that I could demonstrate this in this class. So I'm gonna just copy all of this and we're going to go into that document. I should save it soon, too. I'm gonna paste and drag that. You see, it's already doing the transformation here, So you're already seeing how that would work. So when you first paste it in, it's kind of weird because, like I said, it's you don't have it perfectly centered. So you have to drag it into that dartboard area. So make sure that that's always the area that you're working with when you use my templates here. Now, this is why I love using. This is because you can see all around the edges here e adjustments that you're gonna have to meet. So I hide art boards. So you see, my shortcut here is command shift H. So I use that actually quite a bit at the stage. But you see now this kind of white area that has to be dealt with, Okay, so I'm going to save this document because right now it's still untitled. So we're gonna save this as working file. I'm gonna call it folk art Transformation. So obviously I myself have already done this whole process because I've already worked well past this in my process of doing my collection. But just so that we have this asset for class. One thing that you'll notice here is that my document is in C m. Y que. So if you went to document color mode here under file, you would see that it's in seem like a color. I know that some places require C m y que some require rgb. And the other thing to keep in mind is that when you switch over to work in photo shop, let's say you're going to be using the dhobi textile designer extension, Kate. So when you are at this point, you're probably gonna want to go into your layers pal, and you can see that I've got my original set of instructions that told you where to place your icon. At this point, you could either just turn it off or you could get rid of it completely. My suggestion to you is that when you get this file from me. You make a duplicate of it somewhere. So you have the original template to go by and remember that whenever you open from that template, the original template will still be there. It'll open up a new file that is untitled. So this is the point, Obviously, which I would start looking around with the positioning of these elements. I kind of like working at a boat this size because I can see all of the elements as I move them. So I know that I showed you this in the last class if you were in it. But let's say, for example, I'm here. I am giving instructions that I'm going to go and work in the wrong area. I am going, Teoh, just move this maple leaf and you know that this is one of the things that I did when I was in that other class. But as you can see, the beauty of this is that you're making the change in your single art board here, and it's making it everywhere. So it's helping you really visualize how that movement or positioning I'm gonna put my art boards back on because I keep going to grab one of the ones. That's not the not in the main art board area, but yeah, Now you can see house. You move icons, how it works for your overall positioning. So remember the shortcuts that we talked about in that last class. If you didn't actually take that last class, I'll give you a quick review. The is for your move tool. Very useful. A is for your direct select, so that would help you If you're trying to just select a single point. R is for rotate so you would take Let's say they will work on this one our which give you the rotate tool so you could just rotate from whatever point you decide. Actually, let's do it with this one here. I will just rotate right now. It's set right at the middle, and I can rotate it that way. But if I wanted Teoh, I could click in the spot where I want it to pivot from. That's like putting a little attack in that spot, and then when I move, it pivots from that original point. So that's V A R. Q, with another one that was for using the last. You know, there were a couple of other ones that we discussed in that class. And, of course, some of the really important keyboard shortcuts that I really encourage you to ads for things like simplify remove anchor points. The work tool over all things that we talked about in the last class and that were super helpful in helping us arrange this. Now, when you've got this, now it's in a separate document. You've got just the one pattern on here you would eventually have. Teoh copy this over and back onto your other document. I'm gonna give you a couple of pointers about that. The next lesson we're going, Teoh. First of all, grab our icons and brushes from the other document. Put them in here to help us fill in these spaces. And then we're going Teoh, do a little bit of adjustment and then we're gonna take this back into the other document and I'll explain a little bit further why? That helps in optimizing my work flow. So I'll see you there
4. Working with the Template: Hi, guys. Welcome to lessen three. So we've been working with this transform template. What do you think? What I want to do now is just show you how I finish up with it. Let's get started. All right. So what I'm gonna do here is I'm going to show you what I would be having to do if I was still adding or making changes to the icons here. So I would have going back to my main document groups. That's yours. And here is the layer that has all of the brushes, icons and shapes. As you recall. So I would select all of these. That was the fastest you can. Well, you could do it. Whatever is the fastest for you. I just used the last because it's nice and small. You can have your move tool selected and just drag over them. Whatever. Faster. Copy. And then you're gonna go to your transformation document. And here on layer one, which is currently blank, is where I would pace my brushes are motifs. I would name it motifs, whatever you want to call it and pieced. And let's just move over a little bitch. I want them off to the side, and I know that when I paste, Illustrated will automatically taste it in the middle of the screen ish. So now I've got my other icons here ready to go, and I can use them as well for any of the feeling that I have to do now. As I open up my brushes panel here, you'll also notice that I have no brushes here. And I did find that the brushes were very helpful for me when I was doing some of this feelin. So what I would do here if you had created brushes like, If you had been in the last class and you had created a set of brushes in this document where you had all of your brushes, you would save the Mount by going Teoh Save Brush Library. I've already done it, but I'll do it again. So my brushes that I had saved I had called them leafy, brash is I'm going to just save it here and replace what was there. And then we'll go to our document that we were working with here Open brush library or the user defined, and I'll open the leafy brushes now if I wanted Teoh, load those brushes here. I would take the very 1st 1 down to the very last one. You can either drag them in or go to add two brushes there now added here. And I could just close that panel off. So in some cases, let's say in a spot like this I might have chosen Teoh does use one of the brushes that I had created. Now, in this case, the size will be too big because I had originally created thes icons to be approximately the size of what I needed. And obviously that wouldn't be one that I would use. But you can see here that right now it is not repeated in my other squares. So I just wanted to show you that the problem is, if you look at the layers panel I was painting in the wrong layer, so I would remove that. So I'm undoing clicking to my design layer. And there I'd be able to taste and have it appear on all of the transformation duplicates here. Okay, so just remember that when you're working on this, So in cases like this, of course I would be now adjusting. Maybe moving this sky down this guy up, enlarging this one, etcetera, etcetera. So you see how it would work if you needed Teoh be adding icons, so that was with a brush. Now let's do the same thing by copying. So I'm copying this icon here. Remember, this is important to go to your design layer and paste. Then I could position me. Let's try this one Over here. You can rotate by either describing the corners of the transform box, or you could go and use your rotate tool. In this case, that probably would. I mean, it's stick a pin in there and rotate that guy, and this is cool because you see it. As it happens, you're going to see it in all of your transformations. And, you know, we would slowly be filling in this space, this white space. There's a lot of times where it's just a matter of enlarging or repositioning and icon that you have there, and I probably mainly did it this way by just adjusting spacing of elements and pulling them Teoh a better position that like this one here, I just rotating it slightly. That sort of thing wasn't slight and making it work. Another couple of keyboard shortcuts that are really great I've got this is built in actually command old, which will bring you to actual size or fill it feels in the image area or the viewing area and command an option. Oh, which would, if you had a bunch of stuff it bills in or shows you a bigger working area. Also, remember always your plus and minus keys and for enlarging. If you want to enlarge on a particular area, remember, the best shortcut for that is holding down your space bar and your command key. And then you can enlarge dragon and large just a specific area. So, personally, I find that working with this document here is one of the most time saving methods of developing a pattern that has 1/2 drop. Repeat a grade repeat. Probably not so important, because you can kind of visualize more easily what is happening on the edges, because an icon that's on this side would be directly duplicated on that side so you can kind of visualize a space a little bit better, but I find with half drop repeats. This is the only way to go. So once I have something like this complete and I'm ready to go to my other documents and I would just do a select all and actually let's before we do that, lock the motifs layer because we don't need to copy those back over to the other document. I would do a select all, and you see here that it on lease elects the tile that we're working on. It doesn't select all of these on the outside. But you see that big square that's in the background, that's from the transformation. And you don't want to take that with you. So I usually do the select all and then I auction shift drag over a corner of the large rectangle or I go into the layers panel. It's usually here at the bottom, and then I just diesel ect right here. I'll show you what selected again, and you could just shift and click on that little square and Italy select it. All right, so then I would copy it. Go back to my master document, and I would paste it and position it here on the art board. I have already done that so I'm just going to eliminate it. But once it's on it's own art board, then it would be ready to be made into Swatch. Actually, maybe I will take you through that process will just use one of these dart boards down here and I'll show you the process now to make it into a swatch. Usually at this time, I will do a couple of different things here, off group pitch, and I will also make sure that everything is expanded. So this one here, the brush that we painted in here was not expanded, so I would go into object to expand appearance. Everything gets expanded that way. I usually double check it and go back and do and expand again. And that at this point I would use the pattern maker tool. So my shortcut for that is command apostrophe. You see that a new swatch is being added up here? We have to change this here to brick by column, and by 10 is size of the rip each that I use and I can escape out of here that use watches there. And that's where I would then move into those swatches I have on the other side. So I'm using my navigator because I find it's a faster way to get across to the spot that I need to be in. You might not get all the way there because technically, it's just looking at thes art boards here. But I'm a lot closer, and then I would just go in and I would take that swatch and put it into one of these asset rectangles that I have. So let's just do it real quick. I think it was this one. So let's let's do on that one. Close that navigator, open up my swatches and pick that last one that I did in there. Okay, so that's the process. I'm gonna actually undo that and get rid of this watch because that example I did for you is not the actual finished one, and I don't want to use it. Just don't want to leave it there and then find out later that I forgot to replace it. All right, so those were some of my productivity steps. We're moving our way through this class, and in the next lesson, we're gonna talk about a couple of other key things that I do. Teoh, help improve my productivity by optimizing my work flow
5. Motifs, Brushes and Swatches: welcome to lessen. For in this lesson, I want to show you how the motifs, the brushes and this watch is really help to improve your productivity and efficiency. Let's get started on the last lesson. Touched a little bit on the use of icons, motifs, the shapes and the brushes that I have over here. And I want to explain why this is a really great way to improve your productivity. So let's take a closer look at these icons. So in the last class that I did the actual class where we developed a lot of this stuff in the folk art Leo kind of class that we did, we developed a few of these icons, and I think we ended up with I don't maybe 20 maybe 25 of the icons and we had I don't know how many, maybe eight or 10 15 maybe brushes I imported brushes. At that time, I showed you how to make them, and I also showed you how Teoh import clip art trace it and add it to your icon. Satch and I talked to a lot about simplification of your elements and how to create some really elaborate brushes like these leaf brushes. And if you look at my set here after that class, I actually added several new brushes, so I'm not sure. But I think maybe right about here is where I started. And these airbrush is that it added after that class was over. Now to me, pattern design and pattern development, all of this goes hand in hand. When you are creating your first pattern, let's say your hero pattern. So these were icons that I used when I was putting this tile together. And, you know, in that class all the steps that we went through in creating that and testing it, really, I couldn't have done it without having a set of icons here to start with. If you have something there to start, it isn't a scary as just staring at a blank page. There's a lot of different ways that you can go about collecting or having these icons here . In the case of that last class, we mainly created them, I using illustrator filters and doing some simple stuff, creating those very iconic motifs. In some cases, when I do pattern design, I've actually got sketches and I take the sketches, and I used the image trace function to create icons. Sometimes I have a pattern somewhat drawn out. So I'm not just doing the Leo Church on the fly like we did in that class. There are a lot of different approaches to that. I want to talk to you just about how these icons and motifs helped me to develop my full collection. So let's take a look at a couple of the different things that I did hear. These are support prints or coordinates, whatever you want to call them. These are all created using brushes and motifs that I had over here that I had used in my hero pattern and then developed further and created these additional motifs. So, yeah, like having these here is what helped me to create thes, and it helped me to create them, actually, quite quickly, I published that last class on Thursday. Today is Saturday, So between Thursday, I didn't work on the coordinates at all on Thursday. I'd started Friday, so all day Friday, so that's yesterday. I did this full pattern collection. So you know that I am all about the efficiency and being able to do this kind of thing quickly. That's why having this to start out with was absolutely essential for me. So what I did is I went in and I created another toss pattern here. This one could actually be a secondary print. It could actually even stand alone as a hero print if I had wanted it to. And you know how to decide what are the secondary prints or how to go about doing that. I remember learning secondary print would have less colors, and in a case like this, obviously working just with a one color palette, which, by the way, made it a lot easier. Now. The other rule had learned was that in a secondary print you would use just some of the motifs from your original. So I took out a few that I felt were really key. I picked different shapes, different sizes, different degrees of weight as faras, you know, darkness like this. Burge, this flower being solid, I picked a few that were open, like these flowers that have that show through to the background. I picked some that were very symmetrical to add to this one, and then I had a bunch of small feelers, but you can see just by looking at it that there's a lot less going on in that print. So let's take a quick look at how that one looks. I'm going to do it right over here just so that we have it right next to the original squares. Here are the original art boards. So let's go to this. Watches on the swatches panel. I'll show you a couple of the different settings here. You can have it. Just show you're patterns, watches. You can have it. Show all of your swatches. I'm gonna switch to the pediments, watches and I'm gonna show it in list form. So I'm gonna use this shortcut at the top here. And we know that because of the order of the art boards here that the coordinate was coordinate number two. Okay, so you can see how I made use of my icon set and why that would have been a really fast way to do it, because everything was here. I didn't have to create anything, and I was able to use that and brushes to help me create that in the most efficient possible way. So Let's just make a duplicate of this just so that right here you can see the comparison of the two, the hero pattern and the coordinate. So you could see what a difference by reducing the amount of icons and by just kind of changing the general spacing. And because you say the angle of a lot of these, you can see that it has made for a very nice, simple but effective coordinate. All right, so let's move on into the next lesson. We've got lots more to review. I will see you there.
6. Last Checks and Asset Exports: guys walking to lessen five. So in this lesson, we're going to be doing a lot of checking of our assets. Let's get started. Okay, so we did a little bit of testing, and we've checked that all of our swatches are named. This one is an extra, so I'm just gonna get rid of it. Might as well get rid of these, cause I'm not using them as well. So I know that my swatches here are on lee The patterns that I have created as part of this whole coordinates set. I've got the Navy Blue, which I've left here because we're gonna be using that again. We may need it for some of the testing that we're gonna do Is our next step now is getting ready to export our assets and save out proper swatches that can be used in photo shop. The reason I do this is because in photo shop is where I do my mock ups and I want Teoh have swatches that are affected. At that point, I don't wanna have to do any work, and I would have to come back into illustrator and May changes or corrections doesn't necessarily always work out that way. There are times when the mock up stage actually alerts me to some issues and I may have to go back. But overall, I like to be really close to completion at the point where I make my assets for my mock ups . I always do kind of a final check. At this point, you could see that I've got all of my assets here. They aren't necessarily in the exact same order. You could see that there are some that have departed from the order of the art boards here . So these assets here are not necessarily going to be correct When I export them by number. They won't necessarily coordinate with this, But that's OK, because I'm gonna be exporting in two different ways. I'm gonna be exporting assets as I call them. Sometimes the fastest is just to have some already exported assets that are kind of the right size. What I like to use when I am making my mock ups, I do. Either when I'm in for the shop, sometimes I will create all these watches that I want and me and I create those from exporting these individual swatches which I'll show you in the next lesson. But like I said, I want to show you these as assets that are exported because sometimes those were justice handy. So before I do anything in the way of exporting as assets, I always do kind of a double check. And one of the things that I check most specifically are these kind of patterns like this that have compound shapes. One of the issues I've had in the past is that even though I'm showing this here on this Navy blue background, these might not necessarily be compound shapes. And what I mean by account pound shape is something that shows through the color of the background. This could be important if you're going to be trying to re color your artwork and I'll show you why. So I've copied one of the swatches that has thes kind of shapes, and I've put it on a yellow background here so you can understand why camp own shapes are important. So compound shape is something like this, where it's like a doughnut with a hole. You can look through it and you can see the background color. Now you can see that this one here and this one are not working as compound shapes. This one is partially working, so it's showing through yellow there. But it's not showing it here. And same with over here should be showing the yellow through this. This would be important if I was say, to change or add a background color. It worked just fine when it was Navy, right? You saw that on our main document that these work fine on a Navy background because it's a navy motif that I have. But if I wanted Teoh have it on the yellow, it does not work. So the way to deal with that problem now I've locked this yellow so that I can drag over the whole icon and I can go to object compound paths and make. I know my shortcut is command eight. So that's what I would use. And you can see that now my yellow shows through here, and that's exactly what I want. Now this one here is a bit of a conundrum because it partly is correct. And I'm gonna show you that in the layers palette so you can fully understand what happens with a compound path so you can see all of these are compound pass. All of the different copies of this icon are now compound paths. So camp on path kind of groups it actually ungroomed this one. So what we're gonna do is go Teoh object upon past and this time we're going to release it . And now we're going to select everything in the group. So I've highlighted both of them. You could do it by shift, clicking like I did. Or you can hold down your shift key and select in that way. And then you go back down, Teoh, count, pound paths and make. And now you can see that that's rectified that problem. OK, so that's really important to do before you output your assets. I actually went through and checked all of this stuff before starting this lesson. So I'm ready to output thes as assets. Now, I have found that for just about all of them, all cuts that I use 20 by 20 or 30 by 30 is usually a good size for putting the artwork into the smart object in the mock up. So this big square here, the hero pattern right now is 20 by 20. So I'm gonna show you a quick way to change thes so they'll work in the same scale before out putting them. I'm going to save right now because I'm gonna probably end up going back and reverting to that last saved version. After I do this step, let it go through a full safe here. I want to emphasize before we move on and make the changes in the size of our assets is to select any of thes that have If you happen to have two layers, like in this case, I had the white pattern over a Navy square. I'm gonna just absolutely make sure the boozer groups So that would be this one and these three. So I'm going to do them individually because I want each of these to export as an asset combined with its navy square in the background. You see, here I can select one of these squares here and I can go to transform, and here I could easily change it to 20 by 20. But rather than changing each of thes squares to be 20 by 20 I just go and reduce the scale of the pattern within each of them. So I select all of these. I don't need to select this one because it's already 20 by 20 and the scale is pretty good . So I'm just gonna do select by option shift and dragging over it, and then I'm gonna use my transform. Each command cautioned shift D and I'm gonna get 40%. I'm gonna keep this angle at zero. I don't need to have any of these reflections done anywhere, and I make sure that transformed pattern it selected. Get your preview. You'll see that each of these patterns is now quite a small scale, so that when I output them at a really high resolution, they will be very usable in 40 shop. So we're gonna click OK, here. I like exporting. By opening up my asset export panel, which is this one here. I'm gonna select all of them, including this large one now using my selection tool. So I'm I just quickly press TV on my keyboard to make sure it wasn't just the direct select . I dragged these all into the acid export panel. You can see here that they're all there and any of the ones that had two parts like these that had a Navy square in the background because I group them, they air coming out as a single asset. So the important thing here is to check this resolution. So right now, I've got it set to resolution sometimes. But I think by default, it comes up with this, so it looks kind of weird. But what I'm gonna do is go to resolution this. You can change to whatever you need because I've got those smaller squares and the much reduced scale pattern. I'm going. Teoh said it at 600. You can set. This is a pig. Whatever you need for your output, I'm going to do it is a J pay because I'm gonna be using these for my mock ups. A hit export here. And then we go to wherever we're exporting our assets, it will create a new folder I'm going to hit choose, because that's the folder I'm choosing and it's going to go through its process. So now I'll have all the different mock up assets so that I need And that's usually my first step preparing for doing my mock ups generally at this point, these are the files I use for making my mock ups. I don't necessarily go through the process of exporting each of my swatches at this time. If I'm just in the process of doing mock ups, I want to point out a couple of quick things about the acid export panel before we move on down here at the bottom, you can click on this, which launches the export for screens interface. We're not using this for screens, but you'll see that everything is here that we need that I just explained to you for exporting out. The beauty of this is that if you want to to export different skills of the pattern, you could add additional scales, which would also be exported at the same time, so you wouldn't have to go through this process twice. We don't need that. That's why I didn't show you actually going through those steps. But I wanted to point it out just so that you know, this could be useful. Let's say if you wanted to export for both your mockups and maybe at the same time you wanted Teoh export what you needed to create cellphone cases or a specific product on some P o. D site that you sell on. So I just wanted to point that out. I also want to point out that here is another place that you can actually access exporting the arch boards. Okay, So I'm going to stop here, and I'm gonna let you see all that in the next lesson, and then we'll also export the swatches.
7. Efficient Mockup Handling: Hi, guys. Welcome to lessen Six. So, in this lesson, we're gonna focus on exporting our individual swatches. Let's get to it. Okay. It looks like people exported. So let's go antique. Look in four shop. So I'm going to open one of the exports that I've done here. Let's try this one here. This isn't my my original main. This is one of the additional coordinates that I had done. So I want to check it out and see how it looks in that scale. So I can see by the size of the scale here that it will be perfect for most of the mockups that ideo so that has worked out just perfectly. So this part of our little process is done. I've got enough assets here. As you can see that I could probably put together all of my mock ups. I've actually done that. I've got a bunch of my mock ups ready to go to show you. And I won't kind of show you why I do the mockups before I output my final swatches. I don't know. He remember in the last class, we produced a mock up for a pillow and asked I completed this and was showing you in class this mock up. I knew right away that I had some stuff to fix before I would actually consider this particular swatch here as a finals. Watch the mock up really helped me. Teoh see a few of the problems that I was having. I could see there was something goofy going on around here. And I also didn't like this area here. I felt like I hadn't really done enough in the way of balancing this space between the icons. Here's a strip across the bottom that I didn't like and here I just felt like some of them were too tight. So that is why I often do the mock ups before I export my final swatches. I know our goal in the last lesson was to perfect. This watches as much as possible. And what I ended up doing this week was to go through and correct some of those particular issues that I had. So this is the swatch actual. Show it to you in Photoshopped. This is a swatch where I went through it. Address that So on this pillow here, you see that blobby thing that's over that flower. So that was where that beaver is bloops. Looks like we're looking at completely the wrong swatch. You her story. This is the one that we should be looking at the full hero pattern. I know that this one is Thean voted version, but nonetheless, this is where I went through and corrected all of those issues. The overlapping icon was one just a tail end of the right facing bird. So you see the right facing bird here. This is where there was an issue that was corrected. I've also gone through and you can see that I've really worked on my negative space. So that was all improved. And really, if I had already exported my actual swatches, then I would have to be going back and doing that on both the asset and the swatch. So this is why I usually do the mock up stage before I get Teoh the actual swatches export . I really feel that that improves my efficiency overall and no, only that it gives me that last sort of final going over off all of the possible issues that I could be having with my pattern. So that's why I go through that whole process with the assets most the time. I actually decide which of these assets I'm going to use as I'm in the process of doing my mock ups, and then I only export the assets that I need. So, for example, on this four pattern mock upset. So these air four different coordinates in my mean in my pattern collection. So I've got my main and I've chosen three coordinates to go with it. This is I would kind of decide on which ones I'm going to use now. Personally looking at this, I would switch this up. I would probably change this one to be this one instead. So I mean, that could be easily done at this point. Which one is that one? That's the main, I guess. There in order, I'm sure. Yes. So what I would do is go to this one here and change it to one of the others. Let's just actually copy this and we'll go back to the fabric double click on this one. I think the 2nd 1 down and replace that one with this one and then just select all on this one, which is the secondary print and then go back and go Teoh the 4th 1 down, which is this one and replace it. So until I save thes, I'm gonna actually hide these two Until I save them, They won't show on my actual markup. Thank you. That one saved. So it's now here in the bottom and then on this one here, make sure that that one is saved. And now you see, on my mock up, I have the main pattern on top and then three of its coordinates. So I really wouldn't have needed to export all of them if I didn't think I was going to be using them. It's really up to you. Sometimes it's great just to have all of them handy in that one folder. Which is, of course, what I have here. I've got all of them so that I can choose whichever works best for a particular market. I'm using all of these things. Help improve your efficiency. So of course it's really up to you. And what you feel is the most productive use of your time. So back here in Illustrator, we're gonna go through our last step, which is going to be Teoh export the swatches in the way that I do it that I consider the most efficient. So I will see you in the next lesson where we're going to do that.
8. Exporting Swatches: Hi, guys. Welcome lesson seven. So glad that you made it this far. We're gonna do a lot of finishing up in this lesson, so let's get right to it. If you've been watching all kinds of different artists exporting and showing you how Teoh, save out all of your swatches, etcetera. For your pattern collection, you've probably seen several different processes. I know I use more than one and you know, sometimes for the learner, for you, it's kind of confusing. I am going to show you the sort of most foolproof one that I like using. And this one almost always ends up with an absolute perfect swatch in photo shop with no phantom artifacts along the edge. In fact, one of the biggest problems you see for any pattern design artist I see it in forums and questions all the time is how do you get rid of the little hairline that is formed around the pattern when you are importing an illustrator pattern into Forshaw. So I'm going to show you how I do it. And I just feel like this, for me anyways is the most successful one that I have discovered. So what I Dio. This is where I use this other empty area of space that I've left on the Big Master document. I open up my swatches panel. Usually at this point, I have it in list form so that I can clearly do these in order. What I do is I grab this watch the very 1st 1 and I drag it out onto this area of my master document. So you can see here that there is a square that surrounds the actual pattern. Repeat. And I know that that square represents the 10 by 10 Repeat that I had because this is a drop half drop. Repeat. You see that? Let's just take a look at this bird icon because it's probably the most prominent one. You can see that my half drop is happening here, so it's not straight across like a grid pattern would be. You can see that it has dropped by half off the pattern. Repeat. So that's why there's this double sized repeat going on within the area of the swatch that I've dragged out. I'm not sure what you would find less confusing, but the way I do it for the half drop repeat and it might be the best way for use church. If you've never done one of these before, I select the entire Swatch. So this is the swatch that shows the half drop. I make a new document and because I know that it waas 1/2 drop Repeat with the initial art board having been 10 by 10 in order to capture the entire drop of the half drop, I have to create a document that is 20 by tan. So I create that paste like pattern. So it's got for sure the entire after up repeat happening here. Then I create a rectangle 20 by 10. It okay, this could have a feel or know feel doesn't really matter. But, um, if it's easier for you to visualize, I will take the fill out of it. And what I want to dio is center that to my art board will make sure right here you've got a line toe art board. It is now centered. Let me just grab this, move it. So it is also what centered We'll just do the centering. I see. For some reason, I haven't got my this entire icon here, so I'm gonna actually just position that a little bit to the side just so that I can get the entire repeat with the correct icon. So I'm just kind of ignoring that one over there. So if Gotsche if you look in the layers panel, I've got the rectangle on top of the group. So I select everything at this point and go to object clipping, mask and make So that clips everything that was beyond that 10 by 20 rectangle. Usually what I do is I will copy and merge. This this step is not necessarily mandatory, but I personally like doing this going to my Pathfinder palette and hitting this merge. So if you were to take a look at this in outline view, smooth this one up because I know the other one is gonna be well beyond the edges. If you look at it in outline view, you can see that the clipping mask leaves everything on the outside area here, and the merged one has actually cut all that off. So at this point, you could do two things. You've got these two files you can grab that merged one. Drag it to your asset export panel and you can save it out here. Let's open up this export panel and I'm gonna explain a couple of the things here that I didn't explain earlier. So with this asset here, I can out of prefix, And in this case, I'm adding the prefix Canadian folk art. I make sure that I have a little space at the end there, and I know that this is where I want to export it to. You can open this up and you can choose whatever location you want. In this case. I know that this is the final swatches folder that I watch. I'm actually gonna delete this one here because that was a duplicate of what I am about to show you. I don't need it there. So then I hit, choose and export the asset, and that asset will export into that folder. Now, you probably notice when we were in there, we could also go to the art boards here. And we could export that so you can also make your choices here. But what I like to do personally is export this as an AI file is gonna delete that. Merge one for now. and I'm going to just save as and in the same folder. I'm going Teoh, save the AI file and I've added gained full cart one and it's got the extension ai and save . And then we're gonna go into Photoshopped. I'm gonna show you those two files. It's a man. Just open those up real quick. And here is the exported asset. This is the J Pink. So that was that merged file and you can see it's got my half drop. Repeat because let's say, for instance, this be for here. You see him again here, dropped down by half. At this point, this entire thing will be my half dropper peach so I can go to defined pattern. Having created that 10 by 20 documents has converted my after op repeat into a grid. So this is much like what you could do with it will be textile designer converting the half dropped to a grid. But I have just taken that one step out of it by doing it in Illustrator First. It's got the same name as what the document has I could hit. Okay, and let's do a test. I've got a 30 by 30 document open here. I'm gonna add a new pattern layer, and it's gonna fill it with that last pattern, which is the one that we just created. I'm going to reduce the scale just slightly here because I want to show you what happens with the J Peg. If you look real closely here, there will be spots like right here where you see it has brought in in the process an artifact along the edge. So personally, that's the reason why I use the other method. So I'm going to delete this pattern, Phil, and I'm going to open up the e I violence debt that I've exported. I'm going to define the pattern based on this one is dead. Go back to my test document, trade a new pattern. Feel layer is gonna fill it with my latest swatch that I created. So again, let's reduce down the scale. And now when I enlarge and move around, you will not see that artifact anywhere. So that's the main reason I used the, you know, just saving it out as an AI file. And I would go through and do this for all of my swatches. So it's not to say that there's absolutely no purpose for exporting them. As J pegs, you can definitely still go ahead and do that in Illustrator if you're gonna be using it for, let's say, a Social Media post or if you're putting it onto a mock up. So let's review what we just learned. This time I'm gonna do a 10 by 10 Swatch, and I'm gonna use Warden at nine here, so I pull it out. Then I go to the layers palette in layers palette. I locate that square that's in the background. I duplicated by dragging it on to create new layer icon. I'm gonna take that one and drag it up above the group. I'm going to define this one as a clipping mask. I'm gonna select the whole group here. Then I'm gonna go under object, You clipping mass and make. Then I'm gonna copy that holier. I'm going to make a new document, and again, I'm gonna use my 20 by 20. I'm going to paste, use my alignment tools to align perfectly to the art board, and then I'm going to save it as an AI file. Receive it in that same tests for artifacts folder that I've been saving in. Name it. Coordinate. Nine. I had done a test before, so I had saved one there, and I'm just replacing it. Let's go into four to shop. Here it is. I'm gonna open it up. Defined pattern. I have a shortcut for that, By the way, had option ship P Because I do this so often. So I say that is coordinate. Nine. We're going to create a new document. Let's do a 30 by 30. I'm gonna make that new pattern feel. Layer click. OK, it's gonna fill it with that pattern. And even if we scale it down, we will not find any artifacts anywhere. No little white lines. So there you have it. That's the process. So just for my own peace of mind and to know that everything is completely done at this point I save a file that has the cultural. You hear the UN cropped version of my pattern and the merged version. And in these swatches palette, you'll see that I've got the new patterns. Watch here. I generally go in and rename it. If I had assigned a number to this, I would put that number in there as well. But I just feel like I really accomplished something when I've got this final, final, final version of my individual Swatch. So I think we're done with all of this pattern makings watchmaking for this class. And in the next lesson, what I want to do is just talk to you about a couple of other efficiency shortcuts and tricks that I have up my sleeve, so I will see their
9. Persistence with Swatches and Palettes: Hi, guys. Welcome to less neat. So this is gonna be kind of a wrap up and we're gonna talk about a few of the other tips I have for improving your efficiency and productivity. Let's get started. So I wanted to just point out a couple of the things that I haven't as we have progress through this course and that last pattern that we created what kind of reminded me, and I wanted to make sure that I touched on this a little bit before the end of the class. So sometimes patterns like this are so generic that they can be easily used as coordinates in other sets. What happens when you have created hundreds of patterns? You get to the point, though, where you can't You just don't remember what coordinates that you created it for. And you just I could spend hours looking through everything that you've got to try Teoh find one particular pattern. One of the things I like doing is going into my swatches and then saving out my swatch libraries. So in a case like this, and especially where it's a one color, I would save this watch library and I have a central location where I do save all of my newly created patterns. But there's also this sort of standard folder. The default folder that illustrator has, and it's in your use was folder in your own profile in the library, you would go to applications support. Go to Adobe and Adobe Illustrator, whichever version you happen to be working on. And there's this folder called Ian Us and the Swatches folder is the one that would pop up and would be the spot where your swatches would automatically be saved. I usually do save it there, and then I go and I save it into my master folder. The reason I create a master folder is because there are so many updates and you get to the point where you've been through. Well, I've been using Adobe Illustrator since 1988. Yes, I am not kidding you. That was the very first version of Adobe Illustrator, and that was many, many years ago. So you can imagine how many different Swatch libraries I have created and they would be individually saved in each of the different versions. So, even here on my computer locally, I have illustrated in 1920 23 24. So this folder might not necessarily store them all. So I do end up putting everything into that master folder that I talked about. Now I'm just gonna click on Save. And now that folder is available. That set of swatches anytime I want Teoh, load them if I'm starting on a new project. So if I had a new project here and I was looking for just a few patterns that might work for me, I could go into my swatches folder here. I would go to the drop down menu over here. I would open my user defined Swatch library and you can see here that the ones that are in my illustrator 2019 folder are here so I could load those up. So it's really cool because it's almost like having thes other libraries that are provided by Adobe. So I go in, open up and you would see these watches are here, so I could choose to just scrap a couple of them. I'm gonna actually delete all these unused one so you can see what's happening, and I'm gonna switch to just showing the pattern swatches And so you see here, as I click on these, they are added to the current panel. So that could be super helpful just to get you started or just to maybe fill out a collection. And you just want, you know, something you remember you had, I would remember possibly remember, not necessarily guaranteed. But I might remember that it was in this set that I had a particular one that I liked, and I would be adding it here. Sometimes I go through and I add, just like random, you know, 10 or 20 different patterns and just have him there. Justice a starting point. It's super helpful. The other thing that I've used before two is I've gone into the swatches palette here and on to the actual equals watches that they have here. And if you go to the patterns, you can find a lot of really basic patterns. For example, here, dots, I have used this in the past. The hole library opens out, and you could choose to add the's to your current document as well. So the other place that I've also found some goods sort of generic free sets of patterns is here. When you go to open a new document, you could go to art and illustration and there there will be a bunch of different patterns displayed. Or you could go right to Adobe Stock. And but I was around and see what you can find. Now, what I would do is hit open here, and all of these patterns would be here, and they have been added to the swatches palette. So if I wanted to create just a huge library of patterns that I wanted to use or could use for some of my design work, this is one of the ways I could do it. If I wanted Thies to open every single time I opened illustrator, then I could make, um persistent. Let's say these particular patterns I wanted Teoh have open every single time I open a new document in illustrator. What I would do is I would save the library and you always save Swatch libraries as a i e s e is for color. We're gonna do a I. Let's just call them, Call this set random David. And now let's load. And it would be a user defined one. And here it is random. So we're gonna load this Swatch library. So we hit random. And now if we wanted to make sure that every time we opened Illustrator, this library would open with the swatches, we could go in here and select persistent. So any time now, I open up a new document that will be there until I actually go and take it out of that folder that you saw me access at the beginning. This is something you can do for brushes as well. So let's just go back, Teoh, the document that had the brushes. So here, if I was to save those which you know that I did already, I called it leafy branches. Now I wanted this to open every single time I opened my illustrated document, I would do the same thing and designated as persistent. So now when I open up a new document, just do a blank 10 by 10 documents. It pops open with both of those available to me. Now I had to shut down my illustrator and restart it in order to have these pallets load up . But that's how it works. So that's another way that you can possibly improve your efficiency and productivity. Remember that you could do this with color palettes as well already. So let's move on to the wrap up. I will see you there.
10. Outro: Well, guys, you made it to the end. So we've done it. We've designed and completely finished up all of the work that we needed to do to get our collection ready to ship out. We've got swatches that you can now use to upload to sites like spoon flour. And you've got assets that you can use in places like Society six and Red Bubble. So you have lots of work to do. I'm really glad that you second out because you've now got the basis for really improving your productivity and efficiency when you're designing and creating full collections. I really hope that you'll share some of your work here. I love seeing your work, and I really think that it helps other students who are looking at the courses and, you know, just feel a little bit like the lack confidence. I think that if they see other students work, it really helps them build up their confidence levels. Remember to check out my to Pinterest sites, one of called the Lord Start the Lorrison aspirin and the other one is called Teacher Delores NASCAR. On those sites, I have tons and tons of artists. Resource is and inspiration. Definitely do check those out. Also check me out on Instagram and Facebook and, of course, my stores on society. Six Red bubble and in Canada, here at Arctic, where even if you don't have representation and you don't have an agent and are actively selling your full pattern, collections are really hope to see that you use these to really beef up your stores. Also, don't forget spoon flour. Don't forget to hit follow so you will get information on my classes. As I published them, I really hope to see you back. I just love returning students hit care and bye for now.
Delores Naskrent, Creative Explorer
