Intro to Adobe

Illustrator
(design elements using vector graphics in Illustrator)

Phil Walker

Contents
Setting up a document: ..................................................................................................................... 2
Tool Layout: ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Rulers ....................................................................................................................................................... 4
Pen tool .................................................................................................................................................... 5
Stroke and Fill ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Selection and Direct Selection tools ............................................................................................ 9
Paint Brush ......................................................................................................................................... 11
Shape/Polygon/Star Tool ............................................................................................................. 11
Making a Custom Paint Brush ..................................................................................................... 12
Pathfinder Tool ................................................................................................................................. 15
Shape Builder Tool .......................................................................................................................... 16
Align Tools........................................................................................................................................... 17
Setting up for Laser Cutter ........................................................................................................... 18
Recommended Resources: ........................................................................................................... 19

Pro Tips!
Its hip to be square!
Hold Shift while drawing shapes to keep the width the same as the height.

“Dupe It!” - Aaron Draplin

Instead of editing the same shape over and over again (and not keeping a history
of the changes). Duplicate!
To duplicate objects, hold down the Alt button then select and drag a copy. Then
edit that one and repeat the process. You should end up with a mind map or
family tree type layout to then show your client (or for the students to show the
teacher!)

Logo design 3 S’s: Is it Simple? (easy to get) Is it Scalable? (postage stamp size
vs billboard) Can it work as a Siloutte? (or embroidered with limited colours).

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Setting up a document:
Unless I am creating a design for the laser cutter,
I generally only change the name and leave
everything else as the default.

So that I can make full use of the document space,

I increase the brightness of the user interface. This way I can show the full
evolution of the design in one document instead of over multiple.

Edit > Preferences > User Interface > Brightness > Light

Viola!

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Tool Layout:
The best way to learn is just play around and see what they do!

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Rulers
Rulers are used to give scale to your projects and from them you drag guides
which are used to line up various elements of your project.

Press Ctrl + R (PC) or Command + R (Mac) to bring up the rulers and if needed
right click on the ruler to change the unit of measurements.

You can drag horizontal and vertical guides from each ruler that you can then
use to click shapes to and help align objects.

If needed you can hide the guides by pressing ctrl + ; or command + ;

The guides are not printed with the end project.

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Pen tool
This is my tool of choice to create or trace complex shapes.

By single clicking, you can use the pen tool to make shapes with straight lines to
any size and shape of your choice.

By clicking and dragging each anchor point you can use the pen tool to create
Bezier curves to make more complex shapes.

Once the next anchor is placed the area between the first and the last anchor
points and the curve will be filled in with the fill colour.

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To close off a shape, click on the first anchor point (click and hold for bezier
curve).

Once a shape is complete you will then be able to easily select it.

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Stroke and Fill
To change the stroke and fill you need to use the selection tool (the black arrow)
to select the object. The stroke and fill should then appear:

Choose your fill and stroke colours! The white box with a red line is “none” (or
no colour).

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When you choose a Stroke colour you will then be able to choose stroke
thickness and styles as well.

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Selection and Direct Selection tools

Understanding and using appropriately, the two selection tools allows you to
work quickly and effectively.

Direct selection tool:

This tool allows you to select, scale, move, rotate etc. entire objects

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Once you have made your rough shapes you can then edit them to get them exact
using the direct selection tool (white arrow)

Using the direct selection tool you can click on an anchor point along a line and
then alter the handles attached to each:

This tool is used the most when fine tuning shapes and designs to match an
intended design. (you can import an image into Illustrator and even trace over
the top with the pen tool if you like!)

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Paint Brush
The paint brush works very similar to most other programs and students often
enjoy using this as they are used to it.

It creates a Bezier curve within the line thickness that can then be edited with
the direct selection tool. See below:

Shape/Polygon/Star Tool
All tools with a black arrow attached have alternate options if you click and hold
them.
Hold shift while drawing shapes to make the width the same as the height.

For the polygon and star tool: single click on the canvas to bring up the options:

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Making a Custom Paint Brush
You can make custom paint brushes that can then be used via the brush tool
swatch menu.

To make a stroke look like a caligraphy brush (which is

great to simulate hair as well!)

Select the elipse tool by clicking and holding the rectangle

tool.

Draw a circle by holding Shift as you draw (this will keep the width and height
the same).

Using the direct selection tool (shortcut = a), drag the bottom anchor down
holding shift to keep it along a vertical path.

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While holding Alt to separate the two handles on the bottom anchor, drag each
anchor up to create a tear drop shape.

Now you can change the colour to suit your needs.

I will put a transparent gradient going to brown to represent animal fur.

Select the object and click: Object > Flatten Transparency > OK

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This will then allow you to import the shape into the brushes options.

Select the brushes tab on the right, then while your object is selected, click the
new brush button > Art brush > OK

In the art brush options,

(which can be selected by
double clicking on a brush
later on) you can change the
direction in which it will
follow the brush stroke as
well as the width in a
percentage. ( You will change
these later as you start using
them, for now leave as
default.)

Using this tool and a custom brush, I made this for my

landscape task:

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Pathfinder Tool
The path finder tools are used to combine and subtract shapes to create new
combinations or save you time. To find them, select: Window > Pathfinder to
bring up the following tool menu:

The Align menu that is attached is also very useful and will be explained later.

I mostly use the shape modes within the pathfinder tool when doing logo design
and designing for the laser cutter.

Layer different shapes on top of each other and play around with the results!

*Note* the order of which is on top of which matters.

Below is a cookie with a bite out of it made using the Minus Front option:

The same method was used to make different layers

for the a batman logo as part of a Y7 project.

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Shape Builder Tool
The New Illustrator CC has introduced a new tool called Shape builder that
simplifies the process of what some pathfinder tools do.

Layer some objects on top of each other > Select all objects > Select the shape
builder tool > Draw a line over shapes you want to merge.

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Align Tools
The align tools are used to organise and align various objects within a document.

They appear at the top of the menu when you select multiple objects or can be
found within the pathfinder tools menu (my preference).

The tool allows you to align the left, right, top, bottom or vertical and/or
horizontal edges.

(Horizontally align centres)

You can also evenly distribute objects

(between the outermost selected objects)
as shown to the left. This tool was
invaluable to make my wedding invites
and everything printed.

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Setting up for Laser Cutter
The laser cutter we use is a Universal Laser Systems VLS2.30.
(While I’m fairly certain that the process I’m outlining should
work for other machines, I can’t guarantee it).

When designing for laser cutter you need to work a little differently to set up and
then prepare your project.

To set up the document I need to do a few things. My aim is to have a document

that uses RGB colour mode and is 16x12 Inches in size (the size of the cutting
bed). This way, the document scale will be 1:1 and the printer can read the
colour that it needs.

To do this I complete the following steps:

1. Change the profile to either Web or Basic RGB (to make the colour RGB.)
2. Change the units to inches (this is changed back later)
3. Change the width to 16 inches and Height to 12 inches.
4. Input a name and Select OK

*Note* once you change the units in step 2, the profle will change to “custom”,
this is fine, just continue with the next steps.

The resulting document is roughly A3 in size.

Once inside the document change the ruler back to millimetres to make it easy to
use.

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You can draw your elements as you wish by to prepare the project for laser
cutting you need to change the following:
1. Line stroke colour is RGB red (#FF0000) [which is 255 parts red and 0
green or blue.]
2. Stroke thickness = 0.001 pt
3. Remove the fill colour unless you want to etch the filled shape.

This is what the laser cutter reads as a cut. EVERYTHING else will only be etched
into the surface.

You should then be able to print to the laser cutter as per the manufactures spec.

*Note* It is very important to think about each line and object being cut or
etched. Any unnecessary line will add to the cutting time needed.

Recommended Resources:
• Aaron Draplin Takes On a Logo Design Challenge
https://vimeo.com/113751583

• Draplin Design Co.: Pretty Much Everything 2016

• Pinterest (is awesome) My name is Walkerteach if you want follow my
laser cutter board, most of them are suitable for school projects.
• Graphics tablets (for the more artistic students.)

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