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Illustrator
TUTORIALS
18 MAY 2009
56 COMMENTS
look at compiling various geometric shapes and objects to form a dynamic composition
in Illustrator, then polishing it all up with some transparency effects to create a trendy
vector illustration.
Start work sketching out a rough plan for the design, taking into consideration the
A4, and set the Color Mode to RGB for a choice of nice, vibrant colours.
Draw a 210x297mm rectangle onto the Artboard, align it centrally then add a soft grey to
white radial gradient. This subtle addition gives a little depth to the design, rather than a
baby blues, pinks and a couple of complementing greys. Draw a square at 7x7mm,
copy (CMD+C) and paste in place (CMD+F). Then, press the ENTER key to Move the
Tip: Use CMD+D after pasting a new object to repeat the last transform command.
With all the coloured squares selected, click the New Brush icon in the Brushes palette.
With the Pen Tool, draw a smooth flowing line spanning from the bottom left corner to
Rather than have all the coloured stripes end abruptly, we want to tweak them to
different lengths. Draw a temporary shape that crops off one of the stripes. With the
shape and stripe selected choose the Subtract from Shape Area option in the
Pathfinder.
Repeat this process with the remaining stripes at different positions, giving varied
extra swatches that add lighter and darker tones. Its handy to keep a copy of the
original swatches to one side to allow quick and easy colour picking.
Begin to add some secondary elements to the design, such as a bunch of grey circles.
Draw each shape at a different size to fill out the empty space.
Overlap this area with another collection of circles, this time choose a different colour
from the palette. Add a subtle gradient to give some depth to these new shapes.
Spice up the design with a touch of transparency. Draw a couple of new circles using
the pink and blue colours, then change their blending mode to Overlay to react with the
With circles being a prominent theme in the design, a set of halftone style elements
would fit in well. Download a copy of the Vector Halftones from Think Design.
Add a few objects to fill out the space either side of the main flowing lines. Use the
Overlay blending mode, or simply reduce the opacity to tone down the elements.
A variation of the circular shapes is a circle with a stroke, giving a ring shape that still fits
in with the overall theme. Continue drawing lots of tiny shapes that give plenty of detail
to the design.
Draw a separate circle elsewhere on the Artboard. Use the Direct Selection Tool to
select two of the points. Hit delete to crop the circle down to a quarter.
Add a thick stroke to the line, the idea is to match the width of the main flowing lines, so
Position the new curved line accurately on the end of the blue stripe.
Overlap some large circle elements using the Overlay blending mode to break up the
Also place objects so that they interact with each other, which helps give variety to the
shapes.
Spice up the overall background with some very large, faint circles.
The vector design is just about complete. The clean lines of vector work always looks
pretty cool, but I always enjoy roughing up my designs a little in Photoshop to add some
graphics they can be scaled to any size until they are rendered as pixels.
Head over to SXC to find a nice canvas texture. Copy the design into Photoshop and
setting that just adds some grainy detail to the colours. Change the blending mode to
Make any last tweaks such as a touch of Curves adjustment to bring out the darks and
right into any type of design for print and web, or could be left as a design showcased
on its own.