Quick Pattern Tricks in Illustrator
There’s something about perfect symmetry that just catches your eye. When you have a beautiful pattern, you can get a lot of attention. When you have a beautiful pattern made up of different shapes, you can really stand out. Anything that you can do to get and hold a viewer’s attention is important. Illustrator is a great place to create and combine different shapes. My favorite part about using Illustrator is the sheer speed at which you can create perfect patterns. You just have to know a few tricks for making things easy. In today’s video, I am going to show you a couple of really near pattern tricks in Illustrator.
Why Knowing these Pattern Tricks in Illustrator is Important
Knowing tricks like these can help you with rapid shape and pattern development. This is important because you can really dazzle people with pixel-perfect geometric shapes. The amount of control that you have over patterns in Illustrator is second to none. I love Photoshop, but it would be much harder and it would take longer to create this same pattern.
Step 1
Take any shape or group of objects. Make sure that multiple objects or shapes are grouped together for ease. you can always ungroup them later.
Step 2
Align that object to the top center, or one of the vertical centers of a circle. You can use that circle for reference.
Step 3
Select the object you want to duplicate and rotate around a circle, along with the circle. Then, select the Rotate tool and option-click on the center of the circle.
Step 4
A dialog box will come up, allowing you to dial in the amount of degrees you want to rotate the object. Make sure it goes into 360° evenly, so this will work. The number you choice could be 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 20, 30, 36, 40, or 60.
Step 5
Instead of ok, choose to create a copy, via the left button in the dialog box. This will duplicate your object and the circle. It’s okay, because we will delete the circles when we are done.
Step 6
Hit Command/Ctrl + D to duplicate the last step over and over again, only it repeats your action as a whole, duplicating and rotating your object and circle.
Step 7
When you’re finished, delete the circles, and you’re all set! Look at the images above and below to see how you can take this further and apply it to what you just made.
Wrapping Up
You can create beautiful patterns in Illustrator using a few quick tricks and a making the right adjustments. Combining different base shapes and using a number that goes evenly into 360 will give you a perfect circle pattern every time. Just think of what you could create by combining different opacity settings and effects! For example, take this tutorial on how to blend shapes in Adobe Illustrator, group the objects and rotate them into a mind-blowing pattern. What will you come up with?
The Video (In case you learn better this way)
Do You Have Any Pattern Tricks in Illustrator?
The faster that you can create in Illustrator, the better. How did this trick work for you? Did you have any trouble? What shapes did you use to create your pattern? It would be really awesome if you would share your creations in the comments area. It would be great to see what you come up with.
