Remove this Banner Ad

Tutorial Adobe Illustrator tutorial

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.


I have this banner shape from the standard illustrator shapes and I am trying to get the fill of the whole banner as black. When I select the shape layer and try to play with the fill/stroke, it is only adjusting the banner line, and not the actually fill. Hope that makes sense. Any pointers appreciated.

Would actually also like to make the the small overlap parts of the banner I different shade of black. Shadowing if you like..
 
TheBug said:

I have this banner shape from the standard illustrator shapes and I am trying to get the fill of the whole banner as black. When I select the shape layer and try to play with the fill/stroke, it is only adjusting the banner line, and not the actually fill. Hope that makes sense. Any pointers appreciated.

Would actually also like to make the the small overlap parts of the banner I different shade of black. Shadowing if you like..
Click to expand...

It is probably saved as a Compound Path.
You'll have to release the Compound Path and it should change it to Black, if it doesn't select the smaller of the two shapes made and change that to Black.

Could also be Break Link to Symbol.

Either way Right Click. See what comes up in the box.
If the latter, it will save it as a Group; if the former, Click on Release Compound Path.
 

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

TheBug said:
I have this banner shape from the standard illustrator shapes
Click to expand...
And here I've been creating a banner from scratch every time like a sucker.
 
TheBug said:
Window > Symbols

Then on the right side, the symbols tab pops up. Then click on the library button. There are quite a few different packs in there.
Click to expand...
Haha thanks, I never knew they existed. Oh well..
 
I learnt that from the first tutorial on the Illustrator site. Design a logo or something like that.

I'm using the Creative Cloud version, so not sure if things line up exactly.
 
Ok, so next question is about clipping masks. I've followed through from previous posts. And on jumpers, I've got it sussed. But I'm playing around with making logos. So on the following;


I'm trying to clip away all the red from the where it touches the bottom of the wings and above. But I keep clipping everything but the part I want to get rid off.

Also, feel free to shoot me down if asking too many questions.
 
Sorry I can't help you TheBug but I'm only just starting out with AI too. Tonight is literally my first experience doing something creative with it (apart from tracing rasters and those old NSL/Ericsson Cup logos)

I'm also having a go at making a banner but using a step by step guide to do so.

Is there any advantage to using "points" as the unit of measurement rather than "pixels"? I'm much more familiar with pixels having used Photoshop a lot more often, so I know roughly how big a certain thing is in pixels.

Thoughts guys?
 
Gibbsy said:
Sorry I can't help you TheBug but I'm only just starting out with AI too. Tonight is literally my first experience doing something creative with it (apart from tracing rasters and those old NSL/Ericsson Cup logos)

I'm also having a go at making a banner but using a step by step guide to do so.

Is there any advantage to using "points" as the unit of measurement rather than "pixels"? I'm much more familiar with pixels having used Photoshop a lot more often, so I know roughly how big a certain thing is in pixels.

Thoughts guys?
Click to expand...


From what was suggested in the the video I watched, it said to just use what you are used to working with.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

TheBug said:
Ok, so next question is about clipping masks. I've followed through from previous posts. And on jumpers, I've got it sussed. But I'm playing around with making logos. So on the following;


I'm trying to clip away all the red from the where it touches the bottom of the wings and above. But I keep clipping everything but the part I want to get rid off.

Also, feel free to shoot me down if asking too many questions.
Click to expand...
Sorry mate, I'm not quite sure what your intending to do.

EDIT:
Ahh I get you now. Ok this is what I would do. Copy and paste the black part of the logo and put this layer below the original black layer, but on top of the red circle layer. Align a white stroke to the copy and pasted black part of the logo. Underneath this layer, create a new layer. Using the pen tool, make a shape that will cover the red bits you don't want, and colour it white.

At the end the layers would look like this:
Black logo
Black logo copy w/white stroke
Shape
Red circle logo

There are probably better ways to do it, but it is how I would do it.
 
TheBug said:
Ok, so next question is about clipping masks. I've followed through from previous posts. And on jumpers, I've got it sussed. But I'm playing around with making logos. So on the following;


I'm trying to clip away all the red from the where it touches the bottom of the wings and above. But I keep clipping everything but the part I want to get rid off.

Also, feel free to shoot me down if asking too many questions.
Click to expand...

What I would do is select the Black shape.(Presuming it's all one shape)
I am also presuming thre circle is not a circle, but you've made the circle, then Object>Expand to make it a shape.
So with your Black shape go:
Object>Path>Offset Path
Change the Offset of whatever units you're using (Points, Pixels etc)
Select something like 2.5 points.
Change the Miter Limit to something like 10, or change the Joins to Rounded.
(You will have to play with the Miter Limit as sharp corners get blunted off at low Miter numbers. I suggest try it on one number, if it doesn't look good, Ctrl_Z to undo, try adding one to each until it looks OK)
This will make a Black shape 2.5 points bigger than the original, one layer under it.
With that Black shape selected, Ctrl Click on the Red circle in Layers.
Now you have the two shapes selected go to your Pathfinder box.
It's usually on the same box as Transform and Align, if it's not open, go to Window>Pathfinder
Click on the second little box, Minus Front.
Now your circle has the shape of the logo in front cut out, 5 points bigger than the shape over it.
 
I made my banner!
Banner.png

Question for Mero , why is it that when I have "Overprint Preview" selected in View, all the diagonal lines and curves are smooth, but if I turn it to "Pixel Preview" (which I believe is the default), the lines go all pixelated and anti-aliased? I thought this program works entirely in vectors? These are all lines/shapes I've drawn myself.

So what is the difference between these two mode?
 
Gibbsy said:
I made my banner!
View attachment 34029

Question for Mero , why is it that when I have "Overprint Preview" selected in View, all the diagonal lines and curves are smooth, but if I turn it to "Pixel Preview" (which I believe is the default), the lines go all pixelated and anti-aliased? I thought this program works entirely in vectors? These are all lines/shapes I've drawn myself.

So what is the difference between these two mode?
Click to expand...

As you might imagine, Pixel Preview gives you an idea what the graphic is going to look like once you've saved it as a raster image.
So you can zoom in a see when it's going to get grainy etc.
The Default is to have both of them off.
The only thing I've ever found useful with Overprint is the background goes grey on mine, meaning when I am saving something as a pdf in Illustrator I can easily see where the borders are. When Overprint is turned on, this goes to White.
Personally I rarely use either.
 

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Mero said:
As you might imagine, Pixel Preview gives you an idea what the graphic is going to look like once you've saved it as a raster image.
So you can zoom in a see when it's going to get grainy etc.
The Default is to have both of them off.
The only thing I've ever found useful with Overprint is the background goes grey on mine, meaning when I am saving something as a pdf in Illustrator I can easily see where the borders are. When Overprint is turned on, this goes to White.
Personally I rarely use either.
Click to expand...

Thanks mate. I didn't even realise you could turn both of them off! All is well. Now to try and create a shield. Very early on in the learning process but it looks like a lot of things are made by simple geometric shapes
 
Gibbsy said:
Thanks mate. I didn't even realise you could turn both of them off! All is well. Now to try and create a shield. Very early on in the learning process but it looks like a lot of things are made by simple geometric shapes
Click to expand...

Yeah, basically they are.
And you can paste them together pretty easily as well, with the Pathfinder>Merge button.
 
Mero said:
Yeah, basically they are.
And you can paste them together pretty easily as well, with the Pathfinder>Merge button.
Click to expand...


Cheers. Here's a question I was trying to find an answer to last night but ended up just doing it manually.

Is there a way to copy strokes from one object to another? I had those two thick inside strokes on the main rectangle and wanted to duplicate them onto the "ribbon end" but when I used the Appearance panel to do that, it would copy the Fill as well, not just the stroke. I already had the gradient fill I wanted on the ribbon end, but once i did the copy/paste it got deleted.

Any ideas?
 
Gibbsy said:
Cheers. Here's a question I was trying to find an answer to last night but ended up just doing it manually.

Is there a way to copy strokes from one object to another? I had those two thick inside strokes on the main rectangle and wanted to duplicate them onto the "ribbon end" but when I used the Appearance panel to do that, it would copy the Fill as well, not just the stroke. I already had the gradient fill I wanted on the ribbon end, but once i did the copy/paste it got deleted.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Have you tried the Eyedropper tool?
I think it might get you the same result as you've experienced, but then, you could drag your gradient to the swatches, so you have it there, use the Eyedropper to get the same Stroke, then select the gradient again to change the Fill back.

So you would select your new shape you've made.
Drag the gradient you've made to the swatches
Click on Eyedropper Tool.
Click on the shape you want the new shape to look like
Click on the Gradient Swatch you created to change the Fill back to the gradient.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Tutorial Adobe Illustrator tutorial

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top