Excerpt from Adobe Illustrator CS4
Digital Classroom

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Adobe Illustrator CS4 Jumpstart - continued

Saving a graphic style

You will save the combination of effects that you’ve implemented as a graphic style, allowing you to easily apply these collective effects to other objects. Using a graphic style makes it easier to convey any changes you make to the graphic style to all objects to which that style is applied.

1 Make sure that the circle with the offset strokes is still selected and click on the Graphic Styles tab at the top of the Appearance panel to reveal the Graphic Styles panel. Press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and click on the New Graphic Style button () at the bottom of the Graphic Styles panel. The Graphic Style Options dialog box appears.

2 Type circle in the Style Name text field, then press OK.

Name the new graphic style.

The strokes become a style added to the Graphic Styles panel.

The circle style is added to the Graphic Styles panel.

3 Choose File > Save. Keep this file open.

Creating a symbol from the circle art

By creating a symbol, you can add multiple occurrences of an object to your artwork. A symbol can be created from vector art and raster art that is embedded in an Illustrator file. In this lesson you will use a symbol to create artwork directly in Illustrator, which you will learn more about in Lesson 8, “Working with Symbols.” You can also create movie clip symbols right in Adobe Illustrator CS4 that can be imported directly into Flash CS4.

1 Choose Window > Symbols or press the Symbols button () in the dock to open the Symbols panel.

2 Using the Selection tool (), select the circle with the offset strokes on the artboard and drag it into the Symbols panel. When the circle is over the Symbols panel, release the mouse to drop the circle.

3 In the resulting Symbols Options dialog box, type circle into the Name text field and select the Graphic radio button. Press OK. The circle is added to the Symbols panel.

Add your circle to the Symbols panel.

4 Using the Selection tool, select the original circle and choose Edit > Clear. Now that you created a symbol, you no longer need the original. Now you will use the symbol feature to populate your background with the circle artwork.

5 Select the Symbol Sprayer tool () from the Tools panel. Your cursor becomes a small spray paint can with a circle around it, indicating the size of the spray area. Adjust its size by pressing the Left bracket key ( [ )on your keyboard to make it smaller or the Right bracket key ( ] ) to make it larger.

6 Click and drag with the mouse in a quick, steady motion throughout the orange square that you created earlier. The circle symbols are sprayed over the square. Stop when you have between 10 and 20 circles on your artboard. If you want to redo the spray of the circles, press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac OS) and start spraying again. The circles that you sprayed onto your artwork are symbol instances.

Use the Symbol Sprayer tool to add circles to your artwork.

Now you will apply transparency to the symbol instances using the Symbol Screener tool.

7 Press the Swatches button () in the dock and choose a yellow color from the color options so that Yellow becomes the selected fill color. In this example, CMYK Yellow is used.

8 Click and hold on the Symbol Sprayer in the Tools panel to select the hidden Symbol Screener Tool ().

Use the Symbol Screener tool to change opacity.

9 Double-click on the Symbol Screener tool in the Tools panel; the Symbolism Tools Options dialog box appears. Using the Symbolism Tools Options dialog box you can change attributes of each of the Symbolism tools. The Symbol Screener tool controls a symbol instance’s opacity. You will adjust a setting in the Symbolism Tools Options dialog box so that the opacity change is more subtle.

10 In the Symbolism Tools Options dialog box, type 3 into the Intensity text field, or drag the Intensity slider to 3, then press OK.

Reduce the intensity to 3.

11 Position your cursor over one of the circle symbol instances on the artboard and click on it. All the symbol instances covered by the radius around the Symbol Sprayer tool fade slightly. The longer you hold down the mouse, the more drastic the change in opacity.

12 Now hold down the Alt (Window) or Option (Mac OS) key and click on one of the symbol instances that you used the Symbol Screener tool on. By holding down the Alt/Option key, you can undo the Symbols Screen effects and bring the opacity back up to 100%.

The symbols after using the Symbol Screener tool.

There is no exact effect you are trying to achieve with this tool, so experiment with the Symbol Screener tool until you have the effect that you like.

13 Choose File > Save. Keep this file open for the next part of this lesson.

Creating the text logo

Now that you have saved the attributes of your object, you will add some text, to which you will apply your graphic style.

Before starting, you will create a new layer so that you can easily lock down the artwork you have already created.

1 Choose Window > Layers or press the Layers button () in the dock to open the Layers panel.

2 Click in the empty area to the right of the visibility icon (); a padlock icon () appears and the artwork on Layer 1 is now locked.

3 Hold down the Alt (Window) or Option (Mac OS) key and click on the Create New Layer button () in the Layers panel.

4 In the resulting Layer Options dialog box, type text logo in the Name text field. Press OK.

The new layer appears in the Layers panel.

The new text logo layer appears above the locked Layer 1.

5 Select the Type tool () from the Tools panel, and the type attributes and options appear in the Control panel.

6 Click on the Character link in the Control panel select Minion Pro from the Font drop-down menu and choose Bold from the Font Style drop-down menu. Type 70 into the Size text field and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).

7 Click on the Fill color swatch in the Control panel and choose the black swatch, then click the Stroke color swatch and choose
None ().

8 Click once anywhere on your artboard. Type Sound Art.

9 Activate the Selection tool. Click and drag on the text you created and position it in the center, toward the top of the orange square.

Type on the artboard.

10 Choose File > Save to save your work. Keep the file open.

Applying the graphic style to the text logo

Now that you created the text logo for the artwork, you will apply the graphic style that you saved earlier in the lesson.

1 Using the Selection tool (), click on the Sound Art text to make sure it is selected.

2 If your Graphic Styles panel is not visible, choose Window > Graphic Styles or press the Graphic Styles button () in the dock.

3 Select the circle graphic style that you created earlier. The style is applied to the text.

Click on the saved graphic style.

Though the correct style is applied, it doesn’t work well for text. You will use the Add Effect feature to create a much better result.

4 Select the Appearance tab in the Graphics Style panel to bring forward the Appearance panel. Make sure the text is still selected with the Selection tool and click on the topmost stroke listed in the Appearance panel, then choose Effect > Pathfinder > Add. This effect adds the separate shapes together, making the effect a little more attractive.

5 Select the second stroke listed in the Appearance panel and choose Effect > Pathfinder > Add. Now the yellow stroke forms a much cleaner outline.

Add the strokes.

Warping the text logo

1 With the text logo still selected on the artboard, click on the word Type at the top of the Appearance panel, then choose Effect > Warp > Flag. The Warp Options dialog box appears with the Flag style already selected. Check the Preview checkbox to see how the warped text looks as you make changes in the dialog box.

2 In the Distortion section, click and drag the Horizontal slider left to –30 or type -30 into the Horizontal percent text field and press OK.

Set the warp options. The resulting warped text.

3 Choose File > Save to save your work. Keep this file open for the next part of this lesson.

Using the Color Guide

In this exercise, you will use some of the new Live Color features. You will select a color and then use the Color Guide, which allows you to select one of Live Color’s harmonious relationships for your current color, making the job of finding complements and matching colors much easier.

1 Make sure that no objects are selected on your artboard by selecting Select > Deselect, using the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+A (Windows) or Shift+Command+A (Mac OS), or by clicking anywhere on the white artboard.

2 Make sure that at the bottom of the Tools panel, the fill () is the foreground color and the stroke is in the background. Click the Fill box in the Control panel to see your color options and choose CMYK Red.

3 Press the Layers button () in the dock or choose Windows > Layers to reveal the Layers panel. Click the padlock icon () to the left of Layer 1 to unlock it.

4 Select Object > Unlock All in order for the large orange square to be affected by the Live Color. Activate the Selection tool, then choose Select > All. This selects all objects in the document.

5 Press the Color Guide button () in the dock or choose Window > Color Guide to open the Color Guide panel. Notice that the red fill color is automatically made the base color, from which other harmonious color groups are assigned. Click on the Harmony Rules drop-down menu (to the right of the active colors) to see that you can select different harmonious colors that are related to the original red base. Choose Right Complement.

Illustrator automatically calculates harmonious color groups for you.

6 Click on the Edit or Apply Colors button () at the bottom of the Color Guide panel. The Recolor Artwork dialog box appears. Leave the settings at their defaults and press OK. The Right Complementary colors are applied to your artwork.

The result.

7 Repeat step 5 to try different harmonious color selections. When you are finished experimenting, return to the choice of Right Complement but do not close the dialog box.

8 Click on the New Color Group button () at the top of the Recolor Artwork dialog box; your group of colors is added to the list of color groups on the right side of the dialog box.

Add the colors as a new group.

9 Double-click on the words Color Group, which appear to the right of the colors you just added to the list. In the Edit Name dialog box that appears, type cd colors into the Name text field and press OK. Back in the Live Color dialog box, press OK again. Illustrator prompts you with a message asking if you’d like to save the changes to swatch group “cd colors” before closing. Choose Yes.

10 Click on the Swatches button () in the dock to open the Swatches panel. The cd colors color group has been added to the swatch selections.

You can do much more with the Live Color feature, like convert multicolored artwork into Pantone spot colors, as well as adjust the amount of colors in your artwork. Find out more about Live Color in Lesson 4, “Adding Color.”

11 Choose File > Save. Keep the file open for the next part of the lesson.

Adobe Illustrator Training Class Locations

AGI offers regularly scheduled and private Illustrator classes at our training centers. Adobe Illustrator Training in or near Boston, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Orlando, and London, England. Visit our Adobe Illustrator training class locations page.