Using the Blend Tool in illustrator

Today we are in Illustrator to have a look at the Blend Tool! This is one of those awesome features that allow us to expand our creativity and create amazing effects in seconds!I’ll show you how to blend basic and complex shapes, adjust blend settings, work with colors and gradients, and share some cool tips and ideas along the way.

This post is based on one of the classes from my recently updated Illustrator Advanced Course, you can check it out at BYOL. When you become a BYOL member, you gain access to this course as well as my 30+ additional courses on After Effects, Photoshop, Figma, Lightroom, and more. As a BYOL member you will also enjoy personalized support, earn certificates, and tackle exciting community challenges. Head here to sign-up!

The Blend Tool in Illustrator

The Blend tool tool is easy to learn and almost limitless in its creative potential. It creates intermediate steps, or blends, of colors and shapes between two or more objects.

We can use blend effects to:

• Create smooth gradients

• Generate complex shapes and patterns

• Create color transitions and morphing effects to typography

• Add motion to a design

And we can do it in just a few clicks, so follow along and master this incredible skill to uplevel your design skills!

1.    Blending basic shapes

Let’s start with a couple of basic shapes: a rectangle and a circle. We can draw them with the Rectangle (Shortcut key R) and Ellipse (Shortcut key L) tools, with no Fill color and a Stroke of 1 or 2 points.

With both shapes selected, let’s click on the Blend tool button in the left toolbar. We can also use the shortcut key W on both PC and Mac.

Next, we move to the rectangle shape. When an asterisk becomes visible below the blend icon on our cursor, we click on the stroke to select the first blending object.

Let’s set the second object. We move to the circle and, as soon as a + sign shows up below the blend icon, click on the stroke to set the second blending object..

By default, the Blend tool sets one intermediate step between the first and second shapes and joins them as a single object. We can see the new blend, a transition shape between a rectangle and a circle. Nice!

The Blend tool can automatically add additional steps, or blends, to our artwork. If we double-click the object, we can dive inside its layer. Next, with the selection tool, we double-click the circle and drag it away from the rectangle. As we do it, new steps are added to the transition, morphing to keep the transition logic and smooth.

2.   Adjusting Blend Options

Now let’s have a look at Blend Options and understand how they work. To access the Blend Options window, we can double-click the Blend tool button on the left toolbar. We can also open it on the Properties Panel, making sure the blend object is selected.

Inside the Blend Options window we can adjust Spacing and Orientation. Let’s click the Spacing drop-down menu and check the available options:

• Smooth color – This option generates a blend by transitioning color between two or more objects, it’s great for creating gradients in seconds!

• Specified Steps – This allows us to determine a specific number of steps in a blend. A higher number of steps results in smoother transitions.

• Specified Distance – With this option, we set the exact distance between steps in a blend. All new objects will be evenly spaced according to the value we define.

• Orientation options are only active when we work with curved spines. We’ll check revisit them later in this blog post. 

I’m keeping my settings with Specified Steps set to 20 and clicking OK to apply the new Spacing values.

3.   Color blends

Let’s start using color! We can use the Direct Selection tool to select one of the original shapes or double-click the blend to edit it in layer mode. I’ll be using gradients, you can try solid colors as well. Inside layer mode, we select the rectangle shape, move to Fill on the Properties panel, and select a gradient from the available swatches. You can also create your own gradients, have fun while learning! Repeat the process for the circle.

Another thing we can do while in layer mode is edit the rectangle and circle’s size, form, and direction. This is the moment when things reach a new level of fun! Go ahead and try to scale up or down each object, move them around, and overlap them to generate surprising effects.

Timeout #1

Do you find gradients fascinating? Check out an article I’ve found on trendy gradients and the different ways to explore their potential. 

4.   Expand the Blend

Let’s have a look at another technique we can use to further edit our basic shapes. We’ll break our blend apart, so we can manipulate each line individually and rearrange our artwork.

With the blend object selected, we move to Object, on the top menu bar, hover with our mouse cursor over Blend and click on Expand. Now we can pick and edit each individual line in our blend. Next, we need to ungroup them, so we right-click the blend and pick Ungroup or click on the Ungroup button in the Properties panel. Now we can select each line and adjust it as needed to our project’s goal.

5.      Blending Complex Shapes

We’ve worked with rectangles and circles. Let's move on to complex vector shape and see how we can introduce the illusion of movement to our artworks. We’ll be using these lovely whales, our beloved friends from the Illustrator Essentials and Illustrator Advanced courses, all colorful and happy!

Remember the Spacing options we’ve covered above? Applying them to complex shapes is pretty much the same, there is only one thing we must keep in mind: we need to make sure that all the elements for each whale are properly grouped together.

You know I love shortcuts, so open your notebooks and write this one down: Command + Option + B on a Mac or Control + Alt + B on a Windows PC. What does it do?

Nice! It creates an intermediate step between our whales! This really speeds up your workflow! We can now open the Blend Options window and keep on editing our blend.

Solid color and gradient transitions feel smoother the higher the number of steps we add to our blend. One is hardly fit for that effect, so let’s try other values, like 50, 100, or even 1000, if your computer can handle the pressure. This is how it would look like with a 1000 blend gradient transition:

Looks pretty amazing, right? These colors and effects bring an 80’s and 90’s vibe, energic and intense. We love it!

Now you may be asking: “hey, Dan, but this straight-line movement still makes it a bit boring. Can we curve it?” My answer is: yes, we can. Check out the next step!

6.      Working with Spines

Let’s learn how to bend our blend and make our whale artwork feel more natural. For this we need to have a look at the blend’s spine, the line that connects the first and the second whale and guides all the steps we generate. To make it easier, we need to activate the outline view. We can find it under Window in the top menu bar and then click on GPU preview or use the shortcut keys Command + Y on a Mac and Control + Y on a PC.

Now we can clearly see the straight-line connection between both initial objects. Next, we use the Pen tool to add an anchor point in the middle and set it as a curve in the Properties panel to access its curve handles. Using the Direct Selection tool (Shortcut key A) and adjust the handles until we find the adequate curvature for our design.

To leave outline view and see how the blend has changed, we repeat the shortcut Command + Y or Control + Y.

This keeps getting better! Let’s edit our blend, you already know how to access the Blend Options window, right? Remember that we skipped Orientation back there? Let’s have a look at it now!

There are two options for Orientation:

Align to Page – objects are aligned with the artboard’s edges (see image above).

Align to Path – objects align with the path or spine’s orientation (see image below).

I’ve reduced the number of steps to 24 so we can more clearly see how the movement takes place along the blend’s spine. Awesome, huh?

There are two more options that we can pick while working with curved spines. We can find them inside Blend starting from Object in the top menu bar.

Reverse Spine – flips the order of the objects that flow across the path.

Reverse Front to Back – this option reverses which object is placed on top and in the bottom of the stack.

Timeout #2

There are many ways to create the illusion of movement in static design. Check these styles and tricks, find your favorites, and try them out!

Bonus treats!

Do you feel your head already humming with ideas for amazing vector illustrations and artworks using blends? I bet you do!

To help you kick start your new skills, I’ll share two examples of how blends can take your designs to a whole new dimension!

Can you see how both different color and text shapes morph together? Blends can transform your typography elements and help you create amazing headers!

This is a project from my Illustrator Advanced Course. Can you see how blends can also be subtle and add a unique feel to a wide range of projects? The possibilities are nearly endless! Have fun with them!

And there we have it!

Blends are incredible and I hope that now you are now as excited as I am to use them in your designs. Now you know what Blends are, how they work, how to edit and refine them with Blend Options and you can even bend them for extra fun. Get inspired, practice, and challenge your limits. You are on a great path to Illustrator Superhero level!

What 's Next?

To go deeper with Illustrator, join BYOL and you will gain access to my Illustrator Essentials and Advanced courses as well as my 30+ additional courses on Figma, Photoshop,  Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Webflow, and more. As a BYOL member you will also enjoy personalized support, earn certificates, and tackle exciting community challenges. Get started here. 

See you in class! – Dan