How to create Graphic Styles

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Course contents
SECTION: 4
Keyboard Shortcuts 14:06

Questions

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Course info

104 lessons / 10 hours 33 quiz questions 31 projects Certificate of achievement

Overview

Hey there, I'm Dan Scott, an Adobe Certified Instructor with over 16 years of design experience under my belt, I'm part of the Adobe Expert program, and my online and in-person classes have been attended by more than a million people, just like you! Join me as we dive into the exciting world of Adobe Illustrator Advanced! In this course, you're not just leveling up in Illustrator, you're transforming into an Illustrator SuperHero!

In this course you will work on a bespoke brief designed to ignite your imagination, coupled with immersive course videos, you'll be crafting jaw-dropping graphics in no time. Throughout our journey together, you'll flex your creative muscles and construct projects that will elevate your portfolio to new heights. So, let's dive in and unleash your creativity!

You’ll learn:

  • - How to use artificial intelligence to boost your creativity in ideation. 
  • - The quick way to take hand-drawn sketches and vectorize and color them. 
  • - The building blocks needed to set you loose on a huge variety of beautiful effects and techniques.
  • - To make beautiful charts and graphs for your documents. 
  • - Color mastery to make quick color adjustments, Pantones, and blend it all together beautifully.
  • - How to master images inside of your illustrator workflow. 
  • - To harness all the secret gems that'll help you level up your typography skills. 
  • - All the tricks of the trade for drawing complex shapes easily. 
  • - To double your creativity with the Transform and Distort section. 
  • - To speed up your personal workflow to get the most out of your creative day.

Explore the full course outline for a comprehensive list of topics that will expand your Illustrator prowess beyond imagination.

If you're already comfortable navigating the basics but want to  unlock the true potential of Illustrator, then this Illustrator Advanced course is your ticket to becoming a master of Illustrator! So join me and the ranks of design superheroes and let's embark on this thrilling journey together.

Requirements:

- All you need is a copy of Adobe Illustrator, you can get a free trial from Adobe here to get started.
- A basic knowledge of Illustrator is required. I recommend watching my Illustrator Essentials course prior to embarking on this epic adventure.

Who this course is for:

- Creative adventurers who already have a basic understanding of Illustrator.
- Self-taught Illustrator enthusiasts yearning for structured guidance.
- Graduates of my Illustrator Essentials Course, hungry for more knowledge and skills.
- Visionaries who have developed their own unique Illustrator approach but crave exploration of the vast universe of tools, updates, and time-saving techniques.

What you'll learn:

- How to use Text to Vector Ai
- How to use Text to Pattern Ai
- How to use Generative Recolor
- When to use the Scissor Tool, Eraser Tool & Knife Tool
- Advanced Shape Builder Uses
- The differences between the Pathfinder Vs Shape Builder
- How to use the Join tool & Joining Path Ends
- Advanced Pen Tool Tricks
- Width Tool Advanced Techniques
- The Curvature Tool
- How to master corners with corner widget effects
- How to work with Compound Paths
- The difference between Expand & Expand Appearance
- How to create Graphic Styles
- How to make Symbols
- How to use the Smooth Tool
- Advanced use of Simplify Path
- What Live Shape Effects are for
- How to make Repeating Grids & Concentric Circles
- How to make Random Objects
- Advanced Keyboard Shortcuts in Illustrator
- How to add a Gradient on a Stroke
- How to add a Gradient in Text
- How to use the Freeform Gradient tool
- How to use Advanced Color Swatches
- How to use Global Color Swatches
- What is the difference between RGB vs CMYK color modes?
- How to proof colors
- How to use Pantone Spot Colors
- Recolor Artwork & Changing all colors at once
- How to use Blending Modes
- How to work with Images & Blending Modes
- How to make Black & White Images
- Learn Advanced Workflow Tricks
- All the Super Selection Mastery
- How to use the History Panel
- Advanced Fonts Tricks & Tips
- Use Retype to know what Font is being used
- How to put Text Inside a Letter or Shape
- How to use the Touch Type Tool
- How to add a Connected Stroke Around Multiple Shapes
- How to Offset a Stroke with Text
- How to make a Bar Chart in Illustrator
- How to make a Pie Chart in Illustrator
- Layer Power Moves
- Advanced Artboard & Pages Tricks
- How to Unlink vs Embedded Images
- How to Crop Images Rather than Mask
- How to Mask Inside Text & Multiple Shapes
- How to you use the Puppet Warp Tool
- How to use the Distort Envelope Shape & Type
- How to use the Envelope Mesh
- How to blend lines together
- How to make a Linocut Effect
- How to make 3D Gradient Lettering Blends
- How to spin text into a ring
- How to turn text into a 3D donut shape
- How to make a Duotone image effect
- How to make a Roughen Stamp Vector Effect
- How to make a Neon Sign Glow Effect
- How to use a Halftone Effect using Plugins
- Advanced Exporting Assets Tricks in Illustrator
- How to use the Dimension Tool

So what're you waiting for? Let's start the course now!
Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

instructor

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Certificates

We’re awarding certificates for this course!

Check out the How to earn your certificate video for instructions on how to earn yours and click the available certificate levels below for more information.

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hi everyone. In this video we're gonna look at the graphic styles panel. Uh, we put a lot of work earlier on to kind of make our, uh,  interesting appearance, okay, around our type and shapes. And I'm gonna show you now how to turn it into a template so  that you can share it with others  and you can in other documents,  go you this little handy icon here. Bam. It's a way of saving and sharing all  that work you did in your parents' panel.

Basically all it does is grab everything from the parents'  panel, sticks it into a graphic style library,  makes it shareable and reusable. Plus I'll show you all the really bad ones  that are built into Illustrator. Alright, let's jump in and do some graphic styles. Alright? Create a graphic style. Uh, first of all, you need something selected  that has the style that you want to pull from it.

Okay? We created this earlier. It's got a fill. It's got 1, 2, 3, 4 strokes on it. Can we have anything? Okay, as long as it appears in this appearance panel,  it'll get added to the graphic styles library.

Okay? So with it selected, we're gonna go to a window,  we're gonna go down to graphic styles. Open up that, okay. Often it's tied together with your appearance panel  'cause they're kind of one and the same. Remember, uh, earlier on, um,  let's grab our regular lips tool. Earlier on I kind of drew something  and the way to get styled from one, you know,  everything from this appearance panel onto  this new object, okay?

Was to grab my black arrow, click on this  and drag it across. So basically it's just a little swatch. All we're gonna do is transfer  that little swatch into the graphic style swatches. So to do it, um, I'm gonna select on it, okay? And I'm going to go to graphic styles  and I'm gonna head plus. And there it is there.

Okay, it's just reusable. Now I can say, all right, I got some type,  Very small type, okay? And I can click on my graphic style  and it's a bit much for this type. There you go. Um, yeah, I've applied my graphic style to it. There you go.

That's how to create your own  style and reuse it. You can send it out to other people. Let's say that I want to give this to other teammates,  make it downloadable, is you can  save your graphic style library. Okay? So it's nothing to do with the document really. It's to do with the styles library here.

So what I'm gonna do is clear out this library. There's, there's some default stuff in  here I don't want included. So I'm gonna click on this one. Hold shift,  grab this last one. I'm gonna grab them all. You have to have this first one.

It's kinda the default one. So I've selected all of those. I'm gonna hit bin and delete them. Now I've got just that style that I'd made. I can go to the Flyout menu  and I can go down to save graphic style library. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna call this one dance style.

I'm gonna put it on my desktop. It, it can live in the deep recesses  of Illustrator on your computer. That's fine. I'm gonna share this with say other teammates. I'm gonna go to, uh,  my desktop, I'm just gonna dump it on there. Dance style.

Okay,  so what's happened now is I've got this separate library. How do I bring it up? How do I get other people  to bring it up and use it? So we're all using the same style is watch this, if I go  to a new document, you'll notice that my graphic styles  of all kind of reset. So what I can do now is I can say,  all right, I wanna load that style. I can go to that graphic styles panel,  got a little fly out menu and  down the bottom that says open.

This is weird, trust me. Go down here. Open graphic styles library. And right in the bottom says Open other library. Okie dokie. Let's go to our desktop dance style and click open.

And this panel appears, okay, this is a  graphic style panel, okay? Like this one here, this is the one for the document. This is the one that I've loaded, okay? And I'm going to drag something out and then click on this  and bam, we've shared it. You'll notice that if I undo it  before I apply it, it's only in this style. And when I click on it, watch what happens  to the graphic styles panel.

It applies to the one that I'm working on. Okay? So that's a good way of sharing it. The other way of sharing it, okay, is just  to open the document. Because what we'll find is,  let's have a look on the desktop. You'll see that Dan Styles actually Adobe Illustrator file.

So I can go to file open, okay? That's what people tend to do. So they file open, it's better  to bring it in through the graphic styles. It's a bit cleaner, okay? But you can  open the document, okay? And what ends up happening is you end up like this,  you open the document and you're like, thanks Dan.

I've got a blank document. Basically the AI file has transported that style,  not in the document but in its graphic styles library. There it is there. So try  and use the file open, other library gain to see the panel  or you can just open the illustrator file,  open the graphic styles panel, and there it is there. So it doesn't really matter to get it  from one document to another. Uh, you could go to this new document  and go to the file open  or with this open I can use this style  and then just copy and paste the whole object.

So copy jump into this document. Let's actually make a new document. There's nothing in it. Hit paste. Can you see it comes along for the ride? Is that confusing?

There's two ways  to one way to save them, okay? In your graphic styles library, okay? Go to file save and then to open them  or bring them in from somebody else,  either your own ones or the teammates. The best way is in your document. Go to this, go to open and go to other library  and it will open up that separate panel Dan Styles. And then you get to use it.

But it is really common just  to double click and open up the illustrator file  and the style will be in here. You just think that with a blank page, which is a bit weird,  but as long as you've got your graphic styles panel open,  it should make sense. Ish. One thing before we go is your appearance panel. Sometimes you've applied lots of styles. Watch this.

I can go, actually let's look at  some of the built in styles. They are bad man, this might update, but if you go to window  and go to graphic styles library, there's some built in,  you're like, oh, awesome, I'm gonna just use  the image effects. Okay? And if I click on this and I go, bam, okay, it works. I just, I don't know, I'm not a fan of these. Okay?

They were made, I don't know, I think  before I started using Illustrator, all these effects  and nobody's gone and updated them,  I'm hoping the next version of Illustrator  will have these updated. Okay? But let's say you are missing with these  and you're like, ah, that's lovely and I wanna remove them. Okay? Go to your parents' panel  and you can go to this Flyout menu  and say let's reduce snow. Let's go to clear appearance.

Okay? So it's kind of got no fill, no stroke, back  to kind of uh, square one. And you end it with no fill, no stroke, just kind a way  of tidying things up. Okay? I'm gonna give it a fill so we can see it. There we go.

You can go  and have a look through the other, um,  graphic styles libraries that are built in. Okay? Have a look. And I don't know,  they disappoint me every time I go in. That's why in the next video I'll show you how  to bring in other people's graphic styles. 'cause there's some ace ones around  and I'll show you where to find them and how to use them.
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