How to use the Envelope Mesh to make a Ribbon in Illustrator?

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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.

How to earn your certificate

Work your way towards your certificate for this course by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Complete and pass the Knowledge Quiz (Merit level courses only)
  • Complete the Distinction Certificate Project (Distinction level courses only) - look out for the video marked with
  • Upload your Distinction project to the My Projects area in your account
  • Request your certificate when you've completed the requirements for the certificate level you're working towards

Good luck!

Pass certificates

We’re awarding ‘Pass’ level certificates for this course.

You can work your way towards your ‘Pass’ certificate by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Don’t forget to request your certificate when all your projects are complete

Good luck!

Merit certificates

We’re awarding ‘Merit’ level certificates for this course.

You can work your way towards your ‘Merit’ certificate by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Complete and pass the Knowledge Quiz
  • Don’t forget to request your certificate when you have passed the quiz and completed all your projects

Good luck!

Distinction certificates

We're awarding 'Distinction' level certificates for this course.

You can work your way towards your 'Distinction' certificate by following these simple steps.

  • Watch the course videos
  • Complete the Class Projects - look out for the videos marked with
  • Upload your class projects into the My Projects area in your account
  • Complete and pass the Knowledge Quiz
  • Complete the Distinction Certificate Project - look out for the video marked with
  • Upload your Distinction project to the My Projects area in your account
  • Don't forget to request your certificate when you have passed the quiz and completed all your projects

Good luck!

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hey everyone. Uh, this video we're gonna look at something called an  envelope mesh, different from an envelope. Distort gives you more control, very custom. We're gonna go from stripe lines to 3D ribbony thing. Ignore all the kind of like pink edges around there. I'll explain what I did accidentally later on.

But the mesh is relatively easy to uh, get going. Um, and then later in the video we'll start combining some  of the things we've learned earlier in the course. My favorite parts will, we start kind  of combining techniques and becoming even more. Awesome. Alright, let's jump in. Hey everyone, uh, to get started, open up envelope mesh.

Okay, we've done envelope distort. We're gonna do the mesh part now. So, uh, make sure they're all grouped. Okay? Um, if you're doing it on your own, okay,  these should already be grouped and we're gonna go to object  and we're gonna go down to envelope Distort. We're gonna go to the one that says Make with Mesh.

So Warp is kind of predefined. Mesh let's us do super custom stuff. So the default, I think is four by four. Um, let's leave it at four by four. Let's click Okay. The mesh like this is quite a dense mesh.

The mesh is the kind of grid that's over it. And what it is, is if you grab the direct selection tool  and click on any one of them, you can start distorting it. Cool. A okay, and this is like full custom stuff. Now the only trouble, well there's two parts really. There's these little anchor points which actually force,  you know, the, the shape to follow it around.

And then there's these handles like we have when we've got,  um, like the pin tool or the curvature tool. Okay? These kind of like define like little gravity, kind  of pulls the, um, the shape along, not exactly along  with it, but like directionally with it. So a four by four, um, mesh is pretty hardcore. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back to my black arrow. Okay, click off, click back on.

What you can do is you can go to uh,  either reset envelope shape boop,  and it goes back to add your own sound effect. Um, uh, you can just reset it to start again  or you can go reset with mesh. Okay? And what I want to do is just one by one all you do,  I like this one because you only get, um,  anchor points in the corners. You can't really see them yet. But watch this click okay,  grab my direct selection tool and you'll notice that.

Can you see the, just in the four corners? Okay? And you get these massive handles that stick out. And I find especially for this ribbon,  obviously it's just nice and flowy  and limited control, but smooth, okay? And what I wanna do is make it kind of a ribbony thing. Can you see this mesh doesn't work sometimes  like the pen tool.

So if you're like, Hey, this feels weird. It is weird. I don't know why, just is a little weird. Okay? So there's a little bit of like, okay, what do I do? Um, every time I use it I'm like, man,  I feel like I'm starting again with Illustrator.

So there's a little bit of like messing around going, oh,  what is, what is this doing? Okay. If it's like that for you, it's just like that. It's this, um, this mesh thing. So often I'll have to click off or reset with mesh. Actually no, uh, reset envelope shape  and just be a little bit more, I don't know, deliberate.

It doesn't like lots of fine adjustment. Okay? That's kind of the vibe. I'm going for kind  of this flicky thing. I'm gonna tuck these in a little bit  so it looks like it's whipping in the wind. Maybe just bulge that out a little bit.

That's gonna be good enough for now. Actually, I say that you wait there anyway. That seems good enough. Yeah, that's an envelope mesh. You can do it with anything type. We did it with a ribbon here.

Everything else we're gonna do is kind of building on some  of the skills that we've learned already. First one, I'm gonna fix my ribbon weight there. Alright? You can spend ages getting that right? So what I wanna do now is I'm gonna move it down. I am going to create a second one.

So I'm just duplicating it. And what I'm gonna do is make it darker. 'cause it's gonna be underneath this first one,  like you sort of the beginning because  what we can do is we can use our recolor for some reason,  the contextual task bar decided  to disappear doing an envelope mesh. Okay? So I'm gonna go to Recolor this way  and I'm gonna say maybe this  before, you could just go grab all the colors  and say, I'm gonna drag the Huon situation down to be dark. Okay?

Um, so it looks like it's behind. Alright? Um, next uh, thing I'm gonna do is kind of get it lined up. Um, so that's envelope meshes by the way. Um, everything else I'm gonna do is kind of, you know,  building on um, the tools that we've learned so far to kind  of, I don't know, beat them into you. And so you kind of like alternative use cases.

So this is kind of on top, perfect. And I'm gonna get it some, I'm gonna get roughly on the top. I got my smart guides on,  so it's snapping, which is perfect. I'm gonna go into my envelope to store it. And you just have to go to the um, direct selection tool. Click on this and I'm gonna just start with this bottom one.

And I want it to be like this, right? You down there, you down there  and maybe you over there over there. And what I'm gonna do is, I know that's kind of it. I'm gonna send it to the back, okay? And that's kind of, could be enough,  something not quite right about it. But hey, that'll do for now.

Um, I'm gonna show you, actually wait there. I keep saying wait there and we jump  around and do some more. Alright? Um, I'm gonna show you  how to build on some of the other things. Like I want a kind of a shadow where it goes  around the corner 'cause it doesn't look quite right. Um, so what I'm gonna do is just,  I'm gonna grab my shift o okay?

From my output tool, make a duplicate  of this holding down option  or alt the background is actually locked. Um, so I'm going to unlock the background layer,  duplicate it across just so I've got one  to go back to in case I wreck this. What I also wanna do in this one is I'm gonna duplicate that  and what I wanna do, envelope meshes can be really weird. We talked about 'em before, they're just a bit strange. So what I'm gonna do is I am going to go up to object. I'm gonna go to expand, okay?

I am gonna expand it all  and then I'm gonna try and group it all. Okay? It ends up with this like little line in the middle. It's not gonna matter to me. See if I do it with the, um, sheet builder tool, okay? And I go and it's still left little  bits, I'm gonna smosh 'em together.

There's a line through the middle. I'm gonna ignore that. There are just weird things that happen with the envelope. Distort. You can go through  and delete all the anchor points. It's not gonna make any difference to the thing I'm doing.

The one thing that might do is let's tie together,  see all these anchor points around the edges. Who remembers the tool? You're like, Ooh, I know how  to get rid of lots of anchor points that aren't necessary. Okay, so I've got it selected. Let's go to objects. You know where it is.

Go to path. And there's one called Simplify. Let's have a little look. I'm on my direct selection tool now look at that. Just a couple of anchor points. Anyway.

Um, so what I want to do now is with the selected,  I'm gonna add a gradient. Who removes the shortcut? Adding in gradient? Nobody. Okay? But it is the, remember down the bottom you've got, uh,  forward slash which gives it the fill nothing.

So make sure the fills at the front. Okay? So it's not at the X key fills at the front. And you've got those three keys down  by the M there's the comma period and forward slash  and it's the, not that one, it's the second one, okay? The period that adds a gradient or just use a gradient tool. What I wanna do is I want, I think these are flipped around.

It's weird, huh? The purple's on this left hand side  and it's over here on, you know,  it's on the right hand side here. I'm not worried too much. I just want to go through  and say, all right, I want you to be black. I want this side to be black. This is a little trick and I want one side of it, okay?

To be the opacity right down. So there's kinda like transparency through it  and I'm gonna overlay it here. Okay? See what I'm doing here, okay? And what I want to do is I want to do a couple of things. I want grab my ingredient tool.

Okay? So geeky drag this out to be, I just want it to be kind  of smaller and the right angle, alright? And what you might do as well is with it selected,  you might play around with the opacity slash blending mode. Mine's not gonna do much, um,  because there's not, you know,  I actually quite like it at normal. Maybe you might end up playing with the blending mode  or play around with the opacity of this thing in general  as well as the like gradient, um, opacity as well. So find something that you like.

Um, what you're gonna notice is,  I'm gonna pretend I did this on purpose. Can you see this gap here? Like see ignoring the giant fluorescent pink gap. Any guesses why that is there? Have a little think, pause the video. Like, oh, where did that come from?

If you paused it and you can't dunno. Um, congratulations. If you do, it's the simplify. Um, I'm gonna go, well I should go back in time  and say don't you simplify it. Just adjusted it, right? Remember it got rid of a lot  of detail and it's trying to smooth all this out  and that is one of the like problem.

Well this is the problem where it comes into here  where you're trying to exactly match the thing underneath. It's removed a lot of that control. So yeah, don't use simplify,  especially if you want this thing to um, you know,  kind of blend over there. Alright, that is,  it looks cool except we're gonna ignore the  glowing bits around the corner. You might add one at the end there. Another one underneath there in terms of the dark gradient.

There you go my friend. That is the envelope  mesh gives you full custom. You can decide how dense that mesh is  and you can do some pretty cool stuff. There's something wrong with the bottom part of my ribbon. Is it? Oh yeah.

It needs to be thinner. That's what it is. Can I cheat? Oh, it's kind of cheating. Totally cheating. Yeah, that looks better.

Oh, actually, and one last little tip  before we go is, um, sometimes you're trying  to work on this thing behind here  and you, it's hard to grab that anchor point 'cause it's  Top one. Remember the tip we  known before? Okay, I'm going to select everything. So the background in this top bit  and just hit, uh, command two  or control two on a PC just to uh, lock that part. Okay? And now I can kind of really easily, uh,  work on this thing underneath it  without accidentally selecting the top.

And remember, if you wanna unselect bits of it,  you can right click this  and say, unlock the compound path, which is the, um,  gradient over the top. Okay? And I can right click and unlock  and say, unlock the envelope  and leave the rectangle, which is the background. Look at us adding lots of the tools together. That's why I love this part of the course. We start kind of combining stuff, power moves,  ignore all the bits coming around the side.

Alright, that's it. I'll see you in the next video.
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