How to add a Gradient on a Stroke in Illustrator

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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.

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. In this video we're going to add some color. We're gonna add a gradient  to the stroke rather than the fill. The fill is easy, the stroke is mildly more complicated. So let's jump in and I'll show you how  to run it around the edges. There's a couple little tricks to it  and if you hang around to the end,  I'll show you the rotation tool as well.

It has a bonus trick, uh,  where we can change the center of rotation. Alright, uh, let's jump in. Alright, if you want this file, we're gonna start with, uh,  you can open up gradient stroke from your exercise files. All you need is something with no fill in a gradient. Have the gradient at the front. Remember X will toggle who's at the front.

Make sure the gradients at the front. Let's apply a gradient to the stroke. There's the default one in here, okay? And you click on that one. There you go. We've got a gradient on the stroke.

Let's pick a prettier one  and I'll show you how to adjust it. There is a gradients panel window, okay? And there's a pre-made swatches. So swatch libraries down the bottom,  there's one called gradients. And as far as some of the pre-built ones,  these are actually okay. Color harmonies or color combinations.

These are pretty good and you can just kind  of like work your way through these. Make sure the fills are not at the front. So undo X key to make sure the gradients are the front  and then you can kind of work through the ones you want. Okay, I'm gonna pick this one. Now, at the moment it's kind of like filling the stroke. What I want it to do is kind of like,  well, I'll show you some different options.

So let's open up the gradient panel. You can either click edit gradient if you've got it selected  or got a window and open up gradient  and you can't really use the tool. This one here, you have  to use this panel if you are using the stroke. Okay? And this is, these are the kind of different options. This one is going to put the gradient kind  of within the boundaries of here.

You can get it to run around, okay? Starting with the beginning of the stroke  and around this beginning  and end, you can kind of fix by going, all right,  I need you, whatever color this is,  I'm gonna double click it, grab the hexa decimal number,  copy it, okay, add another little circle here. We're just clicking underneath. Double click that one and paste it in. And we kind of, okay, mine didn't paste at all. Wait there, copy.

If you had accidentally add one  that you shouldn't have, just click and drag it off. Okay? And I'll grab this first one again  and I'm gonna go paste. Alright, so now I've got it in there so you can kind  of fudge the beginning and end by adding it. Okay, another way of doing that undo is if instead  of using a linear gradient, you can say, use a radial one  and it kind of blends them a bit better as well. So this just kind of has a gradient all the way  across like that circle.

Can you see it starts in the middle and expands out. This one runs along the outside  and then this one here runs on the inside. You end up with this kind of like stripy thing going on. I think I prefer mine is more of a thing going on, like,  yeah, let's do, let's do that one. Okay. Um, I'm gonna rotate mine around.

So that's it for a stroke on gradient. On a stroke. What I'm gonna do is close down gradient. I'm gonna flip it around and I'm gonna give you a little  bonus tip here for rotation. We've learned a few different ways. We did that repeat option earlier on.

I've been going up to object. There is repeat. Okay. And we could use the radio one, okay? This would get us kind of to where we wanna be. Um, I'm gonna show you a different trick.

You could use  Transform. There's  rotation over here, loads of things. I'm gonna show you this one 'cause it has a  handy bonus trick. See the rotation tool here, okay, is the R key. I can actually clicks anywhere in here. And can you see, I can um, hit this little target at Target.

You click and drag 'em. Now you gotta click 'em once to get 'em started  and then you can click and drag it around. It should snap to anchor points as long  as your smart guides are on. So command or control U to make sure those are on  that is the center of rotation. Now watch this. I've still got my rotation tool.

I'm just clicking holding anywhere  and look rotates around that. And I can do a couple of tricks. If I hold down my option key, ooh, while I'm dragging,  I get a second copy, okay? And if I, it's hypnotic, I'm hypnotizing myself. Um, if you do that same key,  so hold down option on a Mac Altner PC  and hold down shift as well,  it'll lock it into 90 degree angles. So you can go bl.

It takes a little bit of practice. You gotta start dragging it first. Then hold down those two keys from shift on a  Mac alt shift on a pc. Start dragging first and you get this duplicate  look at us doing cool stuff. There you go. That's the thing I had at the beginning.

Not sure what it is, but it has gradients on the strokes  and that's what we came here for. Alright, that is it. I'll see you in the next video.
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