Class Project 11 - How to create repeating patterns in Adobe Illustrator CC (Design your own pattern)

Hi there, in this video we're going to take simple drawings and repeat them, over and over again, to make these cool patterns. All right, let's go do it now in Adobe Illustrator.

To make our pattern, we need to draw something. We're just going to draw something simple, another ice cream, like you saw. So, rectangle. Draw out a 'rectangle'. Ours is going to be a little simple this time. I'm going to select both of them with the 'Black Arrow'. I'm going to make sure they're all aligned. I'm going to grab the 'White Arrow', select the top two. Make them quite bendy. Select this one, hold 'Shift', select that one. Make this just a little bendy. And I would like to make this shorter. It's a bit too thick.

The other thing I'd like to do is add the bite mark. So we're going to use some of the tools we learned in previous tutorials. I'm going to draw a circle, I'm going to zoom in. That looks like a bite mark. Kind of does. I'm going to have one, two, and then three. Select them all, then grab the 'Shape Builder'. I love the Shape Builder. I'm just going to minus through all in this stuff. Goodbye. Awesome! Kind of looks like bite marks.

The next thing I'm going to do is get a size of the Stroke that I like. It's good. Which color I'm going to use? Any color, Dan. So I've got this, I'm going to rotate mine around. We're going to show you a couple of features as we go along, not just the Patten Tool. So, say I want to reflect this. It happens a lot when you're building patterns, right? You want to kind of step and repeat. So I've got this guy. I'm going to group it. I'm using Object, I'm actually using the shortcuts now. We're that far through the course now, so we'll start new shortcuts.

So I've grouped them, and what I'd like to do is reflect it, so I've got two of them. So I'm going to go to 'Object', 'Transform' there's one here called 'Reflect'. Make sure Preview is turned 'on'. I'm going to reflect vertically. Click actually, I'm not clicking 'OK', because that would just flip it. I want to click 'Copy', so I've got a copy of it as well. I want two of them. Awesome! Now I need to turn it into a pattern. So I'm going to select both of them. Actually before we do this it's very good to go through, and get kind of a rough size. So this is like a US Letter size. Now, this pattern's just too big. So it's harder to do it afterwards, that's what I'm saying. It's easy to get it to kind of a rough sort of a size here, before you go in. If yours is not resizing nicely, click off in the background and make sure, that with this off-- it does some weird stuff, right? It keeps the Stroke. Gets kind of a bit too chunky. So you might have to click off in the background. 'Scale', 'Stroke', and 'Effects'.

So with this selected I'm coming down to a more appropriate size, it's going to work for me. I'm going to zoom in a little bit. We're going to open up the magic tool. It's got a really lame name. 'Window', and it's called 'Pattern Options'. It should be called super-duper pattern options, or something because it does some cool things. Now, by default, it doesn't seem to do much. We're going to click on this option here, and say 'Make Pattern'. And it's telling you that it's made a Swatch in the Swatches Panel. It's opened it up. Don't worry, we'll look at that in a second, just click 'OK'. It's gone through, and they start to repeat already. Instantly. It looks awesome. Copies. It will copy forever, this is just like a preview. I want to see-- '9 x 9', just kind of covers the screen. I don't like it when it didn't do it, for some reason. I like it just looking all the same.

Now what you're going to do, give it a name, this is going to be my 'Ice Block Pattern'. You can decide here by playing with these options how it kind of steps and repeats them. Let's have a look, there are just slight differences. 'Grid', 'Brick by Row'. It's kind of cool. I feel like there's a wallpaper in there somewhere. 'Brick by Column'. 'Hex by Column', there's all sorts of different ways. Now the cool thing about it is that - I'm kind of liking that - is that these two guys are still dragable, watch this. I can kind of move them around to offset them a little bit. Try and get some sort of thing. You can copy and paste, and have another one. You might decide to go to the third one, that kind of wraps around this way. It's up to you, how you want to do it. Yes, kind of liking it. So I've got my ice creams.

The next thing I need to do is-- that's all, I kind of close this down. Nothing seems to happen. I don't need the Swatches at the moment. And then, you're kind of stuck in this limbo. Up the top here-- for some reason they decided to add that up here. It's a little bit weird. I'm going to click 'Done'. Then it gets even weirder, and you're like, "Where did the pattern go?" It just means that-- these guys here were kind of like-- I used them to get started, but I don't need them anymore. I'm going to delete them. What I need now, is I'm going to grab the 'Rectangle Tool'. I'm going to zoom out a little bit. So I can draw a rectangle around my whole page. The Fill color, what it said to you earlier on, it says, we've made a Swatch for you in here. It's hard to see, it's a tiny one. There it is, ice cream block. Click on him, magic! Cool, huh!

So that is how to create and use your Panel thing. Do I like it? Yes, it's kind of cool. Next thing to know about it though is, say I want to re size it, I want to make this box, so I want to re size it. What it does is, it starts distorting it. Can you see? It's maybe not what I want. I'm going to undo it. So, if you didn't get it the right size, and you want to kind of, I guess, don't want the pattern to change. You want to reset the box, but, please, patterns, don't move. The easiest option, there's a couple of ways. The easiest option is to go to-- I've got this selected, go to 'Window' and go down to 'Transform Panel'. In this panel, there's the Hamburger menu, click on him. That's what it's defaulting to. It's transforming both the box and the pattern within it. What you can say is, actually just transform the object only, please. Now when I drag it, look what happens. Can you see, the pattern stays the same size but this object kind of changes shape. Problem with that though, is that when you've stopped using it, they'd be on forever. And that will be really weird later on. So you can go back and just turn it back to both when you finish.

Another thing to know is that - I'm going to close him down - is that, at the moment he's part of my Fill here, you can see him. But if I open up a new document, just leave everything default, open it up. You'll notice, it's gone. If I draw a rectangle in here, gone. We've got this one, this is the default one from Illustrator. It's been there for ages. I'm sure somebody put a lot of effort into it, but it's… I don't know, it's dated now, and this one gets worse. But I love those ones. I shouldn't. So if you want to bring them through from one document to another, all you need to do is copy an object that has it in it, and paste it in. Doesn't really matter if you even use it. I'm going to delete it now. Select this, and you'll notice that, because I just pasted it in it brought it in with it. It's now part of this document.

One last thing is, I love doing this, and then sending it to a site called Spoonflower. Spoonflower is, it's a way of taking your patterns, and giving them printed actual runs. So you can send it off and get fabric made, wallpapers made, gift wrap made; super cool. I'm not going to go through the whole process here, but let's have a look at how it works, their process. Just so you can have basic understanding. Upload your design, choose what kind of fabric, it's going on and then they send it to you. They do really short runs, like, by the meter, or as the Americans use, by the fit. Yard, that's what they use.

So you can upload it, and you can try and sell here as well. It's just really nice to get stuff turned up. They have all sorts of different fabrics. I said I wouldn't go into it, I'm totally going into the products. They have lots of fabrics down here. All different prices. It kind of depends on volume. So short runs. They also have like a Swatch book. That's what I've got in front of me here. That just gives you like a tiny snippet of all the different fabrics. So you can get a feel for them before you order them. It's great having your own stuff turned into cushions, fabric coverings, wallpaper. Wallpaper, I like, that's the one I do the most. But like, presents, for gift wrapping. That's it from Spoonflower.

That's it from Adobe Illustrator, and the patterns. What I'd like to do is, it's one of those things, where I'd love to see your design. So, I drew an ice cream, you can continue on the summer theme. Or maybe some hand drawn things. I just want to see your pattern. So drop it in the projects, or in the comments. I'd love to see what you've done. And yes, that will be the end of this one. All right, I'll see you in the next video.