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Adobe Illustrator CC - Essentials Training

Class Project 03 - How to draw custom logo shapes easily in Adobe Illustrator CC (Color in the impossible triangle)

Daniel Walter Scott

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Hi there, in this video we're going to draw this shape here. We're going to use the Shape Builder Tool. I know I've used it for a couple of tutorials already, but it's a really versatile tool. I use it so much that, yes, it gets three videos. The cool thing about this kind of impossible triangle is that it's super possible with the Shape Builder Tool, and although this video is about five minutes long it really only takes less than a minute to make this particular shape given our super powerful Shape Builder Tool. Let's go and learn how to do that now in Adobe Illustrator.

So to make our little shape, we're going to go to 'File', 'New', and like always, 'Letter', 'Landscape', and hit 'Create'. So what I'm going to do is start with some lines. We're going to start with three of them. So I'm going to grab the 'Line Segment Tool', I'm going to draw out a line. The cool thing about the Line Segment Tool, watch this, I can draw any sort of line, but if I hold down 'Shift', watch this Shift locks into kind of like 45°, 90°, nicer angles. So I want it to be straight, so I'm holding 'Shift', and just drag a line, about that big. I'm going to have 'No' Fill and have a Stroke of 'black', and it's going to be of '1 point'. So, 'Black Arrow', I'm going to move it to an appropriate place, and I'm going to make copies.

So with it selected, go to 'Edit', 'Copy', 'Edit', 'Paste'. I'm using 'Control C', 'Control V'. Paste another one. What I want to do is show you a couple of things. One is, I'm going to select all of these guys-- actually I'm going to get it to a rough kind of place, like that, but they're not distributed nicely. I'm going to select them all, and the first thing I want to do is make sure the spacing between them is even. So I'm going to go to-- you can see, by default, under 'Properties' panel, I've got 'Align'. You can see, it only does the basics, I can Align Center, which is what I want. You can see they don't quite line up, so Align Center is great but the Distribute's not there. So this little dotted line here that shows you there's more options to that Line panel. I want to show you the basics, the main stuff you need. I'm going to click on this one, you can see, these are a lot more options. In this case, I want to Distribute 'Vertical Centers'. You can see, it just really lines up nicely there.

Next thing I want to do is make another copy of these three. So I've got them all selected, with my 'Black Arrow', 'Edit', 'Copy', 'Edit', 'Paste' . And I want to rotate them around. Now, I want it to be a triangle, so I need it to be like-- I can never work out the Maths, so, nice thing you can do in Illustrator is, see over here, with these guys selected, I've got-- under 'Properties' panel, I've got this way of changing the rotation. And I know that I need to take 360°, and divide it by 3. So a bit of Math in these things, I do them quite often because my Math is terrible. So, divide by 3, '/3', hit 'return' and that's 120. You probably know that already, I don't. I've got this one, I'm going to copy and paste it. And what I'd like to do for this one is I know that it's 120 times 2, '120*2'. So that should get me my other angle, so I'm hoping. Hit 'return', there it is there, 240. I should be able to do Math like that. I can't.

I've got my kind of basic building blocks for this one. This is where it gets super easy, I guess. A bit mind minding because we're doing like an impossible triangle, but super nice and quick. So I'm going to grab the 'Line Segment Tool', and just draw off-- if you aren't sure of which ones, you've got kind of four diamonds here. Draw off the top of these two and draw these. You can see, it kind of has an intersect to intersect. It's pretty clever at kind of joining these things up. If yours doesn't, make sure 'View', 'Smart Guides' has got a tick next to it. If it doesn't, turn it on. So that's nearly done, right? I'm going to grab my 'Black Arrow', select on it all, and over to my favorite tool, that's why it gets three videos. Very versatile.

I'm going to grab the 'Shape Builder Tool'. And now it's trying to work out-- What I might do to tidy it up is get rid of these excess lines. So hold down the 'Option' key on a Mac, or the 'Alt' key on a PC to delete them. Just drag through these guys, just drag him through, don't need that bit either. Really cool, slicy tool. If you've ever used the Scissors Tool, it's a pain in the bum. This one here, super nice and quick. Now we need to join some bits up and I had to practice this loads, just so you know. If you're finding it tough, don’t worry, everyone does. Well, at least I did. So I'm going to click, hold, and drag there from the outside to the inside. Outside to the inside, that's why I have to keep turning this up. Outside to the inside. That kind of does it, right? Then I join these guys up. These guys up. I show you just to kind of-- it's a really complex shape but with the Shape Builder Tool it's pretty quick and easy. I love it.

So what I'd like you to do now is, well these are separate shapes, I'd like you to go through and color them. Give it a background color as well. A nice big rectangle, and I'd like to see the design, the build, the colors that you've used. I'd love to see it as a project.

All right, that is going to be it for the last of the Shape Builder Tools. Now we need to get on to the Pen Tool and the Curvature Tool. All right, I'll see you in that video.