About this Class:
Design touches everything we see and do. Being able to design for surfaces, and to be prolific, is important for success. Learning some key efficiency skills can contribute to your over-all ability to produce in a timely fashion. Another key skill you need is to be able to create coordinates and colourways. We will be using bold, unexpected color palettes woven with nostalgic tones from the ’60s and ’70s creating designs that are unique and engaging. Sound like fun?
I love the excitement of new creative ideas and playing with lots of different tools to make those ideas come to life! In this class I can’t wait to share all the things I know about shortcuts with Illustrator filters and functions, plus a bunch of little tidbits for designing a cohesive and beautifully co-ordinated collection! This class will arm you with all the knowledge necessary to design quick and simple coordinates to create your own complete fabric collection from scratch.
In this course, I’m sharing everything I’ve learned about making quick co-ordinates using filters and functions in Illustrator, hidden away in the menus. I’ll show you my step-by-step process, from my tricks to working with the filters, to creating full and complex patterns using functions like Pathfinder to do most of the work for us. We will design at least ten though the course of this class and I will give you plenty of ideas for creating alternates.
As far as prerequisite skills, I would recommend some knowledge of Illustrator with the goal of wanting to learn additional techniques. In class, we’ll talk about both design and technical aspects of creating simple and quick patterns. I will demonstrate them at a reasonable pace so that it will be easy to follow along. This course is for all levels; I recommend being acquainted with Illustrator to a certain degree. I suggest pausing and repeating sections and possibly even slowing the speed in your browser when trying to work through any difficult parts. Adobe Illustrator is recommended for this class, as that is what is being featured here, but any other draw (vector) software is suitable, as long as it has the same functionality.
The key concepts I will include are:
- review of several filters to distort and transform, like pucker and bloat, roughen and the zigzag filter
- methods to edit and deal with specific issues like divide, minus front, and exclude in the Pathfinder palette
- use of the pattern maker tool and all its settings
- many other considerations to do with designing repeating patterns efficiently
- experiments with the re-color tool in the last lesson
This course is packed with many tender morsels of information for you no matter at what stage you are in your design career. Take a chance and find out some fun little things you may never have seen or even thought of before! You can be applying this practical knowledge in your design practice tomorrow. Creating a pattern collection can be done relatively quickly with this small investment of your time. Let’s get at it! Hit your play button now!
Concepts covered:
Concepts covered include but are not limited to the pattern tool, the pucker and bloat filter, the twist filter, the roughen filter, offset path, the rotate tool, using pathfinder to create motifs, the zig zag filter, the blending tool, the scissor tool, the anchor point tool, Illustrator brushes for pattern design, pattern repeats, easy geometric patterns, easy floral patterns, creating stripes in Illustrator and much more.
You will get the bonus of…
- approx. one hour of direction from an instructor who has been in the graphic design business and education for over 40 years
- awareness of multiple approaches to resolve each design challenge
- handouts explaining key concepts
- a list of helpful online sites to further your education
Project Description
For this class, produce a minimum of 6 patterns using the filters and functions discussed. Create a screenshot to post. If you are feeling particularly energetic, experiment with the re-color tool to produce a couple of colorways. Post these here as well. Take a minute to offer an anecdotal description of your process. Have fun!
The Curriculum
- Intro and Overview - Retro Floral Simple Quick Coordinates (3:15)
- Lesson 2 Pucker, Bloat and Twist Filters 2 (7:56)
- Lesson 3 Pathfinder Tricks (9:43)
- Lesson 4 Radial Duplication and Blending Tricks (10:41)
- Lesson 5 Using Brushes to Make Patterns - 4 Methods (16:49)
- Lesson 6 Geometric Ideas for Coordinates (6:29)
- Lesson 7 Roughened Stripe Pattern (5:12)
- Lesson 8 Fun Experiments With the Recolour Tool (9:50)
- Outro and Wrap Up (1:53)