All language subtitles for 5. Basic Tool Overview

So in order to do more than just fonts and actually create shapes in more complicated Illustrated looks

you need to know how to use tools and illustrator so there's probably a good moment for us to step aside

from this look what we started and to look a little bit about what tools we have our disposal.

So we have even gone all over this at all yet.

But over on the left hand side is where all the tools live that we can use so we can do a lot of things

there's a lot more here than even I use.

Let me just show you the ones that I use a lot.

And then from there that does mean you have to only use those that just means those are the ones that

pay attention to and then feel free to explore more because you might find something that works great

in your workflow.

So I'm going to start top down.

So the pen to all this is a great tool and I use it all the time to create smooth and straight points

so the way this works is a little bit complicated.

But I think you know give it a few minutes here and you'll get it figured out.

So I'm going to click once and now click somewhere else.

And now connects those points.

And because I'm painting if I look over here with a black fill but no stroke as soon as I create another

shape or another line here work fill that in it'll go ahead and fill it with whatever that foreground

color is I can shift x to swap my stroke in my full color or I can click right here on the little button

to do it.

Sometimes it's nice to have it filled but most of the time I find I like to draw without the fill so

I can really see what shapes I'm making.

And right now I'm just clicking and everywhere I click it adds an anchor point for straight lines.

The next is I can click one place click another place and then drag a little bit and you'll see I get

these handles and it creates what we call a bezier curve.

So now when I let go it's kind of follow from this point to that point but it's going to go towards

that handle.

So that's how I can create perfectly smooth curves and corners by clicking and then dragging with the

pen tool.

And if you make a mistake you can always command click as I get my direct selection tool and click once

on that shape and I can grab those handles and really refine this to make it exactly what I want.

So the mentor is a huge huge part of my workflow as far as when I create custom shapes and then the

other thing I can do to create balance is kind of jumping ahead here.

But I can use that pen shape or I can create something on one side.

Command seat to copy.

After paste it in place.

Oh to get my reflex tool and then wherever this little blue anchor point is that's what is going to

reflect from so if I click once here and then click and drag from the left to the right holding down

the Shift key it creates a mirrored clone of whatever shape I did.

So that's how you can create logos like this guy you can build half of the shape and then reflect it

to build the other half.

So it's perfectly unison.

So that's a triple use coming up here.

The other tool I like to use a lot obviously is a type tool we've gone over that.

But if we look in the hidden menu there's a few other options we can type on a path.

That's a good one so let's use our pen tool now to create a path.

Let's say we want to click and drag here and I'll come up a little bit and then click and then drag

again.

And now I get kind of this rising wave.

Now if I come back over grab my type 2 and it type on path I can click on this path and I can start

typing whatever I want.

And now it'll follow that path.

So that's another way that you might create a logo like let's see where did I see that.

And I bring it over here we go this logo where we've brought that rising wave kind of effect.

Now you can also achieve that effect.

Another way is going to bring down a copy and I'm going to come over to effect at the top click on Warp

click down here on Flegg and there's a whole bunch of them here you can check out the click on Flegg

.

And you can see that we have some different options here to create a similar effect.

Granted it's not quite the same but you get the idea let's see if there's a better.

Oh here we go.

Rise that's going to be more of what we want so click on the rise changed horizontal maybe drag this

light up again.

And there we go.

Now we get a much similar effect but you'll notice a difference though.

See how it kind of use those letters.

So they're still vertical like the stem of the letter T.

Whereas this one falls the path it kind of like the bass line follows the angle of that path.

So you see the difference there just a couple of different ways to work is all.

Some undelete those.

Another tool that I use a lot is the blob brush tool and the paint brush tool is a little weird when

you paint with it you would expect that you could come back in.

See how he got this line through it.

It's actually a stroke it doesn't really paint like a paint brush like you would expect.

But recently they've added the blob brush.

And if I draw with this guy it actually creates a fill with my color so if I look over here it's actually

a fill.

If I click on my brush tool it's a stroke.

So subtle difference we'll learn more about coming up but I usually use the blob brush if I need to

paint something by hand or using my Wacom tablet.

I want to you know quickly flesh out.

I don't know some kind of an idea.

And then anything you could as long as you're the same color it'll added to that shape so you notice

the anchor points this almost like it's one shape.

If I click to change the color.

Now let's say I paint with black again over the top is not going to merge those two shapes they're independent

.

OK.

But if I paint with a blob brush with the same color it's going to add a to that shape.

So that's another way that I work.

Actually let me bring those back commands you to bring us back now and shift E to get my eraser tool

.

OK so now you can erase from things that you've done.

That's another one that I work with when I try and add a shape and remove from it.

Another part of the workflow is all of these default shapes like rectangles ovals Pawling On-Star tool

you get the idea so you can create multiple shapes to create a bigger part of the shape.

A better example of this might be using the old tool at the letter L and all of a sudden here maybe

we're drawing clouds instead.

All right.

So we can draw a bunch of these shapes together to create some sort of cloud form and then I'll select

all of these and there are still individual shapes if you wanted to merge them together there's a few

ways we can do it the quickest way.

Shift em.

Which brings me up to my shape builder tool which lets me drag over these selected images to merge them

together or I can haul on Allt to remove some of those shapes and I got kind of an interesting knockout

here.

So a shift am command click to drag over all those to select everything at once.

And now I just kind of dragging over it with that shape builder tool.

And now all of these become one shapes as I click on it and move it.

It follows over and you can see where I put over the other shape.

It knocks out so I'll use that tool quite a bit to create shapes.

Another reason why I'm going through these tools right now is because I realize you and I are going

to have different styles we want to follow.

So after this video I want you to play with these tools a little bit.

Get familiar with them so that you can start creating a logo that makes sense for you.

All right.

So some of the others the last couple I want to show you we've already played a little bit with the

eyedropper tool and how that works.

I like this too I hear it.

Now if I click once the Penta will click shift click and then shift x because I want to take that fill

and put to the stroke.

Now I'm going to hit See shift you let me look right here the width tool that can apply to strokes is

pretty cool because I can click anywhere on my stroke and click and drag to change the width at any

point of the stroke.

So the way that I would use this might be four letters.

There's a few ways we could do this.

Let's say you wanted to create a water drop.

Well I could click with my pen to shift click shift WDM I would to come to the end here drag that out

quite a bit and then I'm going to get to my stroke window click down the show options Toral then change

my cap to a rounded cap and all of a sudden I'm pretty close to a raindrop.

Right.

So there's ways that we can build shapes super quick and effectively.

All right the last the last one I want to show you that I that I work with quite a bit is the blend

tool.

So you can create two shapes in this case I'll create a square and then actually let's let's create

a different shape all together a circle with a different color and a click on this blend tool and you

can click on one shift click on the other and then click one more time.

And now add a blend between two shapes.

I can hit return with that tool so I can I can change it from a smooth color to a specified steps may

mean so many steps just do five steps preview and now from five steps he goes from one level to the

other.

Or I'm sorry from one shape to the other.

So these are just a few of the tools that I end up using the most to create my logo so I wanted you

to be aware of those.

There's a few more tips and tricks we're going to learn in the next couple videos.

Play with those though get comfortable.

And then in the next video I'm going to talk a little bit more about the workflow.

And then Will will be ready to go here.