How To: Create a Seamless Diagonal Pattern in Illustrator
I gotten a few emails recently about how to create a seamless diagonal pattern in Illy, so here we go! Illustrator comes with some default pattern brushes, but no diagonal love. Diagonal patterns are a bit more tricky to make than a simple horizontal, or vertical pattern, but with some rock solid alignment, and some manual input into the Transform palette, you’ll be making diagonal patterns in no time. Let’s get started.
1. Start with a “square” artboard.
It doesn’t really matter what size but if you want to follow along, I’m using a 600px x 600px artboard.
2. Create your vertical line.
Again, the size and shape is up to you here.
3. Align your shape to the top right corner
Here we are going to be using the Transform pallete to make or shape align exactly to the upper left corner. Select your shape and in the Transform, set the “X” value to 0, and the “Y” value to 600 (or the document size you chose). The middle of your shape should now be aligned exactly to the upper left corner.
4. Rotate 45 degrees.
Next, rotate your shape 45 degrees either using your mouse and holding Shift, or right click, and enter the value in manually.
5. Duplicate your shape and align it to the opposite corner.
Now we need to duplicate or shape, and align it the same way we did above, but to the opposite corner. Again,select your new shape, and using the Transform pallete, set your X value to 600 (or the document size you chose) and the Y value to 0. Now your two shapes should be aligned perfectly to opposite corners of the artboard.
6. Make a Blend between the 2 shapes.
Using the Blend tool click on 1 of your shapes, then immediately click on the other to make a blend. Then double click on the Blend tool, and you should see the ‘Blend Options” dialogue box. Set it to “Specifed Steps” and then select a number that you think looks good. I recommend making this an odd number. You should have something that resembles the image below.
7. Expand your blend.
Select your new blend, and then go to Object > Expand, then click “OK.”
8. Create a square to crop with.
Select the Rectangle tool, and click once on the aretboard. You can now enter in the exact dimensions you want your square to be. Set it to 600 x 600px (or the document size you chose), and click “OK.”
9. Align your square to the artboard.
Select your square, and in the Align pallete, make sure you have “Align to Artboard” selected.
Now hit these 2 buttons to align your square exactly on top of the artboard.
10. Crop.
Do a Select All (Command/Control + A), and then hit the Crop button in the Pathfinder pallete.
Done!
Now you have a nice, seamless diagonal pattern that can be put to use.
If you want to add this pattern as a Pattern Swatch, just select it, and then go to Edit, Define Pattern, and it will appear in your swatches pallete.
Tags: diagonal, Illustrator, pattern, Seamless
OR: http://www.stripegenerator.com/
You don’t have to crop and mess with the pathfinder, you can define the limits of your tile by putting the square (important: with no fill no border) in the background. That way you can easily make changes, especially if you create complex patterns.
Thanks for all your nice tips and freebies ^__^
It’s also easier to make an horizontal pattern and then to use the Rotate tool once the pattern has been applied to a shape (it’s possible to apply the rotation to pattern and not to objects).
I agree with Binocle and Thierry. Whenever i have needed a diagonal pattern, I create a two (2) stripe horizontal or vertical pattern via the no-fill/no-stroke box and just rotate the pattern once placed into a shape.
A co-worker was trying to create a diagonal pattern the other week and I told him simply make a flat stripe and rotate…so much easier.
But, still good to know this tip for the newbies.
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I don’t know who that guy is but this is a good tutorial. Tell me…why do I always find a tutorial on something a week AFTER I had to do it. I design hats and was making a twill fabric effect and need this tute. ANYWAYS, KEEP IT COMING BITT. You been slacking a little! Must be busy…
Making patterns is pretty much essential if you ever want to give something more subtle detail.
simple but awesome…i dig the tut
Doesn’t it’ll be much easier if we just do some
rectangle > then put the line > sizing it > clipping mask? ..
Doesn’t this one is simple?
If you’re doing a pattern with both vertical (or horizontal) and diagonal stripes, this seems like a much better way to do it, rather than making them separately and trying to reconcile them later.
Nice tute, thanks! It makes sense now that I see how you do it but I wouldn’t have thought of it myself.
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such a useful thing to know, this can be the bane of a designer’s life!! So, thanks!!
Tutorial added to thewebtuts.com
Actually I can’t do the crop step. Why?
Another way of creating a nice line pattern, where you can control the exact spacing is by using the stroke tools. Just create a line, select “Dashed line” checkbox and make the weight of the stroke some high number like 1000pt. You can change the dash and gap spacing. Try it. Thanks for this tip. -Henry
very handy!!
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This didn’t work as well for me, so I created horizontal repeating lines from the ‘blend’ tool, made the last line transparent (so it would loop more cleanly, though I should have probably moved it up one line in retrospect) and defined it as a pattern. I then applied it to squares and used the “rotate pattern” function and saved Graphic Styles for Horizontal, Vertical, Upward 45 degree angle, and Downward 45 degree angle repeating lines. When I wanted to see lines closer together or further apart I would just use the pattern zoom function:
To scale pattern only while leaving object untouched,
select pattern object > go to object menu > Transform > Scale > now check only the pattern uncheck others, activate preview, now adjust the value in uniform.
I saved these in an illustrator graphic style palette and you are welcome to use them.
http://filedump.fujilives.com/Illustrator%20Styles%20and%20Swatches/Graphic%20Styles.localized/Repeating%20Background%20Lines.ai
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thank you for this!
thanks you
You will have to crawl very nice,owe you gratitude..