The Power (and ease) of Patterns in Illustrator
In my last post I gave away some seamless vector patterns, and one in this post. Many of you have questioned how to put these to use, and the answer is: Lots of ways. I’m going to illuminate a few different ways to take a seamless vector pattern and put it to use. And believe me, these are not the only ways. Hopefully you can take these tips and find some unique uses for your own personal designs.
The advantages of seamless vector are obvious to some of us, but if you are new to vector, here’s why. A seamless pattern is nice, but a seamless vector pattern is better. Vector patterns can be scaled to any size, making a single pattern extremely valuable in the long run. You can import a vector pattern into Photoshop as many times as you like, and make it a different size and DPI each time, without losing quality. Since we have the advantage of a vector pattern to work with, we can rasterize it, and not worry about changing it later, because we always have the vector source that can be scaled and re-imported at a different size. This isn’t the case with an image (bitmap). If you get a seamless pattern in bitmap, and scale it up, it becomes pixelated.
I’m going to show you 4 easy ways, in detail, to use a seamless vector pattern in Illustrator, easily and quickly. Wether or not you take these patterns into photoshop is up to you, but you will get a much crisper result if you manipulate them in Illustrator first. These methods are by no means advanced, so please keep reading, or bookmark this for later. You may find that the hardest part (besides FINDING Free seamless vector patterns) is aligning/repeating/tiling them at your desired scale. I have a few tips to help you with this so you can make better use of those few precious vector patterns you stumble across. It’s not quite as hard as you think, so I hope you find something useful here. . .
First things First:
Download some Seamless vector patterns
These are 5 Free Seamless Vector Patterns i released in a previous post.
Includes: – AI (2) EPS (1) SVG (1) PNG (1)
1. Use your seamless vector pattern as a Swatch Pattern Fill
In Illustrator, once you have your pattern, you can drag it to the swatches palette, and have it available to use instantly as a fill for any shape. It’s important to note that you must set the color of the pattern before you add it as a swatch. I haven’t figured out a way to make the color editable yet. If you know how, please share.
Now, in your tools palette, select your fill color and click on your new pattern to set the pattern as your “fill color” essentially.
Now draw any shape and Illustrator will fill your shape with the pattern, seamlessly.
Even better, keep drawing and even if you overlap shapes, Illustrator will automatically align the fill patterns.
2. Take a pattern and “Warp” it to get some abstract effects.
Illustrator has a handy warp effect (Effect > Warp) that can do wonders to a pattern. first select your pattern like this:
Now go to the Effect menu and select “Warp.” You will be given many options to choose from, but any will do , because you can change it on the fly from the Warp options.
Play around with the warp options to get the results you like. You can hit “Preview” to see your settings live, but be careful. Complex patterns can bog down even a fast machine.
After you have your options selected, hit OK and you will get something like this:
You will probably notice that illustrator hasn’t actually altered your path, just the appearance. To get your path to follow the appearance, go to Object > Expand Appearance.
Now you should have a clean, warped shape with the custom outline of your new warp. (it’s a good idea to keep the original around in case you want to change it later)
3. Make your pattern into a custom Illustrator Brush
You can create a custom brush out of your pattern in Illustrator and make your pattern even more dynamic and versatile. With your pattern selected, go to the Brushes palette, and select “New Brush” from the menu in the top right by clicking on the little arrow shape.
Select “New Pattern Brush.”
Now you will have plenty of options in front of you, but the most important is to select the “tint” colorization method. This allows you to change the color of the brush later. Otherwise you would have to save each color as it’s own brush, or expand the appearance each time you want to change the color of your brush stroke. So for now, leave all settings alone for learning purposes, select the “tint” colorization method and hit OK. You can play around with tons of settings later.
Now you should see your new brush in the Brushes palette.
In order to use the brush all you need to do is draw a path like you would normally. You can use any tool that creates a path. Real quick to test it, draw a very simple path on the artboard. Be careful not to go crazy with this because the complexity of your brush stroke will be a heavy load for Illustrator to apply. Let the path be somewhat simple, and the complexity of the brush will make it interesting. I used the brush tool here as an example:
Now, apply your new brush stroke to the path and see what you get! Here’s what mine looked like:
4. Applying a Pattern Stroke to geometric shapes
Just like you can use a seamless pattern as a fill or a brush stroke, you can also use one as a stroke for any shape you like. While this may be similar to #3, by using geometric patterns, and playing with the stoke size, you can achieve some very intricate symmetrical patterns, even using some of the simplest shapes to begin with. To try this, create a circle on the artboard and make sure there is no fill and set the stroke to black, like this:
Now apply your pattern brush that you made earlier, as the stroke. Adjust the stroke size to get the results you like.
Wow. cool.
You are truly a giving soul! Thanx again!
This is really one of your best posts yet! Really amazing! :)
When you gave us the vektor pattern in the post some days ago, I thougth “okay, cool, but I have no use for it”… But now, when you explain the power of patterns, a whole new world opens up for me :D
Thanks, bittbox, you are the best!
hey,
i tried what you explained, but when i warp an object filled with a pattern, the object is warped, but the pattern still fills in. How do you get the pattern to warp with the object?
Seriously… a whole new world is opening up to me.
And I can show off all these new skills I’ve learned to my colleagues.
It sure did! thank you!!
This tutorial definately got some ideas going. Thanks.
I have tried to make patterns in the past like your diamond shape, but it never worked out for because I had trouble aligning the different objects before making the entire pattern. I would get frustrated and give up because I was never able to align everything perfectly. Any insight?
nevermind my comment, i finally figured it out- you’re not warping the filled pattern, your warping the actual patern illustrator piece…makes more sense now. thanks for the cool ideas.
this is awesome. Saturday = Illustrator Day.
thanks man!
I love this site. I never see re-run information, and I learn something new, and better yet, USEFUL, nearly everyday. I hope you don’t mind my frequent referencing of your material on my blog.
andy to warp u need expand the object .
very cool man..
The wierd abstract at the beginning made me dizzy!
Brilliant tutorial, I found this site a few days back and look forward to finishing work so I can see the next installment!
Keep it up!
Awesome!
Bittbox, well, what can I say? You have gone above and beyond these other vendors and actually show us 1, how to make the stuff we want to learn how to make, & 2, how to use it!
Thank you?
PS- Keep checking my site b/c I am trying myself to make some cool and interesting things. As well as spreading the design Word.
Peace
L
Amazing- you can probably do some cool artwork, at the very least, by coloring these vectored patterns and putting them behind images you’ve drawn. Juxtaposing them and what-not.
Great work!
Thanks!
I keep going into illustrator and trying out these tips. So far I’ve had quite an enjoyable experience with simple tasks thanks to your tools and tutorials.
I really like the way complex looking abstract designs can be created with stoke enlargements on the watercolor brushes (among others). Could you showcase more of those tutorials and styles?
Forgive me if you have covered this before.
(just looked in your achieves.. you have!)
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Every now and then I see something that just opens up the world of ideas and inspires me to new efforts.
This is definitely one! And so well presented too.
Thanks for calling attention to some of the many underutilized features of Illustrator. I have all kinds of cool ideas coming to me now!
Cool! Simple yet amazing tips and tricks! Wonderful lessons i had learn today
Thanks man!
Awesome. Always tried to get this effect, never succeded, until now. Thanks.
Thanks, I;d like to know more about vector tools and Adobe illustrator, http://www.Ritaferdi.com
Thanks for your tutorials, you’ve really helped me unravel some of Illustrator’s mysteries!
This is a very useful tutorial, I will experiment with these techniques to create abstract backgrounds.
hey there,
thanks for all the great information. it’s very helpful to read this stuff! i have a question about actually creating your own patterns. Is there anywhere I can learn how to make patterns easier? I can never seem to make them symmetrical. What’s the trick to properly making them with irregular shapes?
thanks,
a
Thank you for sharing your awesome Illustrator knowledge! I’ve been trying to figure out how to create certain seamless patterns for backgrounds and I couldn’t get it to work. total inspiration.
Thank you for the fantastic posts. The effort you put in is greatly appreciated!
great!! I love AI! thx!
So happy i have found this website to help me develop my skills in illustrator.
Some great techniques to experiment with. Cheers ;0)
you can colour it after its been placed as a swatch. by, dragging the swatch back out of the swatch pallete/ungroup it/re colour it, then drag it back into the swatch pallete.
Everyone has already said it, but it’s worth saying again….You truly are a very generous and helpful person! Thank you so much! You’re more appreciated than you know :)
Amazing tutorials and tips!
for sure is one of the best tutorialls webpages for illustrator in the web great work , you make things simple and show us that you are a givin soul thank for everything i got fascinated with your work.
awesome tutorial, what a pity that I dont own illustrator. way to expensive for me :/
Great post! I have illustrator sitting around but I never really use it, seeing tuts like this makes me realize the power of illustrator. Thanks!
I foud a way to change the color of the pattern, when you are makin the new swatch and giving the name, below you have the options for colours. But I guess everytime you wanna change the colour, you have to make a new swatch..
you can always ‘expand’ and adjust (than jou can ‘cut’ the shape again if you like)
you can always ‘expand’ and adjust the colour (than jou can ‘cut’ the shape again if you like)
hello, I found this technique very interesting but when I try to do it my pattern always have a slight border around the square, like a little border. Obviously the square and the objects have no border. I don’t know why it happens.
do you have any clue? can you help me? anybody had the same problem?
thank you
GREAT tutorial!!! thanks…
How do I control the distance and layout of the “tiles” inside the pattern? it seems to line the tiles up stright is a row…
good …very good….
If you would like to edit a pattern swatch (whether you’ve used it already or not), drag it onto your page, choose “expand”, and edit away (new colors, different shape, etc.). When you are done, select the pattern, hold “option” (or “alt”) and drag your art ON TOP OF the swatch in the swatches palette. The swatch will be replaced with the new art and anything using that pattern will be updated automatically.
This works for symbols also.
;)
Hello your site has been a great help but what i was wondering is if i have found a non vector pattern can i turn it into a swatch for vector filling or stroking? I wanted to use a pattern i found on http://www.squidfingers.com/patterns/ and use it as a fill in a vector illustration but i cannot work out how to do it can anybody shed some light on my problem. thanks
that is awesome.. i’d tried to figure how to expand the pattern for so long..
thanks
hi these patterns are amazing
Hello “a walsh”.
I looked at the patterns you referenced and they are just too small. If there was a large version and you have CS2 or more, you could place it in Illustrator and then use Live Trace to convert it to vector. But not with those small patterns.
you are amazing
You have taken my knoledge and squared it. Thank you.
thanks a lot
keep up the good work
Hey, first of all: great tut (y)!!!
1. you maybe want to ad the hint taht you have to expand your path before you can ad the effects. some of the guys in the comments already mentioned about…
2. would be great, if you can give me a hint how to make multicolor patterns on my own. sure it has to be a compound path, and then drag it to the swatches palett. but with more colors etc it seems to be very very hard to make an compound path…
any nice & smooth was how to do it. or is it percise and hard work with the hand?? don´t believe in this…
thanks for your support
me again…
figured out, that you can do the same with groups aswell… so one of my questions is “done”
but there is the next one :D LOL
how do you manage it, that you really make the pattern seamless. means i dont get it to cut the pattern details on the edge exactly at the half.
result is, if i use the pattern on a bigger area than itself you can see very tiny white lines. obviously i need to cut the “native” pattern exactly at 50% of the item on the edge, but how to manage??!
any advice??! thank you very much!!!
good skill..thanks so muk
This will help with fashion photography’s problem with moiré.
Good Lord is this a tutorial, or a cult? Most the comments are mad rambles about a demi-god and his supernatural powers in illustrator. Good information, but calm down, its only a tutorial.
I doubt I’ll need it by the time this is replied to but for someone else’s benefit.. how do you even open these patterns in Illustrator??
Thanks so much, I’m in collage learning Adobe Illustrator and this helped me know more than I needed!
Thanks man… getting better and better.
[...] If you’r looking for more information about creating your own patterns, see Bittbox’s post The Power (and Ease) of Patterns in Illustrator. [...]
Thank you. I’ve been wondering how to work with patterns in Illustrator for ever. I also used the tutorial about making a seamless pattern to start. My boss will be so proud :)
Great stuff, but here’s a question: once you get to that end image (the circle filled with diamonds), how can you change the object to outlines (so that the outline isn’t the circle, but around the diamonds)?
daniel: Simply select your finished shape (filled) and go up to the OBJECT menu and select ‘Expand Appearance’ and you should be good to go.
Another great Illustrator resource to start you out pattern and brush makin’. Cheers.
@Khayyam: you rule… I assume it was there somewhere, just couldn’t find it. Thanks!
How to change the color of a pattern swatch.
Open the pattern in the Swatches window. Drag it out into an open document. Zoom in on it. Press A. Select any shape in the color/stroke you’d like to change the color of. Go to Select > Same > Fill Color. Pick a new color. Select the entire object dragged out of the swatch box and drag it back into the swatch box. Voila, new color pattern.
these arent good
Thanks so much for all the great tutorials, I know how much effort goes into making just one, it’s much aappreciated and very easy to follow. I’ve learned some great tips from you today which I’ll put to good use. Chris
great!
Hi there!
The real way to change the color of patterns:
Before you create the pattern swatch, color your objects with global color swatches! These are swatches which behave similar to spot colors in Illustrator.
Howto:
1. Create a new color swatch with the color you want to use for your object.
2. Open the options dialog box for the swatch
3. Click the “global” checkbox (and set a name optionally) and save.
4. Apply the global swatch to you object!
5. Add the object to you pattern swatches by dragging it on to the swatch pallet.
Now you can use the pattern on any object you want.
To change the color, simply open the swatch color dialog box of your pattern colors again and change the color values. That way you can even life preview your changes on the stage!
I only make patterns that way! It’s so much easier and more flexible than any other method I know.
Have fun exploring!
Thank you for the info, but how do I create a seamless pattern IN THE FIRST PLACE? The one that you dragged into the swatches palette? I’ve been searching online but I always run into a problem! Please help, anybody!
[...] The Power of Patterns in Illustrator [...]
@Christine and others:
I had a tough time making the seams go away. To get it to work correctly, you create a transparent fill and transparent border box to go around your pattern.
Then use the Pathfinder tool. Go to Window->Pathfinder. Select the box and the pattern, and then click on the “Trim” button under Pathfinders (at least on CS4). This will remove the excess paths, unlike a clipping mask, which just hides them.
This isn’t perfect though, as using the pathfinder takes away any outline effects.
the first picture is gone!
thanks dude!
great tutorial. thanks for taking the time to share. i had trouble with step 4 though. i can’t for the life of me figure out how you came up with this kaleidoscopic pattern, and i followed the instructions to the letter. am i missing a step?
hey hey!
Thanks a lot for all this stuff!
Sadly some images that you posted with the steps are gone! :(