Aligning to a key anchor works very much the same as aligning to a key object except you need 1 less click. I have a very crude shape drawn below as an example. I want to align a few of these anchors to the highest anchor on the left, but I DON”T WANT THE ANCHOR I ALIGN TO TO MOVE AT ALL, which is why I’m using this technique and not simply the align to selection option in the align palette.

Step 1:

Select each anchor individually, and the LAST anchor you select will automatically be your “key anchor.”

Step 2:

First, make sure that “Align to Key Anchor” is active in the Align palette (it should happen automatically when manually selecting points), and then hit the “Vertical Align Center” button.

Step 3:

Done. You’ll notice that the last anchor we selected didn’t move at all. All of the other points wore aligned to match the key anchor’s vertical location. Like I said, this probably won’t be something you use every day, but it is good to know. :)

As you can see in the image above, I have two pieces of a lowercase “f” that I want to merge together with pathfinder. Below I have the two pieces lined up where I want them, and If I simply use pathfinder now and merge them, I will get more than one point on the bottom left curve, where the arrow is. I want to have a nice clean curve there, so I’m going to use the “Average” function.

As you can see here, in wireframe mode zoomed way in, the 2 points are not exactly lined up.

Step 1:

As pictured above, use the Direct Select Tool (white arrow) and select the 2 points you want to align.

Step 2:

Go to Object > Path > Average, and select “both,” then hit ok.

And that’s it. Now your points are in exactly the same x,y coordinates, so when you use pathfinder, the result is only a single point, not two.

Now I have my nice clean path outline to work with!

Step 1:

Ok, let’s say for example, you have all of the different text boxes like in this image, and you want to change all of the, sizes, and fonts, and colors to match the text box on the bottom right. In that case, step 1 would be to fine tune your text formatting in the bottom right text box and get it exactly the way you want it.

Step 2:

Shift + Select all of the text boxes except for the one you want to match.

Step 3:

Select your Eyedropper Tool, or hit (I).

Step 4:

Click your Eyedropper Tool on the text box on the bottom right. (The one you want to copy, font and size, etc. from) and it applies the formatting from that text box to all of the other selected text boxes! And Done :) It won’t change the actual TEXT in the boxes, only the font, color, and size, etc. Basically, anything you can control in the Type Panel, including letter spacing, leading, etc. Styles (effects) must be applied manually, which you can do easily by Shift + Selecting and then applying a graphic style, or drop shadow, or whatever you need.

Alternate Method:

Shift + Select all of the text boxes and the adjust your settings in the Type (Character Panel). It’s as simple as that.

To start off the week, we’ve got some really cool free stuff. Our friends at Designious.com, who so generously offer freebies on a regular basis, have launched a brand new premium design resource site today called DesignTNT.com. It’s a subscription-based site, so you can really get some good deals with the right kind of account and diligent downloading. I’ve got 10 Pro accounts (good for 1 month) to give away to some lucky BittBoxers, make sure and read the rules (they’ve changed a bit) and good luck!

Contest Rules:

• In order to be eligible to win, hit the tweet button below this post, then leave a comment with a link to your tweet. (How to link to a tweet »)
• Only tweet and comment once.
• 10 winners will be randomly chosen from the comments, given a valid tweet.
• You must leave an email address in order to win.
• Comments will remain open for about a week.

Illustrator: Edit Multiple Text Boxes at Once from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Creating a Font in Fontlab – Part 1 from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Correction: The “ascender would be the height of a “lowercase” h, not a capital H.

Link for setting up the Illustrator Template.

List of Unicode characters on Wikipedia

Illustrator 101: Center Artboard from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Illustrator: Align to Key Object [HD] from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Illustrator: How to reset bounding boxes from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Illustrator How To: Angled Guides and Deleting a Single Handle from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Illustrator 101: Precise Guide Placement from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Illustrator: How to Make Vector Grunge from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Ok, take a close look at the screenshot above. You’ll notice that the line I circled is not perfectly horizontal. You can tell by the steps in the path. Sometimes you can adjust your keyboard nudge increment in the preferences, select one of the points, and nudge it to where it needs to be. But another way to make a perfect alignment between 2 points is using the Align palette and the direct select tool, just like you would for 2 objects. Here’s how:

1. Open the “Align” palette and make sure you have “Align to Selection” checked.

2. Using the Direct Select tool (White Arrow) select both of the points you want to align, the hit the “Vertical Align Center” button in the Align palette. Now both points will be perfectly aligned, thus, your path will be perfectly strait.

This can come in pretty handy on those paths that you need to be perfect, like designing fonts or cutting out stickers for example. Hope some of you find it useful :)

Download »

Contest Rules:

• All you have to do to enter is leave a comment. (tweeting is appreciated)
• Only comment once.
• 10 winners will be randomly chosen from the comments.
• You must leave an email address in order to win.
• Comments will remain open until Wednesday, December 15th.

First of all, when creating a new document, you can set the raster effects right away in the “New Document” window.

Second, if your document is already created, you can go to Effects > Document Raster Effects Settings to find out what those settings are for your current document.

Third, you can see the pixel dimensions of an image by clicking on it and looking in the “Info” palette. (This can also be seen in the toolbar at the top of the Illustrator window.)

Below is a video example of what Jimmy was talking about. Using the Brush tool in Illustrator, after you make one stroke, then you make another stroke, the first one disappears.

Untitled from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

This happens because of a simple Brush tool setting. If you double-click on the Brush tool, the Brush tool settings window will appear. There are 3 checkboxes in this window. If you have “Keep Selected” and “Edit Selected Paths” checked, Illustrator will treat your second stroke as an effort to improve, or adjust the first one, and your first stroke will disappear. (depending on how many pixels you select with the slider setting).

If you uncheck “Edit Selected Paths” Illustrator will no longer make your strokes disappear. You can even keep “Keep Selected” selected, and your strokes will remain selected, they just won’t be adjusted, or disappeared.

Here’s a quick example video of using the Brush tool without “Edit Selected Paths” checked:

Edit Selected Paths [Illustrator Example] from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Step 1

Make sure your vector shape is on top of your texture.

Step 2

Select BOTH your texture and the vector shape, then right click or control click and select “Make Clipping Mask.” (You can also go to the Object menu and select Clipping Mask > Make, or hit Command/Control +7.)

Step 3

Done! Now, that you have your texture masked to fill your shape, you’ll notice that Illustrator has made the texture and the path into a new group. You can move the group as a whole with the Select tool, or you can use the Direct Select tool to move the texture itself, without moving the path, and vice versa.

Why? Well if you open your Color palette (Window>Color), you’ll most likley find that it’s set to grayscale. (like below)

All you have to do is set your color palette to something else, like RGB or CMYK. Now you’re good to go. Personally, I have no idea why this problem has made it all the way to CS4. If I wanted to fill a shape with a gray, I’d choose a gray.

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.