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Illustrator CS2
Invitations and Party Favors (Part I)
Status: Completed Part I / Last Update (04/03/08)
This tutorial is divided into several parts and it is a result from a visitor’s request. It is a work in progress and new parts will be added throughout the following weeks (the status will change whenever new information is added).
Some of the topics that will be covered: multiple background effect, shape repetition, polka dots, printing tips.
Different approaches (read that tools and effects) will be used whenever possible, for a richer experience ;)
Contents & Updates
1. Invitations (document setup)(03/18/08)
1.a. Background Color (03/18/08)
» 1.a. Bleeding Note (03/25/08)
1.b. Background Stripes (03/24/08)
1.c. Background Stars (04/02/08)
1.d. Background Dots (04/03/08)
Start out by creating a new document with the invitation’s dimensions.
If you are unsure about the dimensions, you can either measure other cards or call a printing company and inquire about possible standard sizes that they work with.
Turn on Smart Guides by hitting Ctrl + U or by clicking on the option in the View menu (a check mark should be displayed in the menu indicating that the guides are on).
Smart guides will display a blue highlights and text indicating anchor points, paths, intersections, etc.
Hit M to select the Rectangle Tool.
Move the mouse cursor to the top left corner of the artboard until the word intersect is displayed.
Click-and-drag the cursor to the bottom right corner so that you have a rectangle the same size as the artboard.
Double-click on the Fill option in the Tools palette or in the Color palette and choose a color to be used for the invitation’s background.
Click once on the Stroke box to select it and click on the None option to remove the stroke.
The None option is the white square button with a diagonal red line. It is also available on both Tools and Color palettes.
Note that when clicking on the Stroke box will bring it in front of the Fill. This means that if you click a color in the Color palette that color will be assigned to the stroke box. Click once on the Fill box to bring it back in front.
Create another rectangle the same size as the artboard.
When placing the cursor on the corner of the artboard, you’ll noticed that instead of reading intersect, anchor will be displayed. This is because of the rectangle that we created before.
Go to Object » Crop Area » Make in order to create the crop (cut) marks. A couple of lines will be displayed on each corner.
Now here’s a little catch: if you leave the background as it is right now, the slightest mistake while cutting following the lines will display a white (the paper color) line following the edge of the invitation. In order to prevent this, resize the rectangle so it is slightly larger than the artboard:
» hit V to select the Selection Tool (black arrow) and click on the rectangle to make it active;
» go to Effect » Convert to Shape » Rectangle;
» here are the settings that I used:
You could also go differently about this by creating an artboard slightly larger than the invitation size you want and then creating a smaller crop area.
(03/25/08) For this example I’m leaving quite a lot of space for bleeding. In reality, however, you should use just a few millimeters (3 should be fine, which would be something like 0.12 inches), so that you can make better use of the paper (or any other material) surface available for printing.
On the Layers palette, double-click on Layer 1 to open the Layer Options box. Change the layer’s name to Background Color.
Since we will be adding other elements on different layers instead of having a multi-object layer for at least this part, it is also a good idea to lock this layer by clicking on the blank square between the “eye” and the layer’s name.
Save your file by going to File » Save. Save in Illustrator’s native .ai format so that all editing capabilities remain intact. After clicking on the Save button a new set of options, Illustrator Options will appear: simply make sure that you are saving as Illustrator CS2 version and uncheck Create PDF Compatible File (this helps keeping the file size down).
b. Background Stripes (03/24/08)
Create a new layer, double-click on it and name it Background Stripes.
With the Rectangle Tool, click on the top left corner of the artboard (which should read anchor); the Rectangle Options box will be displayed. Enter the desired dimensions of the stripe in it.
Double-click on the Scale Tool to open the Scale Options box.
» Settings: non-uniform, vertical = 105%.
This will add an extra area for bleeding.
On the Object menu, go to Transform » Move. Click OK in order to move the rectangle.
Go to Move again, but this time click Copy so that the original rectangle remains in place.
If you have the preview on, it will seem as if the original rectangle will be moved again, but that’s just because AI doesn’t know which button you are going to click ;)
Double-click on the Blend Tool to open the options.
» Settings: spacing = specified steps, 3.
Clicking OK won’t do anything to your work yet, so far we are just preparing the tool to behave like we want.
Move the cursor over a rectangle and, when you see the little X appear, click.
Then move the cursor over the other rectangle and click when you see the + appear under the cursor.
A line conecting both rectangles appear, as well as 3 new copies.
Basically your stripes are ready!
With a little math you could define the proper spacing between each of them using this method so that it would be the same throughout the entire card length, but I’m too lazy for doing math on a Monday night ;)
Another method would be to create just one rectangle and make copies of it by using the Transform effect (_Effect » Distort & Transform » Transform_).
Keep bleeding in mind if you get a stripe at the edge of the artboard like the example below:
Since this is a Live Effect, meaning that it will remain editable after it has been applied, you’ll have to get rid of it in order to get to that last rectangle. To do so, go to Object » Expand Appearance.
The transform effect result remains now as a group of objects – you can either ungroup it or isolate the group by double-clicking on it.
The Isolate Selected Group feature was introduced in CS2, so let’s use that one for now.
When you’re in the isolated group mode, a grey rectangle appears around the objects, and you are able to click on each one individually.
So click on the one that meets the artboard edge and, with the Selection Tool, click-and-drag the middle right handle of the bounding box and place it outside the artboard.
Double-click twice to exit the isolated group mode.
Save your file and that’s all for now.
If you haven’t done it already, lock the Background Stripes layer.
Create a new layer and name it Background Stars.
Select the Star Tool (on the same flyout as the Rectangle Tool) and click anywhere on the artboard to open the Star Options box.
Enter the desired dimensions for the star.
Radius 1 refers to the outer radius, while Radius 2 refers to the inner radius.
Set the colors for the star.
Open the Symbols palette and Alt + click on the New Symbol icon. Enter Star as the name for the symbol.
If you only clicked without holding the Alt key the name option wouldn’t appear, instead, you’d have to double-click on the symbol in the palette in order to change its name.
Delete the star created on the artboard.
Double-click on the Symbol Sprayer Tool.
Settings » diameter = 2 in, intensity = 8, symbol set density = 2, all options = average, show brush size and intensity = checked.
With the Star symbol selected (just click on it in the palette to select), click-and-drag around the artboard to multiply the stars.
As you can see, like this the stars look rather boring. So let’s explore other symbol tools…
Click-and-hold over the Symbol Sprayer Tool in order to access the rest of the other symbol-related tools.
Select the Symbol Spinner Tool and move the cursor over the stars and notice the arrows that appear indicating the direction of the rotation.
Now select the Symbol Sizer Tool and double-click on it to open the options box.
Settings » method = random (this will enable you to increase and decrease the size) or user defined (this will only increase the size), proportion resizing + resizing affects density = checked.
Move the cursor over the stars at different speeds and notice how this will affect the size.
In order to make this part of the background more interesting, I’ll be changing the Blending Mode to Soft Light.
Since I randomly placed the stars, I also got more bleed than I needed.
There are several ways that I could go about getting rid of this excess, including exploring other symbol tools, but I’ll show you a method that can also be applied to other types of objects, which will certainly be helpful in the future. This method uses what we call a Clipping Mask.
First of all, create a rectangle using the same dimensions as the artboard (like we did at the very beginning, for the background).
Then go to Effect » Convert to Shape » Rectangle.
Settings » relative = checked, extra width + extra height = 0,1 in. This is just a different trick to scale a rectangle ;)
Since this is a live effect, we must convert it to a “normal” path before proceeding otherwise the clipping mask will use the original rectangle dimensions (the downside of using the above trick for scaling), so just go to Object » Expand Appearance.
Hit Ctrl + A to select both the rectangle and the stars, then right-click and choose Make Clipping Mask from the pop-up menu.
In this case the bounding box will exceed the rectangle’s limits, since it also considers the dimensions of the symbol set.
Now time to lock this layer and save :)
Tomorrow I’ll post a method for creating polka dots as the final background effect and then off to the rest of the invitation! Phew!
A dotted background could easily be created using the same method as we used for the stars, specially if what you want is variety.
However, I’ll take the opportunity to show you yet a different method for pattern/background creation :)
You probably guessed by now that a new layer should be created and named Background Dots so let’s create the circles that will make up our pattern.
With the Ellipse Tool, hold the Shift key and drag the cursor in order to create the circle.
Open the Transform palette in order to check the circle’s dimensions (_W_ and H should be the same) and use them as a reference for the next step:
Right-click on the circle and select Transform » Transform Each.
_Settings » move horizontal + vertical = same as W and H (for my circle that would be 0.25 in), keep the scale at 100% and click on the Copy button.
With the Selection Tool, select both circles – one way to select more than one shape using this tool is by, after selecting the first one, holding down the Shift key and clicking on the second one.
Again, check the dimensions in the Transform palette.
Now go to Object » Group or hit Ctrl + G in order to group both circles.
Open the Swatches palette and click-and-drag the group into the palette in order to create a pattern swatch.
You can delete the group from the artboard.
I only used black for the circles so that you can see the swatch ;)
Now create a rectangle that’s slightly bigger than the artboard and set the pattern as the fill.
Basically that’s all there’s to it…
...But what if you want to change the scale of the pattern?
Well, in this case, right-click on the rectangle, choose Transform » Scale and check only the Patterns box and enter the desired % value.
In case you feel like moving the dots under the stars, all you have to do is open the Layers palette, click-and-drag the Background Dots layer under the Background Stars until you see a black line indicating the new position, as shown below:
Lock the layer and save.
Ok, so this tutorial is getting rather long so I’ll be breaking it up in different parts. Stay tunned for Part II! :)
The above image is a result of a Save for Web command; note how it only displays what’s inside the crop marks.
Tut-on-Demand · Mar 18, 2008 ·