Supercharging Your Design Process

with Illustrator CC
L238
Brian Wood
brian@brianwoodtraining.com
About Brian Wood

• I’m an author and speaker

• Favorite application?
What else... Adobe Illustrator

• Written 16 books

• Lynda.com, Adobe author

2
Tips, tricks, shortcuts to start
There are so many tips and tricks we could talk about for Illustrator that have helped me
and countless others in Illustrator, but I’ll narrow it down a lot to some of my favorites.

• Make the Appearance panel your best friend (Window > Appearance).

• Learn some valuable (relative) keyboard commands.

Shift + X Swap stroke and fill

X Make stroke or fill active (swap)

/ Apply None

. Apply last used gradient

D Apply default fill and stroke

Shift + 0 Edit the artboards (select the Artboard tool)

Cmd + Shift + P/ Ctrl + Shift + P Place stuff

Cmd + U/ Ctrl + U toggle smart guides on/off

Shift + Cmd +A Deselect all

Prefs Selection & Anchor Display: Change anchor point size (display)

Selection & Anchor Display: Show handles when multiple points

are selected

Type: Auto Size New Type Area

User Interface: UI Scaling

Performance: Set number of Undos!

Cmd + Option + O/ Ctrl + Alt + O Fit All In Window

• Fit artboards (Shift + O)

• Selecting similar (Select > Similar...).

• Utilize compound paths (great for masks with multiple shapes, etc.).

• Scale corners and Scale Strokes & Effects (great for transforming content)

3
Project 1: Puppet Warp
The Puppet Warp tool in Illustrator can be useful for lots of things—
including warping text.

1 Setup the Tools panel. Click Edit Toolbar at the bottom of the
Tools panel and drag any tools you need into the Tools panel.
To remove a tool drag it out.

2 You can save the Tools panel as a custom Tools panel by

clicking the menu icon ( ) in the upper-right of the Tools
menu after clicking Edit Toolbar. You can also reset the Tools
panel from the same menu.

3 Select the artwork you want to apply the puppet warp to. You
can use the Puppet Warp on almost anything, except for raster
(image) objects and also linked objects.

4 When you select the Puppet Warp tool with content selected,
pins are automatically added in the places Illustrator thinks
you’d want to add them.

• You can click the artwork to add more pins.

• You can select multiple pins (Shift -click)
and delete (press Backspace or Delete) or
move them.
• Maybe you want to remove the pins. You
can click Select All Pins and press Backspace
or Delete.
• You can move or rotate pins.
• Add at least 3 pins to your artwork in
most cases.
• Press Option/Alt to drag a pin or pins and
minimize the effect on the other pins. This is awesome....
4
You can also warp text with the Puppet Warp tool. This can give you
ultimate control over your text. Note that text you warp with the Puppet
Warp is converted to outlines, so I would save a copy of your text if you
want to keep the original.

• After selecting text and then the Puppet Warp

tool, you can expand or contract the mesh
depending on how you want to work with the
selected artwork.

• If you drag 2 of the letters apart a little, for

instance, you can set the mesh to a low expand
mesh value (maybe 1) to edit just that letter. It
contracts the “sphere of influence,” so to speak.
See the figure at right.

• You can apply pins and transform the entire text

group, but you can also edit the individual letters
or objects. Press the letter A and click a letter to
select it in the group.

• Select the Puppet Warp tool and you should

be able to control just that one letter without
affecting the others.

5
Free Transform content
Aside from transforming with Puppet Warp, you can also use several forms
of “free transform.” The Free Transform tool and the Free Distort effect are
two ways (Effect > Distort & Transform > Free Distort).

1 Select artwork to distort.

2 Setup the Tools panel. Click Edit Toolbar at the bottom of the Tools
panel and drag the Free Transform tool into the Tools panel.

3 Select the type of transformation you want to

perform. You can also use keyboard commands
to perform them:

• After you begin dragging a bounding point,

press Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac
OS) until the selection is at the desired level
of distortion. Release the mouse button and
then the keys.

• After you begin dragging a bounding point,

press Shift+Alt+Ctrl (Windows) or Shift+Option+Command (Mac
OS) to distort in perspective. Release the mouse button and then
the keys.

Free Transform tips:

• To apply the same transformation to other

artwork, you can select other artwork and then
press Cmd + D//Ctrl + D to repeat it.

• To transform with more control and no

snapping, you can turn off the Smart Guides.

6
Reflecting tricks
I need to create symmetrical artwork more than I would have ever
imagined. To do that we can employ some faster ways to work. We’ll start
by creating symmetrical artwork and see a few things along the way.

1 Select the artwork. For this example, the cone of the rocket ship needs
to be cut in half. We can do that a billion ways. One way is to divide
objects below.

2 Make sure Smart Guides are on. Press Cmd + Y/ Ctrl + Y to enter
Outline mode.

3 Select the Line Segment tool and draw a line

right down the middle.

4 With the line selected, choose Object > Path >

Divide Objects Below.

5 To drag the shape and snap a point to a point,

turn off the bounding box by pressing Cmd
+ Shift + B/ Ctrl + Shift + B (View > Hide
Bounding Box). Drag the shape from the corner
and snap it to an anchor point on another shape.

6 Press Cmd + Shift + B/ Ctrl + Shift + B (View >

Show Bounding Box) to turn the bounding box
back on.

7 Press Cmd + Y/ Ctrl + Y to exit Outline mode.

8 Select all of the artwork to reflect.

7
2 methods to reflect (of many). Method #1:
• Press O to select the Reflect tool. Option-click/
Alt-click an anchor point to reflect around. In
the Reflect dialog, set the correct settings and
click Copy.

Method #2 (kinds nuts)

• Create a new layer.

• Click the appearance target in the Layers panel.

Any effects or other you apply now will apply to
ANY artwork on that layer.

8
• Apply the Transform by choosing Effect >
Distort & Transform > Transform.
Make sure you select Reflect X, 1 copy, and
select the right, middle point of the reference
point indicator ( ).

• Click OK. Put any artwork on that layer and it

will immediately be reflected.

If you use Asset Export, it will export an entire

symmetrical object, not just one half! This can
be very useful for icons—whatever needs to
be symmetrical.

TIP: If you really want the whole thing, you can select
it and choose Object > Expand Appearance.

9
Blending
Blending can be used to create color blends as well as repeating objects
like a picket fence, for instance. In this part, you’ll explore a few features of
blending, and see how to use image tracing to your advantage, by creating
some blended text objects.

1 With the blend file open, create a new artboard to work on.

2 Create some text and choose a thin font. You’ll

use the text as a base for the blending. You need
to get paths from the text that you can then
blend objects along. You’ll use the text as a spine
for the blend. To get the paths, you’ll trace
the text.

Changing font size:

Cmd + Shift + > or <
Ctrl + Shift + < or >

Changing font size faster:

Cmd + Shift + Option + > or <
Ctrl + Shift + Alt + < or >

The next step is sort of interesting, but you will trace the text to get
paths from it. Normally, if you attempt to convert text to outlines, you
get closed shapes which won’t work for what we need.

3 With the text selected, choose Object >

Rasterize. You can set the resolution to 150 or
higher, most of the time. Select Transparent and
click OK.

4 Choose Line Art from the Image Trace menu in

the Properties panel on the right. After the text
has been traced, click Expand to get the shapes
you need.

Now that you have the linework from the text, you
can use each as a spine for the blending.

10
5 Draw a circle and pick a color. Duplicate the
circle to the right. You can create different
shapes, but you’ll have to test them to see how
they turn out. One bit of advice? Keep copies of
the original text, etc.

6 Now, to make a blend, select the Blend tool in

the Tools panel. Click in one circle, then click in
the other.

7 To edit the blend, with the blend object selected,

double-click the Blend tool. You can set different
options for a type of blend. Make sure Smooth Color is selected and
click OK.

8 Make a copy of your blend object. You’ll have to do that for each letter.

9 Select the text and make a copy—pasting it on top. Then hide it. You’ll
use that later. Select the original text and ungroup it.

10 Drag a copy of the blend object onto the first

letter. Select the letter and the blend object.
Choose Object > Blend > Replace Spine.

11 Do this for each letter. For the T and the H, you

will most likely need to replace the spine using
each part of the T and H.

12 Un-hide the original text shapes and make sure

they are on top. You can change the color,
stroke, etc.

11
EXTRA!
You can use blends for all kinds of artwork, including using it as a way to
create smooth color blends with a mask. Here’s an example:

1 Create some paths. You can blend between more

than 2 paths to have more color in the blend.

2 Apply a smooth color blend to them

3 Place a shape over the top and select the

blend object as well. Make the top shape a
clipping mask

4 Done.

12
Live Paint
Live Paint has been around forever, but I think
it’s something that is under-utilized. Live Paint
is a way for you to color objects and create
artwork with having to create the shapes you
want. That sounds baffling, I know—but let’s
take a look as we create some isometric shapes.

1 With the file open, create a new artboard to

work on, if you want.

2 Draw a square and rotate it.

3 Duplicate the square on top of the original and make it smaller.

4 Draw a line from the top corner of the smaller

square to the top corner of the larger square.

5 To show the center point of all objects, select

them all and choose Window > Attributes. Select
Show Center. This can make it easier to draw
from and align to the center of objects.

6 Press R to rotate and pressing the Option key

on macOS or Alt key on Windows, move the
pointer over the center of the squares. When
the word “center” shows (part of Smart Guides).
Click to open the Rotate dialog box and set the
rotate around point.

13
1 Change the Angle to 90 (or other) and
click Copy.

2 Press Cmd + D/ Ctrl + D a few times to

duplicate the transformation.

3 Select all of the shapes.

4 Select the Live Paint Bucket tool and select a fill

color in the Properties panel. Move the pointer
over part of the shapes and click to make them a
Live Paint object.

You can also choose Object >

Live Paint > Make.

5 Press right or left arrows to switch colors and

keep clicking to apply color.

6 The best part? You can edit the paths/shapes and

the color follows. Press A to select the Direct
Selection tool. Click one of the paths.

14
 You can also double-click the Live Paint Bucket
tool and select Paint Strokes. You can then move
the pointer over the strokes and click to apply
any color you select.

You can change the stroke weight of the entire

object or each path separately.

EXTRA! Shape #2
Here’s another example with an extra production tip thrown in.

1 Draw a perfect triangle.

2 Copy/paste the triangle in front of the original.

Rotate them both so they look like the figure.

3 Select the Direct Selection tool and click the

path shown in the figure. Press Cmd + C/ Ctrl +
C then paste it in front.

4 Click to select the endpoint and drag it down,

keeping it in line.

15
5 Drag the other end of the path down to snap the
bottom of the smaller triangle.

6 Click the left side of the larger triangle with the

Direct Selection tool to select the path. Press
Cmd + C/ Ctrl + C then paste it.

7 Drag the path so it lines up with the smaller path

you created. See the figure.

8 Join the two paths by selecting them and

pressing Cmd + J/ Ctrl + J.

9 Drag the top anchor point down, then select

the Pen tool and click the end of the path to
continue drawing. Pressing the Shift key, click
to create a path that clips the corner of the
larger triangle.

10 Select the triangles and choose Window >

Attributes. Select Show Center, then close the
Attributes panel group.

16
11 Select the shape you created, then select the
Rotate tool. Option-click (macOS) or Alt-click
(Windows) the center of the smaller triangle.
Change the Angle to 360/3 - to let it do some
math, then click Copy.

12 Press Cmd + D/ Ctrl + D twice to duplicate the

path again. Remove the fills from all objects! This
is important for the Live Paint Bucket tool.

13 Select the Live Paint Bucket tool and go

to work!

14 Drag the object into the Libraries panel to save it

for the next part of the bootcamp.

17
New ways to gradient
In Illustrator, there have always been a lot of ways to create gradients. One
of my favorite ways to apply gradients to objects has been color blends or
using Gradient Mesh. A new way to work with gradients includes using
Freeform gradients. They allow for, well, more freeform or what we can call
“realistic” gradients.

1 With the file open, select the white circle. This will replace the center
of the kiwi after you apply a gradient to it.

2 To apply a gradient, press period (.) to apply the last used gradient. This
will most likely be a black to white linear gradient.

3 In the Gradient panel that opens or the

Properties panel, select the Freeform gradient
option. By default, colors are added to the
shape as color stops or points. I tend to start by
removing all but one.

4 Click on the color stops and press Backspace or

Delete to remove them. Leave one of them. I do
this because, currently, if you add more color
stops, they apply the same color as the previous.

5 Click the last remaining point and change the

fill color.

18
6 Click to add another point and change the
fill color.

7 Select Lines in the Gradient panel to be able

to create a gradient along a path you will draw
from the selected point. Click in the circle to
add three more points. When you come back
to the first point, a circle will appear next to the
pointer. Click to close the path.

8 Click to set another point. To change the color

of the point and the surrounding area, you can
double-click the point or change the fill color in
the Properties panel with it selected.

9 Click a few times to create another circle inside

of the first gradient circle.

You can add more points to a path by clicking

an existing path or delete points by clicking to
select them and pressing Backspace or Delete.
You need to be careful about deleting points that
are on a path you drew. If you attempt to delete
a point and the remaining path with intersect
another path or point, you will see a warning
dialog box.

10 Click to create another point and change the

color again. Make sure Lines is selected in the
Gradient panel and make another path.

19
11 Click in the center of the shape to add a new
point. Select Points in the Gradient panel to
make a single point. Change the fill color by
double-clicking it or in the Properties panel. Add
a few points and drag them around.

12 To finish, you can select a point and drag the

widget to expand the color influence.

20
Recoloring artwork
One of my favorite features in Illustrator is the ability to easily recolor
logos, poster, whatever—easily. In this section, you’ll explore working with
Recolor Artwork.

1 Select artwork. You can click in the artboard and choose Select > All
On Active Artboard.

2 Click the Recolor button in the Properties

panel. The Recolor Artwork dialog box opens.
In the Recolor Artwork dialog box, you can
take existing color in artwork and change them
together or independently in a lot of different
ways.

All of the color found in the selected artwork is

captured and is now showing in the dialog box,
along with any color groups you’ve made in the
Swatches panel.

TIP: To colorize artwork, you can also choose Edit > Edit Colors and
choose an option. One of my favorites is converting from RGB to CMYK or
vice-versa.

3 You can either Edit or Assign colors to the

artwork. If you select Edit, you can see the color
in the artwork represented in different ways. The
default representation is on a color wheel. If you
select Assign, you can assign a color found in the
artwork to another color.

If you select the Edit option, you can make it so

all of the colors edit together—in harmony—or
separately. Dragging one of the color circles will
change that color in the artwork, and if the colors are linked, all will
change together.

4 You can also choose a color swatch group. If you

click the color swatch option, you can choose
which color group the colors will become.

21
5 A lot of time, I try options in the Recolor Artwork dialog box, only
to learn that you can’t undo. If you want to get the initial colors
back from the artwork in the dialog box, and start over, you can
click the Eyedropper icon in the upper-right.

6 If you click the Assign tab, you can assign the

artwork colors to other colors. If you have a
color group you’ve created, you can select that
group on the right side of the dialog box to
assign the colors. The existing artwork colors
are mapped to the new colors in the group
according to closest value.

On the Assign tab, one of my all-time favorite

options is to narrow the number of colors in the
artwork. Maybe you want to apply a single Pantone color and have a
series of tints, or you can only afford to print something in 2 colors, for
instance. You can choose to limit the number of colors from the
Colors menu.

22
Appearance panel and effects
One of my all-time favorite panels in Illustrator is the Appearance panel
because of how much I use it. The Appearance panel is a great place to
look and see how the appearance of artwork was created. For instance,
if you select artwork and look in the Appearance panel, you can see any
effects applied, transparency, strokes and fills, as well as how they are all
organized.

1 Open the Appearance panel.

Select some artwork, like the text to see what

the appearance is composed of. I love the
Appearance panel because it is sort of a history
of the selected artwork. Plus, if you know how to
work it, you can apply some really cool effects.
In this section, you’ll use the Appearance panel
to adjust the look of some text.

2 Create some text. Select the text and look in the

Properties panel. You’ll see the stroke and fill
and Type: No Appearance at the top. This tells
you that text is selected.

Notice that most of the options at the bottom

of the panel to add new strokes and fills are
dimmed (you can’t select them).

3 Press the Escape key to select the Selection tool

and the type object. You will now see the buttons
come to life at the bottom of the panel. The
Appearance panel reacts to what is selected—for
instance, if a group is selected versus an object
within the group.

4 Double-click the Characters in the Appearance

panel to see the formatting for the characters
(text). You can then press Escape to see the
formating for the type object again.

Appearance applied to the type object will

override the same appearance applied to the
23
text. For instance, the fill. Technically it’s
covering it.
5 You can use the Appearance panel to layer
strokes and fills on artwork. Change the fill
color and the stroke color. You should see the
“Characters” below the stroke and fill in the
panel. It’s treated as layering the appearances.
The Stroke and Fill are on top of the character
(text) formatting of stroke and fill so they are
covering it.

6 To add a new stroke and fill, click the buttons at

the bottom of the panel. The strokes and fills are
layered in the Appearance panel.

You can drag them like you would layers to

reorder the attribute rows. You can pile on the
strokes and fills to give your artwork the look
you want.

7 You can also change the strokes and fills by using

effects. Several of my favorites include Offset
Path, Outer and Inner Glow, and others. If you
select an attribute row, you can click the Effect
button at the bottom of the panel and apply one
to the selected row.

24
8 You can offset the stroke or fill. As far as your
imagination can take you is how far you can go
with these techniques.

TIPS!
You can drag the thumbnail from the top of the
Appearance panel onto artwork to apply the
formatting found in the panel to artwork.

You can use the Appearance panel to completely

strip all formatting from content by selecting the
content, then clicking the Clear Appearance button
at the bottom.

25
Graphic styles
Another great feature for saving time and working smarter are graphic
styles. Graphic styles are an easy way to ave formatting from artwork and
apply it to other artwork. They can be easily updated to keep all of your
content up to date.

1 Open the Graphic Styles panel (Window > Graphic Styles).

The way they work is you select artwork with formatting you want to
save, then you create a graphic style from it. You can apply graphic
styles to objects, groups, and layers.

2 Select artwork.

3 Click the New Graphic Style button at the

bottom of the Graphic Styles panel to create a
new style based on the selected artwork. You can
also drag the artwork into the panel to save the
formatting as a graphic style.

4 With the graphic style created, you can double-

click the thumbnail to rename it (I suggest it).

5 To preview the style on selected content, right

click on the style thumbnail. To apply it, select
other artwork and click the style thumbnail in
the Graphic Styles panel to apply it.

If you apply a graphic style to artwork, and you

look in the Appearance panel, you’ll see the
name of the graphic style at the top.

26
6 To update a graphic style, change artwork with
the graphic style applied. You can then Option-
drag/ Alt-drag the artwork onto the graphic style
thumbnail in the Graphic Styles panel. When the
thumbnail shows a highlight, release the mouse
and then the key to update the graphic style.

You might have artwork with the graphic style

applied that you might not want to update if you
update the graphic style. You can break the link
to the graphic style. With the artwork selected,
you can click the Break Link To Graphic Style
button at the bottom of the Graphic Styles panel.

There are a bunch of graphic style libraries

available in Illustrator. You can find them at
the bottom of the Graphic Styles panel or by
choosing Window > Graphic Style Libraries.

TIP! I hate when I move the pointer over text and

it shows a highlight. You can turn that off in the
preferences. Press Cmd+K/ Ctrl+K to open the
Preferences dialog box. Select the Smart Guides category and deselect Object
Highlighting. Click OK.

27
Symbols
Symbols are a powerful tool in Illustrator. They allow us to save content
and reuse it. One of the best parts if you can edit the original symbol and
all of the copies in the document (called instances) will update. Most of us
have used them. I wanted to show off the dynamic symbol feature.

1 Open the Symbols panel (Window > Symbols).

2 Make a symbol and ensure that Dynamic Symbol

is selected in the Symbol Options dialog box.
Click OK.

3 Drag out copies of the symbol or make copies of

the instance now in the document.

4 Select the Direct Selection tool and click a part

of the symbol you want to change. Change
an appearance property like fill or stroke, for
instance. BAM! Only that one changed.

The symbol instance is still linked to the symbol.

But the fill color (in this case) has overridden
the fill color of the original symbol. If you make
changes to the original symbol, the instance you
just changed will also update EXCEPT for
the fill.

28
Symbol TIPS!
• You can embed symbols! This is an old school trick which is a great
way to share content across multiple symbols. For instance, say you
had buttons. You could create a single button body (shape) and save
that as a symbol. You could then add text or whatever and create a few
symbols with that symbol embedded. If you edit the original button
body symbol, all other symbols will update!

• When creating a new symbol, unless you are exporting to Adobe

Animate, you really don’t give the Export Type a second thought.

Global Edits
A new feature in Illustrator CC 2019 is called global edits, and it’s a step
toward making editing similar objects easy! We have the ability to select
similar based on appearance factors (Select > Similar > ... ), but global edits
works a little differently.

There are scenarios where you need to create multiple copies of an object
and use it across artboards within your document. If you have to make
changes to that object, you need to make those changes manually to all
similar objects. Global edit is a quick and easy way to edit all similar
objects. It eliminates the chance of making manual errors and saves time as
well. Here’s how to use it:

1 Select an object in your document that you want to edit all other
objects that are similar. For instance, I selected a circle that is part of an
icon. I want to add a stroke to all of them.

2 Click the Start Global Edit button in the

Properties panel and you will see that it selects
all types of similar artwork.

3 To refine the search, you can click the arrow

on the right end of the (now) Stop Global Edit
button in the Properties panel. You can refine
what you search for and where you search for
them. I selected Size. 29
4 With the content selected, you can then make
an appearance change. I added stroke. As
soon as you start making changes, a warning
dialog box appears telling you that the new
appearance properties will be added to the other
selected artwork.

TIP: You can also save this selection for later use by
choosing Select > Save Selection.

5 To stop the Global Editing, you can click the

Stop Global Edit button in the Properties panel,
or simply deselect content.

30
Saving your content
This one is easy. We’ve all saved our content in some form or another.
What I want to do is show you some of my favorite methods and tips when
it comes to saving or exporting.

Saving native
There are a few little things I want to point out when it
comes to saving as Illustrator files. First, how many of you
blow by the second dialog that shows when saving? The one
you see at right.

It’s useful for a few things, like saving backwards compatible

OR saving each artboard in your doc as a separate file.

Want to save some file size? You can turn off Create PDF
Compatible File. I’ve done tests and on one project, the
artwork you see at right, the AI file with it on was 1.9 MB
and without it on, 803 KB!

The catch? The AI file may not be as compatible with other

Adobe apps. Select this option if you want the Illustrator file
to be compatible with other Adobe applications.

Here’s a bit from Adobe Help: “AI files use both PDF and
PGF formats. If you choose the Create PDF Compatible File
option, then Illustrator creates a file with an accompanying
PDF syntax that is compatible with any application that
recognizes PDF files. If you choose this option, then the file size increases
because you’re saving two formats within the Illustrator file.”

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/optimize-native-pdf-file-sizes.html

Ways to save file size?

• Use symbols
• Cut down on the number of points
• Link to external graphics
• Change Raster Effects settings (Effect > Document Raster
Effects Settings)
• Remove all unwanted raster data
• Remove all unused swatches, symbols, etc.

31
Exporting content
I wanted to include this to make sure you were aware of the Asset Export
panel and all of it’s amazing-ness. This will be quick. In Illustrator, you can
export artboards using the Asset Export command. To export individual
assets as PNG, SVG, PDF, and more, you can use the Asset Export panel.

1 Open the Asset Export panel (Window > Asset Export).

2 Drag artwork into the panel.

• If you drag multiple objects into the panel,

they all become separate assets that you can
then export.

• If you select more than one object to drag

into the panel, you can Option-drag/ Alt-
drag that content into the panel to treat it as
a single asset to export.

• If you plan on dragging multiple icons into the panel at once, for
instance. Make sure they are each grouped separately, first.

3 You can then choose which format(s) to export

as. You can add a scale (export as another asset)
by clicking +Add Scale. The idea is that we can
use it for web assets, for instance, where we
export at least 2 for raster images like PNG.

The best part, in my opinion? If you update the

asset in the document, the asset to be exported
also updates. You can tell because the thumbnail
in the Asset Export panel changes as well.

Any assets you add to the Asset Export panel

remain in there until you remove them. This
could be a great way to set up a doc for a client
all ready to export, or for you, later.

32
TIP!
When you export using the Asset Export panel,
Illustrator creates folders for you different assets. To
turn that off, you can click the Launch The Export
For Screens Dialog to open the dialog.

You can then deselect Create Sub-Folders.

Did you know there is a collect for export

command? I use it all the time!
Select artwork and choose Object > Collect For
Export > As Single Asset or As Multiple Assets. Can
really speed up your asset export process or make it
really fast to simply add content to the Asset Export
panel for later.

To make it actually useful, you can right-click

selected artwork and choose Collect For Export >
whichever option you need...

OR, better yet...

Add a keyboard command to it. Choose Edit >

Keyboard Shortcuts and find the menu command in
the list. You can then assign a keyboard shortcut.

33
You can also choose File > Export Selection to add
the selected artwork to the Asset Export panel, but
use the Export For Screens dialog box instead.

Simple selection techniques

I wanted to include a few selection techniques I use all the time since
simple techniques like these can really speed up your workflows.

Locking content
• Select content and press Cmd + 2 / Ctrl + 2 to lock content

• To unlock ALL content, press Cmd + Option + 2 / Ctrl + Option + 2

Hiding content
• Select content and press Cmd + 3 / Ctrl + 3 to hide content

• To show ALL content, press Cmd + Option + 3 / Ctrl + Option + 3

Locate Object
In the Layers panel, use the Locate Object button at the bottom of the
panel to find artwork in the Layer stack easily. This can help determine why
it’s difficult to select, etc.

Outline mode
A must! Cmd + Y/ Ctrl + Y to toggle in and out of Outline mode. Makes
it easier to select content that is layered, etc. because the fills are removed
and you can drag across content that you normally couldn’t.

Select in a group
I tend to press A to switch the Direct Selection tool and click within a
group to select objects. This can sometimes be faster, depending on what
you are clicking on. 34
Save selections
• I’m amazed at how many people don’t use this. If you work hard to
make a selection of content, you should save it so you can easily recall
it later! Select your content, then choose Select > Save Selection. Give
the selection a name. You can then just choose it. Best part? It actually
saves layer visibility states as well. So if you had turned off a template
layer, etc. when saving the selection, that is saved in the selection!

Layer tips!
• Need to copy and paste content from one doc to
another? BUT you want to preserve the layers?
You can choose Paste Remembers Layers from
the Layers panel menu before pasting. It’s a
sticky option!

• Hide all other layers? Option-click/ Alt-click the

eye icon for a layer.

• Show one layer in Outline mode? Cmd-click/

Ctrl-click the eye icon for a layer.

35
Artboard tips
There really are a lot of artboard tips I can share. Here are a few simple
ones that I use all the time.

• You can easily select multiple artboards with the

Artboard tool selected, by Shift-dragging across
them or Shift-clicking each. You can then align
or distribute the artboards in the Properties
panel.

• You can draw a rectangle then choose Object >

Artboards > Convert To Artboards to turn the
shape into an artboard.

• One of my favorite options for artboards is to

select content and fit the artboard to the content
in the Properties panel.

• You can also arrange artboards how you want—

in rows, columns, etc. With the Artboard tool
selected, click the Rearrange All button in the
Properties panel.

36
Tips!
I can’t stop. There really are so many. I guarantee at least half of you walk
out and say “why didn’t he mention XX tip or feature???” I know.

Here are a few more.

• Use the Lasso tool. Period. It’s amazing for

selecting anchors and paths that aren’t easily
selected by just dragging across them. This tool
works amazingly well with Outline mode, too.
Cmd + Y / Ctrl + Y.

• Reset your bounding boxes! If you rotate

something or otherwise transform something.
Depending on that transformation, the bounding
box will be rotated. Select the content, then
choose Object > Transform > Reset Bounding
Box. I’m actually finding in Illustrator CC 2019
that bounding boxes on rotated objects seem to be fixing themselves!

• Ran out of time...

EXTRA

Working with textures

I wanted to throw in a bit about textures in
Illustrator. This is from my session last year, but
I think that some of the techniques might be
useful for your workflows. I am only including the
highlights here.

1 Create some text on a new layer.

2 Open the Transparency panel (Window >

Transparency). Click Make Mask to add a mask
to the text.

37
3 Select the black square (the mask). You will need
to find some texture artwork on a site like
Stock.Adobe.com or other or create your own.
Paste the artwork to paste it into the mask. Drag
the artwork onto the text. You can copy the
artwork, create new artwork, paste more, etc.
onto the mask if you want.

4 Deselect Clip in the Transparency panel.

5 MAKE SURE to click back on the artwork

thumbnail so you can continue editing
everything else in the document.

38