Making Patterns in Adobe Illustrator – Quick Tip

A fast and easy way to make patterns for your design is to use Adobe Illustrator’s pattern option which turns your logo, graphics or text pattern into a swatch for you to apply to any object or shape.

The ‘pattern’ feature is a great tool that is easily mastered by beginner level users of Adobe Illustrator. Simply click on an object (shape, text or graphics) and navigate to Object>Pattern>Make. A new panel will then appear within the artboard.

The great thing about this tool is the ability to preview your changes on the fly. Playing around with the options can give you excellent results.

Want to save your pattern and keep it? Great! To do this go to the top of the artboard, here you will see a bar then allows you to click ‘done’ which saves the current pattern or ‘save a copy’ which allows you to save the current pattern, but leaves you in the pattern editing mode so you can keep on designing. The last option is ‘cancel’ which as you guessed it… allows you to exit the pattern editing mode.

Once you’ve made your pattern, the design will disappear. Don’t fret; it hasn’t deleted. The pattern is saved under the swatches. This is usually located to the right of your workspace, if not… go to window>swatches.

Create a new shape and then use the new swatch to fill your shape. Presto! You have an awesome pattern. This pattern will save to your document so it can easily be shared. Remember, if you scale your shape it will distort the design, however, just reapply the pattern via your swatches to get your awesome pattern all lined up and looking fresh.