Let's see if I can show you 10.
Amazing mind-bending hacks for Graphic Design in less than 10 minutes.
Let's go
The first one is the corners feature.
We all know
we can round corners in Illustrator by going to the direct selection tool.
But did you know that they have different ways to edit the corners?
If you hold option or alt and click on that little ball thing
that you see instead of rounding it, it will make it concave
or flat. Very odd.
But that can actually help your design in so many different ways.
The next hack is all about undoing.
You've been an illustrator and you've been working for too long.
Maybe you haven't saved your work or made a copy of the recent edit you've done.
You need to go and undo a lot of things.
We've all been there.
Well, did you know that you can increase your undo's by a lot?
Head up to preferences or press command K.
Go to performance and you can change the amount of times.
Illustrator will let you undo.
I think different machines and different computers
get more or less depending on where you're at.
But this one is life changing for some illustrators out there.
The next hack is for anyone who's struggling with color.
We all know we have websites like Coolors.
We can go into Adobe Exchange and see what's on there.
Or we could take colors from different images if you like.
But did you know that Illustrator has its own color guide?
If you head up to window, then down to color guide, you'll get this box
that pops up with the selected color that you have on your work.
It will give you different color options, all based on color theory.
It has Triad.
Triad 2, Triad 3, shades, monochromatic, high-contrast, compound.
It's got everything you need as a color guide.
This will make your life a lot easier
and will allow you to stay in Adobe Illustrator for even longer.
My life changed a lot when I found this.
I didn't have to go and search for them as often.
If you're just looking for a quick color to put it in the background
of your illustration or background of a logo, use the color guide.
Honestly, it will change the way that you work.
It will speed it up.
I'm all about the speed, You can edit and manipulate
a lot of shapes in Adobe Illustrator, but this next hack allows you to create
weird warps that are very unique and give you a lot of control.
Select your work.
Go to object down to envelope to start and go to mesh.
This will create an envelope
mesh where you can change the rows and columns to however many you need.
Use the direct selection tool and then you can manipulate it.
It's essentially just a mesh inside, but you can create really cool perspectives.
Also, you can use Warp. Press Shift + R and start warping around your text.
Obviously, you have to know what you're doing with this.
If you wanted to create a sort of flag look of you just trying to
create groovy type, but this is amazing to have inside of Illustrator.
The next hack is one that a lot of illustrators will love.
We have Puppet Warp inside of Adobe Illustrator.
Simply click on your work.
Head over to the Free Transform tool or press E and you'll see in your sidebar.
If you hold down on that, there's another option called Puppet Warp.
What this does is it allows you to select points on your illustration
and it will create a sort of mesh around it where you can naturally move
and change the object that you're looking at naturally.
You can add points, take points away.
It makes it so much easier
to manipulate illustrations and shapes rather than using the direct selection tool
and going around with the pen tool.
Not good.
If you use the pen tool, this hack will change everything.
Have you ever been tracing out a letter, a logo, or just even a shape
and you've lost your handles or you don't know where that other handle went?
Maybe you just need to bring it back.
A lot of us would just backspace.
But what you can do is press Shift + C.
This is called the anchor point tool.
When you use this and you pull across an anchor point
with no handles, it will create handles for you.
So now there would be no more times
where you have to redo a shape because you can't find the handles.
Just pull them out. Sounds weird.
Before I go to the next hack, really quickly,
I want to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this video and making it happen.
If you're a designer
or someone who just needs a website, then Squarespace is the place for you
because they have thousands of fully customizable award winning
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Not only that, you don't have to worry about a domain.
You can buy a domain straight from there.
You can make your portfolio set up an online store
as well as have a contact form.
Everyone nowadays should have a website and it does wonders for your work,
especially for your portfolio.
Don't just use social media.
Have a website. Use Squarespace.
If you click the link down below, you'll get 10% off.
But a little hack that I'll give you is you can actually use it
and design your website for completely free before going live.
When you're going live, you'll purchase it and get 10% off.
You also get a free trial of Squarespace to use down below.
So click the link.
Thank you Squarespace for watching.
This next hack blew my mind.
I'm a hand lettering artist, so I have to scan in a lot of images or
I have to bring in images from Procreate or Fresco into Adobe Illustrator.
Sometimes I want the hand-drawn look and I don't want to use the pen tool
in Adobe Illustrator, but when you image trace there's always this white background.
So when you image trace, click on this dialogue box at the top.
This will bring the image trace options.
There's a lot.
But don't be afraid.
Go down and you'll see.
Ignore white when you press, ignore white.
It will essentially take all of the white away from the image,
leaving you with the black and white image.
Change the threshold, the corners, the paths
press expand and you'll notice that you'll have now loads of paths.
A little tip I like to do is right click on that whilst it's selected
and you can actually simplify it down automatically.
This will get rid of loads of unnecessary points that you don't need.
Have you ever wanted to get a really clean outline on your logo types
or just any logo or typography, but didn't want to use a stroke. Select your type
and make it into a compound path by pressing Command + 8. Compound paths
essentially tell illustrator that this path is just one continuous shape.
Head up to object, go down to path and then press offset path.
What this does is it just offsets the whole shape.
So it adds more shape to the outside in the right proportions
make sure it's round.
If you want the round and bubbly, look, press expand
and then all you're going to do is right
click on that and press send to back.
Now you may have to click on it again and you'll notice that the type is all
stuck together.
It's all grouped so ungroup it by right clicking and un-group or
Command + Shift + G. Select everything again and deselect the background.
The thing that you've just made by pressing shift and select
then change the color of the original shape
and you're left with this really cool look.
This works super well with mascot icons too. It gives it a more cartoony effect.
The final tip I'll give you is design checklist.
Hear me out.
This is a website that I have missed out on for the past few years.
I think. I'm literally kicking myself because I haven't seen it.
This website gives you checklists
and make sure that you're completing all the tasks that it thinks you need to
for a specific thing, like brand identity, typography,
even having like a sales page on your website,
It will give you a checklist of everything that you need to complete a given task
and you can check them throughout and it's completely free as well.
I don't know how they do it
for the logo when you've got like color variations, usage and responsiveness,
making sure that you take all these off means that you won't ever forget
when you're doing the logo for a client.
If you're like me and you forget sometimes or
just to have like a quick and easy reminder of the next step in the process.
Hopefully I've done that in 10 minutes or less.
Hopefully less.
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