Hi, this is Anne for Graphic Design How To, and today we're going to talk about the Rectangular
Grid tool and the Polar Grid tool.
And both of those can be found right underneath the Line Segment tool here and here.
So first we'll talk about the Rectangular Grid tool.
And we'll select this one.
And I'm going to show you how to create this graphic but I want to do a few more basic
things first.
So I want to get a new artboard going here.
And I'm going to just click and drag with the Rectangular Grid tool.
If I use C, it moves my dividers to the right.
And if I hit X, it moves them to the left.
Also, you can use F and V to do up and down with these.
When you're doing this, it's the same as letting go, and then double-clicking this and changing
your skew.
So this would mean you have more on the top side & this would mean more on the right side.
So I generally just leave these as zero.
If you want to set up your grid, you can double click here too and get the same dialog box.
And you can say how big you want your grid to be, you can say the number of horizontal
dividers.
Let's go ahead and make it four.
And then we'll have vertical dividers at seven.
And then when you drag it, that's how many vertical and horizontal dividers you have,
which makes it really easy.
This does not behave really like a real table, like it would in InDesign.
You can't really fill these with stuff, but I can show you a way to kind of modify this
to do that.
And we'll do that next.
So I'm going to hit D. When I did that, I gave this a white fill, and a black stroke.
The way these grids are, you can change the whole grid itself.
So I'm going to give it a fill of blue.
And I'm going to give it an outline of black.
And maybe we'll make that outline a little bit bigger, but you can't do an individual
piece because it's not separated out that way.
When we build this grid, I'll show you a way to make each of those pieces separate.
So let's go ahead and do that.
I'm going to delete these and then we'll build this grid.
So I'm going to double-click my Rectangular Grid tool.
And for horizontal dividers, I only want two.
Those are right there.
And then four vertical dividers.
I don't want any skew at all.
So I'll say OK, and I'll just draw this here.
OK, and I automatically get a blue fill and a black outline because that's what was used
last.
And I think I'll just make that white fill and black outline by hitting D. OK, so if
we click off of this, you can see a white fill and black outline.
I want to get this to a point where I can start filling these with different colors.
So to do that, I'll come down here to my Pathfinder, and if that's not open, just go to Window>Pathfinder.
And then I'll click the second one on the bottom called Trim.
OK, and now each of these should be its own piece.
And as you can see they are.
They're also grouped.
And that's something I like to leave alone, but you can definitely ungroup them, if you're
finding you don't like that.
I want to get rid of these three.
So I'm going to hit SHIFT M. And then I'll hold OPT or Alt, and just click across those
three.
And now we just have the ones you see here.
And now we'll start filling these.
Well, I'll go ahead and hit D so we can see what's going on.
I'll start filling these with color.
We'll hit green for that.
And I'll get some other different colors in here, just to match what I've got over there.
Now I want to show you how to fill these other spaces with images.
So I've already got some images saved.
So I'm just going to FILE>Place and I'll grab this one right here and place
it.
And I want to make it about the size, maybe a little bigger than my square.
OK, so there it is.
I'm going to send it to the back that SHIFT CMD [ or SHIFT CTRL [ if you're on a PC.
And I'll use my A tool, hold SHIFT and click this.
Your A tool is your Direct Selection tool.
You can also use your Group Selection tool.
So I've got both of those highlighted, and now I'm going to hit CMD 7.
And when I do that, it says you can't combine these objects because they're within different
groups.
So I'm gonna say OK, and now I'm going to CMD X and then CMD F to paste in front.
So both of these objects have been cut and then pasted so they're no longer in their
groups.
And now I'm going to hit CMD 7.
And as you can see, you have the image here.
Now I really recommend doing this type of grid work within InDesign instead of Illustrator,
but sometimes it's just faster to do it in Illustrator if you're only going to be doing
a small thing like this.
I'm going to hit my A tool, the Direct Selection, click once here and just increase this a little
bit by holding SHIFT and pulling on the edges.
OK, now I'm only to get the picture that goes in here by placing.
There it is.
And I'll just do the same thing.
I'm going to rotate this one a little bit.
I'm going to send it back SHIFT CMD[, I will hold SHIFT and click once on the white block.
Then I'm going to CMD X and paste in front.
And now we'll hit CMD 7 to mask it.
I'll go ahead and get these other images in here.
OK, now we're really close.
I'm going to go ahead and type out 'I love me some grids' and I'll make a copy for the
word 'grids' so it's easier to resize.
I have a key command set up for changing the case.
And it's CMD U.
You can also go to Type>Change Case to Uppercase here.
So we'll make this a little bit smaller.
And then we'll resize everything together.
I'll click on this one and then use my I tool to grab this dark gray color and a green color.
Now, as you can see, it's adding an outline to everything because these still have black
outlines on them.
So I'm going to just select the whole graphic.
And I'm going to bring the outline to the front by hitting X.
And then I'm going to hit ? to clear that off of there.
So now nothing has a black outline anymore.
And that is how you make a grid with the Rectangular Grid and get images in it and be able to change
the colors in it.
Let's move on to the Polar Grid tool.
Now this tool, you can also set how many concentric circles you want and those kinds of things
and how many dividers here.
So let's double click here.
I want to put five concentric dividers and seven radial dividers.
And now we'll just hold SHIFT.
And we'll pull it out to here.
I'm going to hit D so we can see what's going on.
That'll give it a white fill and a black outline.
If you hit SHIFT M at this point, you can start combining things.
We'll just highlight these.
Whatever you highlight, those will combine and that can be helpful if you're wanting
to create some sort of maze look or something like that.
Really, the main thing I use the Polar Grid tool for is to create images like this one
over here.
It is really super helpful for that.
Sometimes when you're creating these things, you'll have your circles made and you need
...you know, you need eight.
So you're like, OK, let's, let's put eight around here.
And that actually works pretty well because it would be easy to figure out where eight
should go.
But when you have a number like seven, it's hard to guess where exactly those circles
should lie.
And that is where the Polar Grid tool comes in and makes everything really easy.
So I'm going to open the Polar Grid tool, double click... by double clicking it.
I'm going to change the concentric dividers to zero and leave the radial dividers at seven.
So now when I create this, I'm holding OPT or Alt and SHIFT.
That way it goes straight from the center and is also a perfect circle.
OK, so now I have seven dividers within here and now I know exactly where I can put my
circles if I'm making a graphic like this to call out seven different parts of a whole
or something like that.
And now you can keep this as it is, or you can make it guides by hitting CMD 5.
And that's what we're going to do today.
And now I know exactly where to put my little circles around this edge.
So I'll hit L for the Circle tool.
I'll hold SHIFT and OPT, get right on that anchor and draw my first circle.
And now it's just a matter of holding OPT or Alt and placing it on that next intersection.
And then the same thing here until you have them all the way around, then you can go ahead
and make all the other changes that you need to.
If you hadn't already made this into guides, I'll just show you how easy it is to use what's
already existing here.
I'm going to grab just these inner things with my Q tool.
The Q is the Lasso tool.
So I'll just grab them like this, and I will X, delete the rest of that, and then paste
in front.
So now I have all the little lines connecting the main dot.
I'm not going to go ahead and show you all of this.
It's basically just a bunch of circles.
And I think you guys can probably figure it out for yourselves.
But those are the main parts that I don't think are as obvious.
So anyway, let me know what you're working on and how the Polar Grid has helped you.
Or if you have any questions about it at all, please leave a question in the comment section
below and I will see you next Thursday.
Thanks, guys!!!