- Hey guys, and welcome to this tutorial.
If you want to create geometric textures really easy
in Illustrator or Affinity Designer,
then this is the video for you.
So here I am in Illustrator
and these are some geometric textures
I have created earlier using the techniques
I'm about to demonstrate.
These geometric textures are great
if you want to create graphic patterns
and textures to use in your design projects.
Now there are a few tips and tricks I'll be getting into
to help you set something up like this.
In this video, I'll not only be showing you
how to set up your documents and create textures yourself
but I'll also be showcasing a really helpful
design resource you could use later on in the video.
So be sure to stick around for that.
After this video you'll be able to create
awesome geometric textures like this,
in Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer, super easy.
So let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
So when creating geometric textures like these
it's all about using a grid.
Using a grid in Illustrator
and specifically snapping to the grid makes it really easy
to move your visual elements around swiftly
and build textures like these.
So let's look at how we can do this.
Now, if you're watching and have Affinity Designer
you can also follow along and use this technique.
With your documents set up,
you can also snap to grid in Affinity
like you can in Illustrator.
So if you're using Affinity,
you should be able to follow along just fine.
So to begin, I'm going to set up a new document.
I'll come up to File, New.
Now on this occasion
I'm going to make a custom canvas size.
So over on the right-hand side of my new document window
I'll change the units to pixels and for width,
I'll type in 800 and for height I'll type in 1,100.
I'll explain shortly why I'm using this size.
I set my orientation to portrait and click Create
and up will pop my new document.
Now, before we start adding and making shapes,
I want to set up the grid.
To do this, I'll come up to Preferences on Mac
or Edit on Windows.
Come down and click Units.
With a menu open, I'll be sure to set general to pixels
then I'll click on Guides and grids.
For grid I'll set the color to yellow
but you can set this to whatever color you like.
I'll set the grid line to every 100 pixels
and keep the subdivision set to one and click OK.
And if you cannot see your grid,
simply press the keyboard shortcut.
To toggle on and off the grid
you can press either Command + Apostrophe on Mac
or Control + Apostrophe on Windows.
And now we can see a clear grid on the page.
So I have set this up
so there is a good few squares here to work with.
Right now, we have eight horizontal and 11 vertical.
However, if you want more or less simply change the setting
of the grids as I just demonstrated.
But for now, I'll go with this setup.
So with the grid set up
there is one last important step to take.
Next I'm going to come up to View,
scroll down and select Snap to grid,
or alternatively I can press the keyboard shortcut
which is Shift + Command + Apostrophe on Mac
or Shift + Control + Apostrophe on Windows.
So now we have our grid set up
and we are snapped to the grid,
we can make a start on our texture.
So for the first example,
I'm going to start with something simple
and do a circle texture as you see here,
and I'm going to use this nice yellow
and gray color palette I have prepared earlier.
So I quickly select this and copy and paste
into my new document, scale it down
and place it under the canvas like so.
So I'll begin by creating a background solid.
So over the menu, I'll click the shape tool.
I'll grab a rectangle, and click and drag like so.
Now look how nice that is snapping to the grid
there perfectly.
So I'll draw out a solid shape
and make sure to fill it with a solid color.
To do this, I'll make sure the foreground color is selected,
I'll press I to activate the eyedropper
and select my light gray color.
In this instance I have left a margin around the outside.
Okay, now for our shapes.
So again, over in the shapes panel
this time I'll grab the circle shape tool,
I'll click and drag to snap a circle
to approximately four squares in the center.
I'll make sure the foreground color is selected.
I'll press I to activate the eyedropper
and select my yellow color.
So with my circle, I'll press minus on the keyboard
to activate the remove anchor point tool.
Next I'll simply click on the far right anchor point
to remove it.
I'll press A to activate the direct selection tool
and click and drag the handles in
to tidy up the edges there.
So now we have the half circle shape.
If I press V to activate the selection tool
and click and drag around,
we will now see it snap into the grid perfectly.
So I'll click on my half circle shape, copy, and paste
and drag back up to the top left.
So I'll click back into the middle shape
and this time I'll press plus on the keyboard
to activate the add anchor point tool.
And I'll carefully add an anchor point in the middle,
like so.
Next I'll press minus on the keyboard
to activate the remove anchor point tool.
And this time I'll click on the bottom anchor point
to remove.
Then I'll press A to activate the direct selection tool
and drag the handles into the corner to tidy up the shape.
So now I have a quarter circle and a half circle shape.
I can start to make a pattern.
But to make my pattern I'm going to need a few more shapes.
So to do this, I'm going to click on my quarter circle,
press and hold Alt, and click and drag down and across.
And as I do this, we can quickly duplicate the shape
and it will snap to the grid.
So I'll do this a few times to generate a few more shapes
and then I'll do the same for the bigger shape.
Duplicate that a few times.
And now we have a bunch of shapes.
And before I start making my texture,
I'll just click on the shape,
and if I move my mouse closer towards the edge
it will change into the rotate icon.
So I'll quickly click on a few shapes
and just click and drag on the corners to rotate them
into a few options.
I'll do this with a quarter circle
and I'll do this with a larger half circle above
just moving them if I need the space.
Next I'll press A to activate the direct selection tool.
I'll hold down Shift and select some of the quarter circles
and some of the half circles to select multiple.
With them selected, I'll press I
to activate the eyedropper tool.
And with the foreground color selected,
I'll select the white color from my palette.
Now I have some yellow and white options here.
I can start to make my texture.
So if I select a quarter circle, with it selected,
if I just press up and down on the keyboard.
Look how the shape just moves through the grid so easily.
This is all because we have snapped to grid enabled.
So as we move with the arrow key
it'll snap into the next box.
This makes it really easy to move our elements around
through the grid.
And this is going to make it really easy
to move all our parts around quickly and easily
to ensure they align perfectly.
So I'll click on a few shapes and just start to move them
up and into some initial positions.
What I'm trying to do here is get a bit of contrast
between some of the smaller shapes, larger shapes,
some in white, some in the yellow,
and some variety on the rotations
and move them around into place and rotate again
if I feel it's required
and also duplicate some shapes to fill up the space.
Until I have something that looks like this.
If you're following along, have a go,
like me until you have a texture you're happy with.
Once I have my initial composition set up
I'll press Command + Apostrophe on Mac
or Control + Apostrophe on Windows to toggle off the grid
so I can get a better look at the texture.
So that's how easy it can be to quickly set up a grid,
create some custom shapes, move them around
and make quick geometric textures like this.
Now, something else you may want to consider here
is increasing the scale of some of the shapes.
Again, to just add some variety.
Here I'll select one of the quarter circles
and click and drag to scale it up and snap into the grid
and remove and reposition any neighboring shapes.
I'll duplicate the new larger shape
and move it around to another place,
again removing and repositioning any neighboring shapes.
And I'll do this again a few more times,
and this will make the overall texture
a little more dynamic.
So that's how you can set up a document with a grid
and work with a simple geometric shape
to create a simple geometric texture.
Repetition and simplicity can work well
to create attractive-looking textures.
So next, let's try something a little more complex.
This time I'm going to create a texture
that includes more dynamic shapes.
So back into our document
now we have our artboard set up,
a really easy way to duplicate this
is to click the artboard tool on the left.
Click on our artboard, press and hold Alt,
drag to the right and make sure to snap the artboard
against the grid and release.
This will make a quick duplicate
of that art board and its contents.
Next I'll click the selection tool,
drag over the entire canvas, and just remove anything
so we have a new blank canvas.
So we just saw how I created one shape
but to create a more complex texture
we are going to need lots more,
which can of course take a long time.
So for this example, I want to use my geometric texture kit.
Here is a library that contains
lots of unique geometric shapes I have created previously.
Here we have some simple shapes, some two shapes,
four shapes, stroke shapes,
and pattern examples to choose from.
So here I can simply come in and grab a vector shape
from this kit here.
Let's start with something simple
and I'll go with the stripes here.
I'll copy, and back into my document,
I'll press Command + Apostrophe on Mac
or Control + Apostrophe on Windows to toggle back the grid.
I'll paste it.
And right now we can see it's way too big
but that's okay.
Here I can simply click and drag on the corners
and scale it down easily.
And because snap to grid is on, it scales perfectly.
And I'll scale it down,
so it's contained in four squares in the grid.
So right now we have a background square and a shape.
So this is going to make it really easy
to color this in later.
But for now I'll continue to build my texture.
So back into the pack, I'll select another shape.
This time I'll go for the half square shape.
I'll copy it, back into my document,
I'll paste and scale it down.
Now with the shape in place, it's super easy to rotate.
I'll just press R on the keyboard
to activate the rotation tool
and drag to rotate, and it will snap inside the grid.
Easy, so back into my kit, I'll select the triangle,
copy, back into my document,
I'll paste, scale it down, and rotate.
And now I have the top row sorted.
Now a trick to making nice geometric textures
is not to use too many shapes.
Loads of shapes will make it really busy.
So I always try to keep it to a minimum.
Remember repetition and simplicity works really well.
So now I have some shapes I can quickly duplicate.
So I'll grab the arrow shape, press and hold Alt
and drag it down and rotate so that there is variation.
Back into the texture kit.
This time I'll grab the circle.
I'll select it, copy, back into my document,
I'll paste and scale it down.
One last time back into the texture kit.
This time I'll grab the arrow pointing up.
I'll select it, copy, back into my document.
I'll paste and scale it down.
And that's the next row sorted.
So that's all the shapes I'm going to use for this texture.
All that's left to do now is duplicate and position.
So now I'll simply click on some of the shapes,
duplicate them below and rotate
until I have five rows complete.
So right now the texture is sitting
right at the bottom of the artboard,
and I want an equal margin around this.
So I'll click on the artboard tool
and simply drag this down one square to fit it nicely.
So now I have my new texture in a good place,
though currently I have my default colors applied.
However, this is now really easy to change.
So I'll jump into my color palette sample document,
grab a color palette, this time I'll go
for a four color palette, copy and paste
into my new dock and pop it under the new texture.
With the direct selection tool,
I'll click a shape then hold Shift
and click on some other shapes to select multiple.
I'll click on the foreground color.
I'll press I on the keyboard to activate the eyedropper tool
and come and select a color for my palette, easy.
Again, with the direct selection tool,
I'll click while holding Shift to select multiple,
press I to activate the eye dropper tool,
and select another color for my palette.
I'll do this once more for the last shapes and boom
I have a cool-looking texture there.
So with my texture set up, I can either save this as a JPEG,
copy and paste it into Photoshop,
or use it in another Illustrator document as an asset.
I like to develop my textures
in a separate document like this
where I can focus on the composition of the texture.
So on this occasion, I did three by five shapes.
Now, if I click on the artboard tool and click and drag
while pressing Alt, I can easily duplicate the artboard.
With the selection tool, I'll select everything
and drag it up and in, and this will scale the texture down
to give me more space to add more shapes.
Here I can either duplicate the shapes I already have
in the texture or jump into the kit and select some more,
making sure to recolor them
until I have a more complex texture.
Though on this occasion, I'll select all the shapes
and duplicate them across to replicate the texture.
Then I'll select all again and duplicate them below.
I'll press Command + Apostrophe on Mac
or Control + Apostrophe on Windows
to toggle off the grid view.
And now I can see I have an even more complex texture.
And if I zoom out,
I can see my three geometric texture examples.
So this is how easy it can be to create geometric textures
in Illustrator or Affinity Designer.
However, it can be time consuming
to create all those shapes.
So if you want to get the geometric texture kit
you can get access.
In a previous video I talk a little more in depth
about the kit.
So if you want to use this kit,
simply click the link in the description
and it will take you to the geometric texture kit video.
As you have seen in this video
the texture kit will make it so easy
for you to create your own textures like this effortlessly.
So when creating this type of artwork
it's all about using grid.
Using a grid will allow us
to easily work with shapes by snapping.
When creating artwork like this in Illustrator,
be sure to consider using grids
as it can make the whole process so much easier.
Now, if you're using Affinity Designer
you can also use this technique.
Now I believe some of the setup instructions
may be a little different
but you can still snap to grid in Affinity
like you can Illustrator.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
If you did hit, the bell button
and don't forget to subscribe
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of more design tutorial videos like this in future.
Now, this tutorial was created for all my members
of the GDS Design School community.
If you'd like to join the GDS Design School community
where we chat about design, give each other feedback,
and where I set design challenges
you are all welcome to join for free.
Again, link is in the description
and I look forward to seeing there.
So until my next design tutorial,
unleash your creativity and I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)