Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics back with another video tutorial.
I've been focuing on a lot of Photoshop effects in my uploads recently so I thought I'd open
up Adobe Illustrator and have some fun creating some nice vector artwork, so in today's tutorial
we're going to look at creating a stylish single weight line art logo.
Even though the entire design is made just using lines, there's a range of Illustrator
tools and techniques we'll use throughout this tutorial which you can incorporate into
your arsenal.
This style of illustration is pretty popular with badge style logo designs, particularly
those with an outdoors theme with landscape scenes, so that's the type of design I'll
be making in this guide.
It features a simplistic mountain range with trees, clouds and snow capped peaks, along
with stylised linework to represent water and sun rays.
So begin by opening up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document.
I'm working with a generic A4 sized landscape layout with the rules measurements in millimetres.
Select the Line tool from the toolbar and clear out the default white fill, leaving
just a black stroke.
Click and drag from one point to another across the artboard while holding shift to draw a
straight line.
In the Stroke panel, increase the weight to around 3pt, then check the round cap and round
corner options to give it a smooth appearance.
Switch over to the Selection tool, then hold the ALT key while dragging the shape to make
a copy.
Before releasing, hold the Shift key tool to make sure the copy moves perfectly vertical,
then release the mouse.
Use the shortcut for Transform Again, which is CMD+D, or CTRL+ D on Windows, to create
5 or so duplicates of this line with even spacing between them.
Draw a selection around all the lines except the top one, then go to Effect > Distort & Transform
> Zig Zag.
Turn on the Preview checkbox so you can see the affect the settings have, then configure
them Smooth, 1mm size with the Absolute option, then alter the number of ridges to produce
a nice wavy line to represent water.
Be sure to leave it at an odd number so the wavy line ends with a peak at both ends.
Switch back to the Line tool, then head to the View menu and check you have Smart Guides
enabled.
Use the little pink tooltip to find the centre of the line, then carefully move your mouse
upwards to stay centralised.
Draw a diagonal line and snap it back to intersect the horizontal line.
Go to Object > Transform > Reflect and make sure the Vertical option is checked, then
hit the Copy button.
Switch to the Select tool and move this line until it snaps to form a triangle shape.
Hold the Shift key to ensure it moves perfectly straight.
Draw a selection around both lines then hold the ALT key while dragging with the mouse
to make a copy.
Position this duplicate to one side so it overlaps both the original triangle and the
horizontal line.
Select the Scissors tool from under the Eraser group in the toolbar.
Use the Smart Guides to snip the lines where they intersect, then press the backspace key
to delete the excess.
Draw a selection around the two lines that make up this triangle shape, then go to Object
> Transform > Reflect.
Hit Copy to make a duplicate, then position it on the other side.
The Smart Guides might not snap it into place exactly, so some nudging is sometimes required.
Select the Line tool again and draw a horizontal line across the top of the middle triangle.
Go to Effect and select Zig Zag.
Change the settings back to Corner, then reduce the number of ridges to 5.
Nudge this shape downwards with the keyboard cursor keys so it fits within the triangle.
Use the Line tool to draw a short horizontal line on the edge of one of the smaller triangles.
Switch to the Selection tool and hold the ALT key to make a duplicate, while dragging
the copy towards the top of the shape.
Shift and click each lines to select them both, then go to Object > Blend > Make.
Head straight back to Object > Blend > Blend Options and change the settings to Specified
Steps with a value of around 7.
Go to Object > Transform > Reflect.
Hit Copy and move this duplicate into position on the other mountain triangle shape.
Next, we'll create some cloud shapes.
Use the Ellipse tool to draw a small circle while holding the Shift key.
Draw another one at a slightly smaller size that overlaps.
Switch to the Rectangle tool and draw a shape that intersects the two circles right at the
halfway point of the lower circle.
Switch to the Selection tool and draw a selection around all three shapes, then activate the
Shape Builder tool.
Click and drag between the circle first of all to merge them together, then hold the
ALT key while clicking and dragging the lower rectangle area to clip these shape away to
leave a cloud outline.
Position this cloud shape with the Selection tool so it overlaps one of the mountains.
Switch to the Scissors tool and snip the path where the two shapes intersect and delete
the overlap.
Hold the ALT key while clicking and dragging with the Selection tool to make a few copies
for the other mountains.
Use the Reflect transformation to flip some for the other sides.
The key to making line art like this is simplifying objects as much as possible.
Let's make a tree using just lines.
Begin with a straight vertical line as the tree trunk.
Switch to the Arc tool from under the Line tool group, then use the Smart Guides to snap
to the top point.
Hold shift to make a smooth quarter circle path.
Hold the ALT and Shift keys while dragging a duplicate with the Selection tool, then
use the CMD+D Transform Again shortcut to quickly add a couple more copies.
If you want to extend the length of the tree tunk line, you can use the Direct Selection
tool to drag just the lowermost point.
Select and make reflected copies of the these tree branch lines, then use the snapping functionality
of the Smart Guides to position them on the other side.
Draw a selection around all the paths that form the tree and press CMD+G to Group.
Position the first tree centrally within the middle mountain, then drag a copy to one side.
Rather than scale the tree down and affect the proportions of the stroke weight, overlap
it with the horizontal line then use the Direct Selection tool to delete the lowermost branches
and shorten the trunk to size.
Place a few copies of this tree elsehwere in the scene.
Select the Ellipse tool and hover over the end of the horizontal line to find the starting
point, then drag out a circle that finishes at the other end.
Move this circle downwards until the upper portion surrounds the main mountain scene
but just overlaps the clouds slightly.
Use the Scissors tool to snip the path and delete the lower portion below the horizontal
line, then also the overlapping areas on each of the two clouds.
Elsewhere on the artboard, draw a vertical line.
Make a duplicate of this line and position it off to the side.
With both of them selected, go to Object > Blend > Make.
Head back to the Blend Settings and change it to Specified Steps.
We can change this value again later, but make a series of evenly spaced lines.
Draw a circle on the artboard, then use the Direct Selection tool to delete the lowermost
point, leaving a semi-circle.
Select this semi-circle along with the blended lines and go to Object > Blend > Replace Spine.
Head back to Object > Blend > Blend Options and change the Orientation setting so the
lines flare out from the centre.
One of those flared lines isn't playing nicely, but a quick fix is to snip the top point with
the Scissors tool to set all the lines in place.
Move this blend object centrally within the main scene.
Before scaling it up, you'll want to open up Illustrator's Preferences and make sure
Scale Strokes and Effects isn't checked.
This will keep the stroke weight the same size, rather than enlarge it with the object.
Scale the flared lines object to the same width as the horizontal line.
Head back to the Blend Options and alter the number of blend steps to produce a series
of sun ray lines.
Go to Object > Lock > Selection for this next step to avoid accidentally selected these
flared lines.
Hold the Shift key while selecting the various segments of the semi-circle path and the two
clouds it overlaps, then go to Object > Path > Offset Path.
Enter 4mm and change the Joins to Round.
Click the Unite button from within the Pathfinder panel to merge these shapes into one, then
draw a rough circle to join the inner portion of these shapes.
Unite the shapes again to form one large outline.
Go to Object > Unlock All to release the locked flared shapes, then go to Object > Expand.
Choose just the Object in the options, not the Fill or Stroke.
Add both the flared lines and the temporary outline shape to the selection, then grab
the Shape Builder tool.
Hold the ALT key and carefully click each line to delete it, making sure to only click
where the red highlight appears, not the grey highlight.
CMD+Z to Undo if you accidentally click while the grey area is highlighted.
Run through and delete all the flared lines to trim them to the size of the temporary
outline shape.
Once you're done, that outline shape can be deleted to leave a series of sun rays that
have an even space between all other objects in the scene without any overlaps.
To finish off the artwork as a badge style logo, draw a rectangle, aligning it to the
exact width of the rest of the design using the Smart Guides.
Add some text with the Type tool.
I'm using a font named Smoothy Sans, which has a nice rounded appearance, with increased
tracking to spread out its width.
Once your layout is complete, you might want to save a copy with editable paths in case
you want to change anything later.
Select everything and drag a duplicate into some empty space on the artboard.
To finialise the design so it can be used as a logo, begin by creating outlines from
the text using the shortcut CMD+Shift+O.
Go to Object > Expand Appeance, then go to straight back to Object > Expand to convert
any strokes to solid shapes.
Click the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel to merge everything into one outline.
If any elements disappear, it means there's a couple of blends that haven't yet been Expanded.
Go to Object > Expand again, then try the Unite button.
The artwork is now made of continuous paths, so the colour can be changed by altering the
fill.
You can choose any colour combination you wish, and even place it on a darker background
with a lighter coloured fill.
So I hope this tutorial helped you learn some new tricks in Adobe Illustrator.
If you did, a thumbs up on the video and a share with your friends would be a great help
to spread the word.
Subscribe to the channel if you want to stick around for more tutorials, and be sure to
head over to my website at spoon.graphics for more written tutorials and free design
resources.
Big thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video.
Be sure to check out their website building tools and grab a 10% discount with the code
Spooner if you want to set up your own blog, design portfolio or online store.
So as always thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one!