today I'm gonna design this icon that you can see on screen four times but
each time I'm only allowed to use the rectangle tool the selection tools and
then one extra tool oh yeah and the pencil is completely off-limits so this
is the first test of today's challenge and they're gonna get more difficult
with each stage but for the first one I can only use the selection tools the
rectangle tool and the Pathfinder this shouldn't be too difficult at all really
and say with the rectangle tool I'm gonna make a lengthier rectangle and
then duplicate it by holding down the alt/option key remember each stage in
this challenge I can only use the selection tools and the rectangle tool
plus one other tool it should be interesting to see how far I can get
along the four stages designing this icon but now I have five bars I'm gonna
duplicate one bar and hold down shift and rotate it by 90 degrees it's really
easy to place this in position using the smart guides and then I'm gonna
duplicate it across now everything is in position it's time to use the Pathfinder
and I'm gonna make use of the divide function which essentially is going to
cut everything of intersections it's just a case of then removing the areas
that I don't want to use and bingo stage one is complete
but yes gonna get progressively more difficult at this time I'm gonna use
rectangles that are only strokes and then build a design up like I did
previously but for this second stage I'm only going
to use the shape builder tool plus a selection tools and the rectangle tools
and that shouldn't be too difficult but maybe just a tiny bit more
inconveniencing than the Pathfinder tool
now with the selection highlighted I can press shift and M which is the shape
data tool and then click and draw along these sections that I want to unite
finally I'm gonna hold down the alt option key and then remove the areas
that I don't want you the inner sections and that's pretty much done all I need
to do now is press shift and X to flick The Strokes over to a fill and there you
have it stage to complete but this is where things are gonna get quite a bit
more difficult adobe illustrator has a tool known as the blob of brush tool and
when you draw with it it creates a section like so that's turned into a
vector automatically so for this tests I'm gonna use this tool and the
selection tools only lacerates no rectangle tool in use now you might have
noticed that this tool the blob brush tool is rounded but if I double-click
the tool in the toolbar I can bring up some settings I can reduce the brush to
a razor thin edge and I can also change the direction as well which might come
in handy so yeah I do think I can make the icon design using the blob brush
tool alone so I need to hold down shift so I can perfectly draw a straight line
now I've gone ahead and set up those five bars I realize that I can't use the
Pathfinder tool or the shape builder tool and that's what I normally use to
cut out the middle section so I'm gonna need to figure something out to get
around that so I'm gonna use one of the bars to set up the thickness for the
middle gap and then line up two different rectangles perfectly in the
center so okay that looks pretty good now it's just a case of duplicating a
rectangle to position on the left and then line it up properly the thing is
that the design is going to be made up of many different shapes and they're not
joined together because I can't use the Pathfinder tool
however I could adjust the blah brush tool so it's horizontally adjusted and
then drew in a section that will actually join parts of the design
together but the issue here is that it's nearly impossible to line up properly as
you can see here this section is now joined together but I'm pretty sure if I
zoomed in the edges wouldn't be flush and perfect but yeah I've technically
done it it was pretty tricky the last stage
Stage four is gonna be pretty testing so for this stage I can only use the shaper
tool and the selection tools and so here is the shaper tool and it's really quite
silly actually so I first need a rectangle but with this tool you need to
make shapes that have the ends overlapping and intersecting it is
pretty fiddly and pretty annoying to use as you can see but now the four lines
are finally set up I need to drill over the corners to unite everything and it
is really awkward just using it for a workflow but I think it might be
possible to actually finish the icon with this tool now I have five of the
bars ready I could just duplicate one to make the sides but let's make things a
bit more difficult why not I'm only going to use this as a guide
and then I'm gonna draw in another box with the horrible shaper tool I actually
have to move it off of the design because if I use the shaper tool to
unite the corners it's going to interact with the other part of the design but
yeah this tool is really really annoying to work with and I suggest you lot just
try it out for yourself just to know what I'm talking about it's really
really really weird
after duplicating the shapes IRA made the middle section to incorporate that
gap and that was the design created four times using a different tool each and
every time do you make sure to subscribe to my channel for weekly graphic design
content and also click on the videos on screen if you want to brush up on your
skills or learn something new today put in till next time design your future
today peace