learn some nifty illustrator techniques that are going to allow you to make
gradient designs just like this using only one vector path and the gradient
shape in today's video only uses a single vector path and we're going to be
using a document perfect for web graphics so that means using 72ppi
and the color scheme of RGB i'm going to use a 1080p artboard for my design on
your document make sure that you've only got the stroke selected with no color
fill and then turn off the setting here if you've got it activated let me do
that because if it is activated it's gonna cause you issues when we being and
positioning objects exactly where you want them to be so next I'm gonna show
you my smart guy settings as they're going to be very handy for keeping
things in line and perfect for today's tutorial smart guides are not always
useful but in today's video they're gonna be quite handy and helpful so
press L for the ellipse tour and then while holding down shift click and drag
to make circle then go ahead and press C for the scissors tool or you can
actually find it in the toolbar here and when you do actually have it click the
two anchor points on the left and the right of the circle which is going to
effectively cut the circle into two parts you're going to want to press a V
for the selection tool so you can then move the lower part of the circle
downward and while you're doing that you can hold down shift which will keep the
shapes fixed in a perfect alignment vertically and also the smart guides
will help here too but if you're still not happy with that you can use the
align function which will give you peace of mind that everything is actually in
line now press P for the pen tool and unite both sides of your design like so
which is going to result in one single or vector path that goes around
so now how can we actually end up with the final 3d style gradient design by
just using one vector path well all of the magic is actually going to happen in
the appearance panel so click the stroke in the appearance panel and do this
while you have your design highlighted and then select the gradient stroke in
the color palettes situated in the bottom left of my screen you would now
have a gradient on your stroke and this is where you can select your colors for
your gradients and I personally are going for a vibrant pink to purple for
my design so finally for this stroke you can jack up the stroke weights to your
liking for your design the next step is very crucial and so please do follow
along to make sure you do it properly with your design selected still open the
stroke window here or in the top drop-down menu and then you can apply
the stroke to the outside of the vector path then come into the appearance panel
and then duplicate this stroke layer then on the new layer change the stroke
so it's applied inside so as you can see you now have two different strokes and
you can then adjust the gradient directions and also the stroke wait
until you feel the design looks right now I still have one last thing to show
you guys that is pretty awesome so stay tuned
so as you can see if I press command or control Y to enter into outline mode the
design is a single vector path but we can still go ahead and add more to our
design so with your design not selected clear the appearance panel and then add
a background by using the rectangle tool and of course make sure to send it to
the back of all objects and then select your design once more
in the appearance panel duplicate the outer stroke and then come into the
effects panel here at the bottom because we're going to add a Gaussian blur
effect to this stroke
you can check the preview box to see your changes in real time and if the
effect doesn't look that good and it looks pretty poor you need to come into
the document raster effect settings and change the values that I'm going to
adjust the effect does look better on my screen as opposed to the render the
video editing software that I'm using has accomplished and as I mentioned this
entire design is on one vector path if you want to keep boosting your skills
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check out my subscription-based website also linked down scription box below
make sure you have a great day everybody and until next time design your future
today peace