these workflow tips in adobe illustrator are going to blow your designer socks
right off they're going to make your life a whole lot easier and speed up your workflow
so let's jump right into today's video learn more about the awesome workflow tool miller
note later in today's video and also how to sign up for free with a no time limit period
attached the first one relates to the tabs that you can see on the left of my screen these are
of course just panels taken from the window drop down menu that i find personally useful
in my workflow but there is a hack or a simple kind of setup preference that i like to use
when you have the desired panels you find useful to your workflow
you can click and drag them out so each panel has its relevant name shown on the panel itself
now this helps because you don't have to memorize every single symbol icon for each panel and in the
past i did waste a lot of time trying to find the right tab but this way you just read the
name and it's really straightforward but let's take a look at the second tip in today's video
so as you can see here we have three shapes stacked on top of each other
now we could use the layers panel to select objects behind or maybe even a keyboard
shortcut but one of the really neat things that i like to use is to find the selection tool and
then hold down the command or the control key and you will see your cursor change
click once and we select the next object beneath and then another click selects the object below
that one this is great for these designs to have a lot of layers and things overlapping
where you might want to click to change objects below something else
so yeah again just hold down the command or the control key and then click to select things below
so here's a nifty time saving trick with the shift key
so come into the color panel and then hover over the color bar found here click while holding down
the shift key and then you can toggle the color modes from cmyk hsb grayscale and also back to rgb
this is obviously a nice little time saving trick and a good addition to your bag of workflow tricks
so do you know about global edits this only works on single shapes or grouped objects and so for my
selection here i press command g or that would be control g on windows to group them together
then i duplicate the assets by holding down the alt option key if i select one of them and head
into the global start edit you'll notice some new bounding boxes around my grouped objects
so whatever i do to one of these objects illustrator will automatically do the exact same
thing to the other assets so adding gradients resizing changing color you name it whatever
happens to one will be copied over to the other objects this is great for designs that maybe have
patterns or illustrations with lots of similar objects like leaves or clouds it's just another
process that saves you time which is crucial when it comes to designing something for our clients
time is money as they say but let's move on to the next workflow tip in today's tutorial
now this is a personal favorite of mine and many of you will know this already
but there are also going to be people who still need to learn it
when we're working on text we often want to kern that text i.e adjust the space between each
letter the character window does offer tracking but we cannot move individual letters around
so instead place your cursor between two characters while having the text tool activated
click once and then hold down the alt or the option key and nudge to the left and to the right
using your arrow keys on your keyboard this saves us from having to outline the text when
manually kerning things and this one's great for logo type but also headings for things like
brochures or poster designs it's a trick that i really do use every single day in my workflow
and to demonstrate the next tip i have here a quick vector design that i made from the
three circles that you saw earlier now if we open up the graphic styles tab you will
notice a few default options here but we can add our own graphic styles in this box
illustrator is going to save the color the gradient the effects the stroke settings of your
object it's useful for when you want to make an object that is exactly the same in appearance as
something else already on your design and the time saving up shots of this should be pretty obvious
the defaults aren't that great but of course we can build our own library relevant to our projects
and our workflows it's also possible to edit the name of each style by double clicking them
right here and then let's take a look at another keyboard shortcut that i often use
on complex designs often when we are working on vast illustrations or designs lots of different
anchor points the anchor points themselves can get in the way of our view which let's
face it that can be really annoying so just press command or control h that's h for hotel
and then the anchor points are hidden now you can press the same shortcut to reveal them once again
it's just a nice way to take a step back review your work without anything obscuring it
so today's video is sponsored by millinote now i've been a firm advocate of millinock for three
years and if you've been subscribed to my channel for a while you will know that millernote is a bit
different to traditional software now it's more like working on the wall so to speak in a creative
studio it allows you to map out your projects collect all of your ideas and inspiration in
one convenient place and it also allows you to collaborate with your colleagues or your clients
in real time so i've been using millennial for the past three years to keep my creative projects
organized and this awesome tool is available for free with no time limit so if you haven't done
already sign up for free using the link in the description box below and start to streamline
your graphic design workflow today but if you want to learn more about graphic design or adobe
illustrator do click a video on screen and until next time guys this on your future today peace
you