- Okay, so I just showed you guys
how to use the symbol palette, right?
And the idea that,
if you build that really simple shape
and put it in there,
it just sort of cuts down all those clicks.
There's no sense in having to build a half-circle
over and over and over again,
when you've got one in there ready to go.
So what I'm gonna do now,
is I'm just gonna build a set of these things, right?
And then I'm gonna, you know
save that into a nice, easily downloadable Adobe file.
You know, I'll save it back a bunch of versions,
so you guys can come and grab this thing.
But what it's gonna be,
it's just be rudimentary shapes.
And you can take those things
and plop them into your symbols palette.
And then learn how to go,
you know, give them the right names,
so you call them as either a little movie clip
or a graphic if I remember correctly.
But just figure that thing out.
Or, do a web search for symbols, right?
And you know, a web search for a symbols, Adobe Illustrator.
And see how they they tell you how to use these things.
But, here's what I'm gonna do.
Is I'm gonna build a set right now,
so you've got some fodder to play with,
and start plopping those things in there.
So I'm gonna build a bunch right now.
And here goes. Okay.
So I'll just walk you guys through here.
But I'm just gonna build, you know,
a bunch of fun stuff fast, so.
The one thing to think about is,
I'm making this a one inch little square here, right?
You just wanna make sure it's a simple, 100% black.
So let's go find that. There it is. 100 K black. Cool.
So there's a square.
Now we take this off to the side,
and now you've got a diamond, right? Cool.
Alright,
let's go make a little, some sort of little
cool little trapezoid or something, you know?
Like a little badge do-dad here or something.
So I'll just quickly do this thing.
And now what you're doing
is you're taking that square,
and you're just giving that thing
just a little bit of a tweak,
and you've got this next little shape.
So here I'm gonna grab my little "star" tool, right?
And this thing, you know, now check it out.
Going up and down,
you can add little points in the star, right?
So if you just want a five point star,
there is one, there's a five.
Now check it out. If you hit "Shift,"
and then "Command,"
that allows to mess with that--
I don't even know what you call that?
The arm pits of each or something, right?
You know but if you hit "Option + Shift,"
that makes it into a perfect star.
See that right there?
So I'm just gonna build you a star.
So that's using the star tool.
There's a couple of different ways
you could do this, you know.
You can go and, you know, build a triangle
lots of different ways, but you know with this one,
you know, when I start that thing out,
it's starting as a star.
You go down a couple of clicks, now you have that triangle.
You have to get that, the little arm pit figured out,
by hitting "Option."
It just makes it into that perfect little piece, right?
See that?
So, there is your triangle.
So that is the "Star Tool,"
and you're hitting "Shift + Option."
And then you're, you know,
that "Shift" keeps it, you know, from skewing any which way.
And then, that "Option" keeps that thing straight along.
Lift the "Option" up, see it's going back
into that weird little, that little arm pit piece.
Now if you hit the "Command"
that allows you to tweak that arm pit piece, right?
See that?
Alright, there it is.
A triangle real quick. Cool.
Okay now I'm gonna go make a pentagon.
So grab your polygon tool here,
and get that thing going.
Now it's built into that pentagon shape right now,
but if you go down one arrow click,
now it's four side. You go up one, now you have five sides.
Hit that "Shift" you got a perfect pentagon, right?
Same thing again over here.
You got your polygon tool.
Go up one click.
And now you've got that, you know, hexagon. Right?
So there's your hexagon.
Now check it out.
That's on that one axis there,
but what we'll do here
is make it one more three degree turn,
because that's gonna be sort of like a beehive
kind of shape, right?
So if you go three degrees--
'cause what we're doing here,
is we're just making efficient shapes
for you to grab and load into your symbols palette
for later on, right?
Now I'm gonna make like a little home plate shape, right?
So when I grab this little six sided
little hexagon over here.
Now before, if you notice here,
this is kind of a tricky thing.
The way that that--
'cause we took the bounding box from this,
we took it over to this three degrees tilted,
but see, you can see where it tilted the entire
bounding box with it.
Here's how you remove that thing, right?
So if you go under "Object,"
and go to "Shape," expand the shape.
Now go under "Transform,"
"Reset the Bounding Box,"
that thing snaps that thing back, right? Right?
So now it's on this nice axis
because if you look at all these,
they're all on that right axis.
See right there?
Now this one right here is gonna a little bit trickier,
because you go and you take the "Path"
it's just a 45 degree tilted square.
And you take that,
go into your "Shape"
"Expand the shape,"
and then go and "Transform,"
and "Reset the Bounding Box."
Now you've got that bounding box,
'cause see the bounding box is there?
Bounding box is there, there, there, there.
And now this one here
'cause if we go remove this top piece,
make a little hope plate shape, right?
Like see, another little odd shape
you can put in your symbols palette.
So let's kind of organize these real quick.
And this kind of just goes back into like--
mow this is what you're gonna see later on
in the download, right?
So okay, these are just sort of simple shapes,
and I'll just clean them up
and kind of using my "Align" palette,
I'll do the "Vertical Align Center."
And I'll go to the "Horizontal Distribute Center."
It just sort cleans up that little line a little bit, right?
'Cause if we're gonna go into the next thing,
which might be like these like circles.
So here's a circle, but what I would recommend is
go give it a safe,
just a different color, right?
So 50% gray.
So these just sort of bounce off.
These are your rounded edges.
And then up here, are your squared off edges, right?
So let's just go over here
and let's just quickly make these little shapes
that we're gonna load into your palette later on.
And here is, you know a half circle,
pointed, you know, pointed,
I don't know, up or pointed down?
Let's flip it back around so now it's like a bowl, right?
If you want to get real nerdy with this stuff,
you can, you know, this is just shaving off.
If you need that half moon shape pointed this way,
you know now you've got these pieces,
where when you load them into your palette,
that's that many less clicks
to get to that little piece, right?
And the idea is this, it's like,
if we're gonna go make a face real quick here,
we make this,
and then we say, okay here's a little eye.
And then here's a little star,
for the little, you know, KISS eye or something.
Alright, cool.
By the way, Gene Simmons can suck it.
And that one's on the record for life, alright?
There you go all you KISS fans out there,
buying all those stupid lunch boxes and shit
and whatever else.
KISS, man...
Okay, back to where we were. We'll leave that star.
But now we just changed all these pieces.
So another one to think about,
is just sort of a
a quarter circle, right?
So if you get rid of this piece,
It's gonna take me a second to get this thing perfect.
You make a point,
make a point, you bring it out.
Touch it up over here.
Lot's of ways to do that.
You use your "Path Finder" to divide it.
And just go get that last little piece right here.
Get rid of this one.
Alright, so I'm catching myself here, right?
And when I started to build these things
and build 'em quick,
I said something about being at one inch.
Well, this ones not quite at one inch.
So let's go get it to be the one inch, right?
So there it is, it's one inch now.
This one is--
you just wanna have nice round numbers
when you blast these things outta here.
Let this one be one inch tall, we'll say.
Because you're snapping,
it's snapping into a nice size
when you pull it out of these pieces, right?
So all of these are gonna be one inch tall, right?
What those things do,
is when you align those things nicely now,
as you're pulling them out, the idea is this.
If you say you hit "Command + Comma,"
and it turns on your little grid here,
and then you do a "Shift + Command + Comma"
and that means you're gonna snap to the points now.
When you pull one of these outta here,
that thing snaps nicely into a space.
You see that? Right?
So, the same thing goes for this little,
you know this little shield or something, this hexagon.
When that thing snaps outta there,
that thing right now is one inch wide,
it snaps nicely into those pieces, right?
So this is just the efficiency of like, say
for me as a logo designer,
as I'm building out a page of a hundred logo options
or fifty logo options, or ten or whatever it's gonna be,
I'm using the symbols to my advantage
and then also using the grid to my advantage.
'Cause really all this is about,
is as I'm blasting through,
I'm building simple things with simple shapes,
using the subtraction method and all this kind of stuff.
But I'm also working towards that presentation.
Now if I'm working on a logo,
really the goal is to get a paycheck, right? But,
you know, you're using these tools to your advantage.
So okay, what we've got here,
just in this sort of gray little zone here,
is you've got a circle,
broken down into these nine little parts.
But what's cool about this now,
is if you pull that into your symbols palette
and you name it the right thing,
which would be like,
I don't know, you know?
Nine o'clock to midnight or something.
Whatever that little shape and that little piece is.
You know to go build with this thing now,
you know, you've got some nice math to work with, right?
So for me, you know, making all these fun little
thick line shapes and stuff,
you can see what I'm doing here
is I'm using that nice math,
and I'm doing just a really--
taking that one symbol piece.
And I'm taking that little guy and allowing it to be
just this little rainbow thing here, right?
Now that little cluster,
you can do a mountain of things with, right?
Like there's a cool little "S" right?
But let's go a add a couple more little stars and stuff.
And here's a star.
But once again, give it another color, right?
Just give it a little bit of a lighter gray.
'Cause it's just gonna delineate within, or in here.
We'll give it a little bit lighter gray
with a little hit of blue, right?
So that just delineates within your symbols palette.
You go from these squares and trapezoids and triangles,
down to these rounded forms.
You know, the circles and the little pieces
of each of those circles.
And now down to these different little stars and stuff.
So let's go do a star.
Let's do a six pointed,
little Star of David there, right? So there's that.
And let's get, you know,
let's do like a seven point or something.
So grab your "Polygon" tool,
and "Hold and Shift,"
hit "Up Arrow,"
and you can see here,
you know, there's a seven point little thing.
Now, you know, what's cool about this now, is like
you're arming yourself. These are like,
maybe that's like a sheriff's badge or something.
But, the idea is this,
I'm messing with that,
it's up to you to customize these pieces
and then plop your little proprietary pieces
into that symbols palette.
Because when people ask me things like,
"well Draplin, I keep seeing this one shape.
Where'd you get that shape?"
I've been carrying that shape along for years.
For instance, this shape right here.
So, you know, you grab your circle tool here,
and we'll just make a quick oval.
You're holding that "Option."
to keep it in that center.
Now if you hit "Shift" it's gonna go back to that square.
So, you know, you're just holding that "Option"
to keep it in that little center.
Otherwise, it's all over the place,
coming off that corner, wherever you clicked.
Hit the "Option," keeping that center,
and just make a nice oval.
Now check this little shape out. Right?
So you do this oval first, grab it again.
"Command + C," "Command + F,"
Hit it real quick, you know, turn it 90 degrees.
And what we're looking at,
is we're looking at the space on the inside.
So what'll I'll just do,
is I'll do a quick little "Multiply" on this piece.
You go under your "Transparency Tool Palette,"
do a multiply.
That's the space we want in there. Right? Right?
So, when I take this thing--
I'm not just gonna go knock this thing out just yet,
but we're making another cool shape. So check this out.
Now if I take this thing,
and I, you know, I keep track of it.
Now watch this, watch this.
We're gonna go off here,
we're gonna use the "Path Finder,"
and we're gonna use the "Intersect."
So there's a cool shape right there. Right?
There's a cool shape
you can put into your symbols palette.
We'll do it again. Grab those two pieces,
and come down here and tweak this yet again, right?
So these things are live, so if you bring this thing out,
now you're getting that cool piece
on the inside of there, right?
Use your "Intersect" tool,
and there's another little badge
you can put inside here, right?
So, that said, go play around with these things
and command this stuff.
Because now if we take that guy yet again,
and take it, you know, 45 degrees,
there's another cool little shape or holding space.
Now I know that we've talked about this
in these last bunch of things but,
you remember, something inside a shape
is a safe place for it to live.
'Cause you still have the nice symmetry of the shape
to guide the entire form.
So whatever you put in there,
be it a piece of type or a little icon,
you know these shapes become
kind of these little safe spots, you know,
for anything that packs inside there.
So, you know that said,
you know, 'cause here's the deal.
If like you take a look at this,
and you just made this cool shape,
and we grab one of these little pieces
and we plop inside there.
And you've got this cool little,
kind of like, app kind of looking thing now, right?
So, I'm giving out a lot of my tricks but,
it's up to you guys to go and make your own pieces,
and then load up your symbols palette.
The things that you're comfortable with,
and then use these pieces in new ways.
So now, if we take a little audit here,
and go back and say okay,
let's put that shape in there.
Let's make sure it's a nice round number, one inch.
There it is. Let's bring this guy in here.
Let's make it just a half inch tall.
Okay, so when it comes flying outta there--
ah, make it a inch tall.
So when it comes flying, but see, those are--
now you have those pieces, and ah, yeah.
I'll just do one more quick one here.
Can we make you guys a pill shape, right?
But we're gonna do it the wrong way first
using all these cool things
that sort of Illustrator will provide you,
and then we're gonna make it the right way
so we have it bullet-proof okay?
So here we go.
Turn on your grid,
so that's "Option + Comma,"
make sure that thing snaps to the point.
Right now it's--
okay, it's snapping to the point right now,
but if we had that thing turned off,
you have to go turn it back on by doing
"Shift + Command + Comma"
and that turns on so you can snap around.
If you make a one by two inch shape, right?
'Cause you're thinking a little pill shape, right?
Now check this out. The quickest way to do it,
and sort of the wrong way,
is if we take that thing off to the side,
we grab those four corners
and we just quickly round them down to a half inch.
Check out what happens here, right?
Now it looks good,
but it adds another little point in there.
And that's dangerous because,
later on when you're tuning these things,
that extra point, it's just dangerous, you know?
But see, we're allowing the default of the machine
to round that corner,
and we're not using the architecture in the proper way.
The better way to do it is
go back and grab that circle
that you built a little bit ago. Right?
Put it down below.
Take the bottom part off, "Command X + Command F,"
that just pastes it back in place.
Snap it down to the bottom of that one inch by two inch,
and now just add these pieces in.
And connect those pieces, right?
Using your "Pen" tool, you're just connecting those pieces.
So you've got this pill shape now,
and we're just gonna give it that same blue color.
And then we wanna do is maybe just do one where
there's the pill shaped vertical
and the pill shaped horizontal.
So alright, just pull back for second.
You know, what we've got here is we've got,
you know, we've eight shapes there.
We've got nine shapes here.
We've got another seven shapes here.
So now I'm gonna go clean up this thing,
and then later on,
at this link right here,
you can go get this thing, right?
And download this thing,
and play with these things
and put 'em into your symbols palette.
Look at me messing with he link.
I'm tilting it, I'm squishing it.
Don't ever stretch type.
I'm stretching it for a second,
living on the wild side.
But here, take this link
and go download this thing.
And play with it and learn your symbols
and add to it too, alright?
Add to it too. Alright.
Link, away.
(glass breaking)
(cat meowing)