Here are 7 text shortcuts I find it very useful in Illustrator. It is very handy when you are dealing with typography. The shortcuts help you make slight adjustments to your text very easily. The good news is that most work in Photoshop and Indesign too. So what’s your favourite text shortcuts? Read the rest of this entry »

Do you have any idea how this repeated pattern is done in illustrator? If your answer is using Ctrl/Command+D to duplicate circles into rows, throw that idea away! Corey from Layers TV Episode will be showing his trick on created repeated pattern tiles easily using Effect>Distort & Transform>Transform. This is much powerful as you can make further adjustments under Appearance Palette. Here is a summary how it is done: Read the rest of this entry »

Many beginners may not have heard of the “tilde” key trick. It’s the ~ key just beside the number 1 keypad. By holding the tilde key, you can drag to create new shapes following your mouse direction. You can only use it with other shape tools in your tool palette. Combine it with Alt/Option, Shift/Command and spacebar to create new effects. Have fun with the tilde key, below are some experiments I have done with it. Read the rest of this entry »

You can get interesting dotted lines with your Stroke Palette. Open up your Stroke Palette from Window>Stroke. Draw a line and select it. Enter the dash and gap value as shown. Experiment with different dash and gap values for different effects. To create a square dotted line, make sure the dash and weight is the same value.

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