vector Archives - Page 6 of 9

Hand Drawn, Illustration, Illustrator, Patterns, Tutorials

How to Create Hand Drawn Seamless Patterns in Illustrator

Seamless patterns in Illustrator have been on my tutorial list for a while, so I’m very excited for this week! There’s something about the anticipation right before you test your pattern that I love. The total surprise when you see this pretty little square you made repeated a dozen times – suddenly the little square looks the same, but entirely new. And then go ahead and imagine it on your favorite throw pillow, mug, notebook, mousepad, comforter, wallpaper..it’s a great moment for a designer, even if they’re just daydreams 😉 My goal is to bring you one step closer to those daydreams this week with a method you can use to create seamless, repeatable patterns no matter which version of Illustrator you have. We’ll take a square with elements from the 100+ Vector Leaves and Flourishes pack and go step by step to achieve a fully usable pattern at the end – color palette included. Let’s go!

September 1, 2015

37 Comments

Branding, Freebies, Illustrator

Freebie: Vector Hipster Badges

Happy almost-end-of-the-week! This week’s freebie is a set of 3 vector hipster badges all as ai, eps and psd files. All free fonts were used in the badges, so just be sure to open the .rtf file included in the download first. Download and install those fonts, then open any of the badge files and they’ll show up the same way as in the previews. Easy peasy. Download link/inspiration ideas for how to use your spankin’ new hipster badges below!

August 20, 2015

4 Comments

Illustration, Illustrator, Tutorials

How to Create Delicious Donuts in Illustrator

After the Lovebird and Watercolor Popsicles tutorials, I had a few requests to create more illustration-based tuts (if this is something you’d like to see more of, please let me know!). Last week, Tamara made a request for a donut tutorial which I thought would be fun, plus it incorporates quite a few useful techniques I find myself using all the time. So! Even if you don’t have an appetite for some digital donuts, I promise you’ll walk away with something you’ll use many times in the future. In this tutorial, we’ll create 2 different versions of typical donuts in Illustrator utilizing the blob brush, scatter brush, paint streak textures and clipping masks. Let’s get started!

August 18, 2015

3 Comments

Freebies, Resources, Textures, vector

Freebie: Vector Mini Grit Textures

Have you ever run into a situation where you know adding a little – just a little bit – of subtle texture could take something you’ve done to the next level? This happens to me allll the time, which is why this week I want to give away a couple of vector mini grit textures. Each texture’s grittiness is on the smaller/finer side to work perfectly with more detailed artwork. And because they’re vector, no matter what you use em on, they’ll never lose resolution and can infinitely scale for any size you need them. Check out a few ways you can use them below!

August 6, 2015

5 Comments

Hand Drawn, Illustrator, Tutorials

How to Vectorize Hand Drawn Doodles

Happy Tuesday! This week’s tutorial is brought to you by Whitney + Monica who both emailed asking how to vectorize hand drawn doodles so they would have reuseable, and infinitely rescalable vectors. You’ve probably seen vector artwork around a lot lately – I just released a pack of vectors a few weeks ago and gave 5 of them away for free. In this tutorial, using that vector pack as an example, I share how I took those hand drawn elements from a doodle on a sheet of copy paper to a crisp vector that can be used over and over again on any application. Do you remember the how to vectorize hand lettering tutorial? If you’ve practiced that at all, you’ll be in great shape with converting doodles 🙂 In this video, we’ll go over 3 different methods of cleaning up your doodles, so whether you’re a beginner or advanced Illustrator user, there’s an option that will work for you. Let’s get started!

August 4, 2015

25 Comments

Branding, Color, Illustrator, Products, Tutorials

How to Vectorize Watercolor Textures

If you took my Watercolor Branding Skillshare class, you learned how to digitize watercolor textures – from scanning them in, to color adjustments, to removing the background correctly so they could be placed on anything. When a watercolor texture is scanned in, you’re limited by the greatest size and resolution your scanner is able to scan at. For large applications (think billboards, signage, posters), if a professional scanner wasn’t used, resolution is likely too small for the texture to reproduce as crisply as you might wish. Enter vectorized textures. Since vectors (which are point based instead of pixel based) can be rescaled infinitely without losing quality, they make a great alternative to finding a high res scanner and going through the process of color editing + removing the background again. Watercolor textures are super detailed, so finding a happy medium with file size and a similar outcome to the raster (pixel) based image is key when vectorizing. In this tutorial, I share my exact method on how to vectorize watercolor textures using two different textures. We’ll go over what to look for when you vectorize your own.

July 28, 2015

34 Comments

Branding, Color, Tutorials

The Watercolor Branding Challenge

Happy Friday! I just wanted to post a quick notice of a Watercolor Branding Skillshare session I’ll be hosting for the next two weeks starting this coming Monday, July 27th and ending August 7th. Sessions are new to Skillshare, so I’m very excited to be a part of some of the first ones! If you love learning new things, but need a little more structure with completing a project associated with what you learned, sessions were made for you.

I’ve laid out a full schedule and I’ll be sending emails every few days so we all stay on task to complete the project of creating your own watercolor logo. These emails will ask you to complete videos from the Watercolor Branding class and then post a small task to your project. I’ll be available for questions, feedback – whatever you need to ensure you come out with a great logo and some skills you can use well into the future. You’ll also be with other students who will offer their feedback and will be posting their own projects. Since this session is paired with the Watercolor Branding class, it means every student in the session will receive a free mini watercolor kit, a resource pdf with every asset mentioned in the class, as well as a logo inspiration cheat sheet to keep the ideas coming. This session is a great way for all of us to collaborate together and have some fun with watercolors 🙂

July 24, 2015

4 Comments

Freebies, Illustrator, Patterns

Freebie: 4 Geometric Illustrator Pattern Swatches

I was going to say a few months ago, but I just checked, and last year (holy moly), I shared some geometric photoshop patterns. They’ve been downloaded almost 20,000(!!!) times, so I thought it might be time for some Illustrator ones! This week’s freebie is a set of 4 geometric Illustrator pattern swatches to use on whatever you please 🙂 I’m also sharing some quick tips + tricks on using them you may not have heard before – read on to see!

July 23, 2015

3 Comments

Freebies, Hand Drawn, Illustrator

5 free vector leaves and flourishes preview

Freebie: 5 Vector Leaves and Flourishes

I have been working well into the wee morning hours this past week preparing for my new Skillshare class coming early next week. I don’t want to give it entirely away, but there are some pretty vector elements + watercolor textures involved! I’m sooo excited about the class I wanted to give a tiny sneak peek of what I’ve been spending all that time on! Since vector elements play a big role in the class, I created a monster set of over 100 hand drawn vector leaves and flourishes. This set was created for people who may not want to spend as many hours as I did making them 🙂 Today I want to give away 5 of them for free!

July 2, 2015

10 Comments

Color, Illustrator, Tutorials, Typography

How to Create Line Gradient Typography

Happy Tuesday! This week’s tutorial comes courtesy of Kamron’s request on how to replicate a line gradient typography effect, like this one. While you could create this effect in a similar way as this retro type effect tutorial in Photoshop, the blend tool in Illustrator performs the effect quicker (in my opinion), AND you end up with vectors that can scale infinitely without losing resolution. Win, win 🙂 This is one of the quicker type effects we’ve created, making it the perfect solution when you need a nice type effect in a pinch!

June 30, 2015

2 Comments

Branding, Freebies, Hand Drawn, Illustrator, Tutorials

hand drawn vector t-shirt mockup preview

How to Create a Hand Drawn Vector T-Shirt Mockup

We may not be fashion designers, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for graphic designers with apparel design. At some point in time, the majority of graphic designers have to mock up some kind of apparel to get quoted and executed by a manufacturer. It’s no surprise why – as branding experts, we need to be able to carry a brand through a variety of applications, and especially at events, apparel is key.

I’m currently working on some clothing designs for a company that will be at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. They’re in the process of finding a manufacturer for their clothing and had asked for mockups to present to potential manufacturers to get accurate quotes. They sent a few pictures of styles of clothing they were interested in, all at different sizes and resolutions. To keep the focus on the design of the clothing and keep everything similar, I redrew the clothing in Illustrator, then implemented the vector graphics on top. Having redrawn it in illustrator, all the clothing was kept consistent look-wise and the manufacturers were quickly able to see which panels would be printed with design or kept the base color. In this week’s tutorial, I’ll share my exact process for executing a vector t-shirt mockup and also give away 2 free vector t-shirt mockup files!

June 9, 2015

0 Comments

Color, Freebies, Illustrator, Resources, Tutorials

How to Create a Vector Paint Streaked Surfboard

Happy June! Here in Atlanta, it definitely feels like summer has arrived, and by summer, I mean ridiculous amounts of sticky humidity. Outside of popsicles, which we’ve already created, I was brainstorming another symbol of summer that represents refreshment (instead of stickiness), and for whatever reason (I’m landlocked by a minimum of 4 hours and I’ve never surfed before), a surfboard came to mind. Not only do surfboards represent warmth, summer and refreshment, but they’re also a designer’s dream to work on (fun culture aspect + big canvas). So this week, we’re going to create some super easy, vector paint streaked surfboards in Illustrator using my newest design assets: paint streak textures, 2 of which I’m giving away for free!

June 2, 2015

8 Comments

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