Omgosh, free vector shapes are back from the dead! I’ve created some sunburst/ star shapes for you guys to mix ‘n match, layer, texturise, etc etc etc. Go crazy! And when you’re done, show me 
I have friends who are photographers and web designers, and most of them use Photoshop primarily for their work. This just totally confounds me, because there are many instances where they could supplement their work with bits and pieces created in Illustrator.
“But Illustrator confuses me!” they cry.
So, it appears I’m one of the crazy guys who can switch “modes” when using these programs. To be completely honest, there is a brain flip you need to do when you start to use Illustrator after using Photoshop for years.
Keep the following in mind when you’re cracking open your never-been-used copy of Illustrator:
Layers
Photoshop is a lot like painting on different panes of glass. To paint on one layer, you need to grab it and ready your tools before applying your medium to the surface. We do this by selecting the layer, our surface, and then applying our media to that surface.
Illustrator is rather like 2 dimensional sculpture. Imagine that you are creating objects out of wire. To manipulate one object, you must pick it up first, and then put it down before manipulating another object. The layers in the Illustrator layers palette help you group the objects you are working with. Expand your layer group before clicking willy nilly – this will help you see which object is being selected and manipulated.
“I can tell by the pixels and having seen quite a few shops in my time”
The pixels work differently in both programs as well. For instance, I always approach Photoshop as if I were painting with acrylics. I push the pixels, or the medium, around with my brush, or the mouse/ pointing device. In Illustrator, I use my pointing device to manipulate the points of my “wire” object”. I can manipulate my object by scaling it up or down with no effect on the quality of my object. If I try to do this in Photoshop (via the Transform tool) I do notice a significant effect on the quality. That’s because the pixels are being squished and stretched. On the other hand the vector points in Illustrator have a mathematical relationship to each other.
The canvas or the artboard?
Photoshop refers to the area in which we can do our thang as the “Canvas”, whereas Illustrator calls it the “Artboard”. The canvas in Photoshop is totally restricted to the area that you set, whereas in Illustrator we can play beyond the confines of the Artboard’s dimensions. I use the area outside the Artboard to play in, to test things out and to drop in colour palettes that I might like to use. When I’m resolving my work, I move my artwork within the confines of the Artboard and start to tidy up the area I call my “sand pit”. If you export your artwork in Illustrator to pdf or png, you might find that it saves everything – your Artboard as well as the objects that float around outside it, so it’s best to make sure you’ve tidied it all up before that stage.
These are just a few of the issues that have come up in discussions with friends about the shift from Photoshop to Illustrator. I’m totally happy to help you if you’ve got other unanswered Illustrator mysteries too!
I have been fiddling around with different shapes and making them in to scatter and pattern brushes, and I thought I’d post these here for you all to play with to! When you open the Illustrator file, be sure to check out the brushes palette for some bonuses!
It’s probably obvious, but I named these for Florence Broadhurst, queen of ornament and my role model!
I saw a peacock in a vintage piece of fabric and copied it. I think they’re rather magical animals!
I’ve had my first request for a tutorial! It never occurred to me that people weren’t aware of how to get elements “weaving” in and out of other elements (like text) in Illustrator. So click through and check out my first tutorial on “Weaving Flourishes”. Read Full Post
This post marks the first of my free vector shapes posts, and today I’m offering a cute flower shape in positive and negative. I saw this flower in a piece of fabric and thought it’d be nice to turn into a vector shape for future use.
Bittbox.com has been offering fabulous FREE vector resources for ages, and I thought I’d give something back after having so many sites (like bittbox.com) help me out when I need a random vector and I only have half an hour!
Stay tuned for more free vector based shapes and brushes on a weekly basis!
Honestly, it feels like flourishes are everywhere. As someone who has doodled throughout her life, during classes at high school and university and later whiling away time in meetings in “proper adult life”, I feel a little sold out. But to tell the truth I also feel a little vindicated. I remember I first started seeing those sneaky little vines wending their way through soft furnishings, involved in patterns reminiscent of Florence Broadhurst but also in damasks boldly ripped off from eras gone past. It seemed like the bland white plastic patinas of the iPod age were dead, and I rejoiced.
And then… a designer in all of his or her wisdom decided to combine the two. Now, I see glossy veneers paired with these beautiful natural and organic flourishes. What’s going on?! I’m currently struggling with this at the moment.
Nick Ainley is an incredible graphic artist, but I just don’t dig on the plastic surfaces fighting against the flourishes. In his favour, he does have a knack for perspective and three dimensionality. A lot of designers just wack in a few flourishes and chalk up another crowd pleaser. Nick obviously thinks about how each element fits in.
I find these to be faddish and somewhat poorly executed, in-so-far as uniting the flourish with the subject matter. I don’t mind juxtaposition, but some of these feel awkward and very flat.
It’s not all bad though! Alberto Seveso is amazing, his current schtick is a much more left field use of flourishes. They aren’t even flourishes he’s downloaded from istockphoto.com! They’ve all been lovingly created by himself – it’s plain to see – and form a new skin over the anatomy of high fashion models. I love it! I even love how his doodles aren’t even flowery, they’re soft and like chewing gum… something that really appeals to me.
The handmade flourish aesthetic obviously resonates strongly with me, and in order to find my own style, I brought doodles in to Illustrator from my notebooks and put them in sets of flourishes or combined them into seamless patterns. I don’t think fads should be avoided entirely, but in order to avoid the naff I like to put a credible and strongly voiced spin on it!
A little while ago i submitted patterns to Naked & Angry, a community driven site focusing on pattern and textile design, created by skinnyCorp - the guys behind threadless.com. I was stoked to see my submissions approved, and shamelessly promoted myself to all my internerd friends, and then promptly forgot about it.
Tonight I came home from a friend’s place and decided to see how my little patterns were doing. To my surprise I saw that scoring had ended, so I zoomed around comparing my scores with the others in this batch… and I think my pattern “tuesday, florence” has come in the top five! Apparently the top five designs get printed on wallpaper or fabric, and sold on the site!
Of course, I could be jumping the gun here, but here’s to hoping!
Click to go to a bigger view, and then view full screen. Trippy!
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
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