Rainbow Ribbons and Strokes in Adobe Illustrator

Create and save multi-colored Brushes.

Rainbow Strokes and Brushes in Illustrator. In this tutorial you'll learn a quick way to make and save a multi-colored Brush that can be used as a stroke and can be customized using Illustrator's tools.

This is a great size to use for a Facebook banner

Create your document, any size is fine, let’s do a banner size of 1700 x 620 px, RGB color and a resolution of 72. Decide ahead of time how many colors you want to use for your Brush, for this example I'm going to use four colors. Make sure your Stroke is off.

Make a Square

For four colors we need to make four squares. Start creating the first square. Grab your rectangle tool and double click on the Art Board to bring up the Rectangle Options menu and type in 50 px for Height and Width to create a 50 x 50 px square.

Make sure your square is Selected before going to Effect

Grab your Selection tool, (the shortcut key is the v key) go to Effect click on it, then go to Distort & Transform from the drop down menu. Then select Transform to bring up it’s pop up Menu.

Use the settings in the image above to get these results.

Make sure Preview is on to see your changes. Type in the number of Copies you want. I put three to get four squares, including the original square. Since the square is 50 px, type 50 px in Move Vertical option and click OK. Now you have what looks like a straight up and down rectangle, it’s really four squares tight up against one another. When you Select this ‘rectangle’ only the top square will look selected. We’ll need to separate these squares by Expanding and Ungrouping them in order to color them.

Expand your Transformed square first

To Expand your square keep your square selected and go to Object then select Expand Appearance. The rectangle turns into four squares.

Expanded and Ungrouped squares

Ungroup the squares by keeping them selected and going up to Object then to click on Ungroup. The shortcut key is Shift + Command + G. Now the squares are ready to color.

Color and make your squares smaller

Select each square one at a time and apply a color to each one. I used four colors available from the Swatches panel. We need to make these squares smaller otherwise you'll get big complicated brush. Select all the squares and while using the Selection tool, click and drag the squares while holding down the Shift key to re-size smaller. I made the squares bigger at the beginning for easier handling.

Drag your Squares into Brush Panel to create a new brush

Open your Brushes panel, make sure all of the squares are selected, then click and drag them into the Brushes panel. When the Brush Type pop-up menu comes up choose Art Brush then OK. If you don't want to use Art Brush try out Pattern Brush. The Scatter Brush might be interesting.

Art Brush Options Panel

The Art Brush Options pop-up menu opens up to give you control over how the Brush works. Name your Brush leave the Key Color as is (it looks like it doesn't have all the colors but it will when the Brush is used) and use the settings in the above image to get the same results as in this tutorial.

In the future you can change how your new Brush works by double clicking on your Brush in the Brushes Panel to open up the Brush Options pop-up menu.

The Brush tool, Ellipse, Spiral, and Arc tool

Grab your Brush tool and click your new colored Brush in the Brushes panel. Click and drag to create ribbons of color. Experiment with the Ellipse tool and create a circle then click on your new colored Brush or create spirals with the Spiral tool . Wonderful! Treat your Brush strokes as you would any other type of Stroke, change the pt. Size, vary the Profile or keep it Uniform. As a Stroke you can even use the Width tool to stretch its limits. The shortcut key for the Width tool is Shift + W.

Save Your New Brush for Future Use

You can save your new Brush to use in any Illustrator document. Make sure your new Brush is selected in the Brushes panel. Go up to the hamburger menu on the top right of the Brushes panel and click on the menu, in the drop down menu select Save Brush Library...

The pop-up Save dialogue box opens, Name your brush and select Save.

Access Your New Brush

To get your Saved Brush, create a New Document then open the Brush panel, click on the hamburger menu and hover your cursor over Open Brush Library, hover on User Defined and you’ll see the name of your brush, select your brush and it’s automatically loaded into the Brushes panel. You can also load your Brush into a custom Preset Document, then it will be available without needing to retrieve it from the Brush Library. For instructions on how to do this, see my tutorial called Design Faster, Speed up your Workflow.

Design Faster, Speed up your Workflow

Take control of Adobe Illustrator and create your own Preset Document.

Wouldn’t it be brilliant when starting a new document in Adobe Illustrator it would automatically come with your color pallet, your custom designed symbols, the right color space, the right size document and resolution, and in points, pixels, or inches, whatever you use most? You can have this and more with control over Adobe Illustrator's Preset Documents.

One of my own custom built Preset Document.

Illustrator's print Preset Document choices

What is a Preset Document and what does Illustrator have to offer.

A Preset Document in Illustrator is a document that is set or adjusted beforehand to facilitate use, whether you want to use it for mobile, web, print, or film and video. The choices are limited and often times you end up adding everything you need for your project after you've created a new document and this slows down your workflow. Templates are different and won't be covered in this article.

How to get to your Library folder

Where are the Preset Documents located on your Mac?

It's important to know where your Preset Documents live in order to save new presets or delete older ones that have out lived their usefulness. Preset Documents are located in a folder called New Document Profiles. To get there you need to start with your Library. There are two ways of getting to the Library folder on your Mac.

1. You can open the Finder window and select Go from the menu bar at the top of the screen while holding down the Option key to reveal the Library folder option in the dropdown menu, then select Library. 2. Open the Finder window and select Go to open Go to Folder, type in ~/Library and select Go. When you get to your Library select it and you're 4 steps away from the New Profile Documents folder.

The long journey to your New Document Profiles folder.

Follow the Path

To follow the path to the New Document Profiles folder first select Library go to Application Support > Adobe > Adobe Illustrator > en_us scroll down to New Document Profiles select it, and there the preset Documents live.

If you have more than one version of Adobe Illustrator, you need to find out which version you’re currently using. Open Illustrator, select Illustrator in the search bar and select About Illustrator, when the pop up window shows, look for the little number towards the upper left under the title Adobe Illustrator. I’m using Adobe Illustrator 24.

Find the Adobe Illustrator version number here.

Make it.

Now that we know where we need to save our custom Preset Document, we can start building it. It's okay to try out different options you'd like to see on your Document Preset. If you don't like it after a few trial runs, save your new and improved document and go into New Document Profiles and delete the old one, if you wish.

Plan what you'd want and what you don’t want in your own custom Preset Document. Consider the RGB or CMYK color space, size, resolution, number of art boards, customize your color pallet, symbols, and brushes, you can add and change anything in your document that would speed up your design process. After creating and customizing your new document, you're ready to save it to New Document Profiles.

Drag your New Preset Document from your desktop.

Save it.

With the newest version of Adobe Illustrator cc I’ve found no direct way to save your document to the New Profile Document folder, but it’s not difficult to do once you know where they are kept. When you are finished making all of your changes, go to File> Save As, then name your document. Save your document to your Desktop then close it in Illustrator.

Follow the path to your New Document Profiles folder and open it, and drag your newly built custom Preset Document Illustrator file from your desktop into the New Document Profiles folder. You now have created your own custom Preset Document that is easily accessible from Illustrator.

There it is!

Access it.

How do we access a custom built Preset Document? Open Illustrator go to File > Create New, when the New File pop up window opens, look to the right side and bottom of the window for More Settings, select it and another window will open, got to Profile, select the arrow for the drop down menu and there you’ll see your custom Preset Document in with Illustrator’s built in Preset Documents. You did it! You now have control of Illustrator’s Preset Documents.

Create an Easy Seamless Wave Pattern (Customizable, too!)

Have you ever wanted to add a simple wave pattern as a background to your design and was disappointed with the

pre-made patterns in Illustrator and Photoshop?

The limited selection and inability to customize those cookie cutter patterns choked my creativity. So, I attempted to create my own wave pattern. Armed with the confidence of creating successful seamless patterns in the past, I thought ‘How hard can this be?’

I thought wrong...

More math needed for this bad pattern!

I had approached this in the usual way of starting a seamless pattern. I started with a 1000 x 1000 px document in Illustrator, and then used the Pen tool, and Transform Effects options. I soon discovered the difficulty in predicting a consistent wave and ended up with a choppy unpredictable pattern. In order to get this wave to cooperate I needed to be more intentional with my math.

A much better pattern.

After a some trial and error with the Zig Zag effect, I tested the pattern and there it was. A seamless wave pattern with the flexibility to customize. I'd like to show you how to do it in a few easy steps.

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Note: This tutorial is recommended for intermediate Illustrator users. I used Adobe Illustrator CC 2019 and a Mac for this article, some keyboard keys and tools may be different depending on the computer you use or the version of of Illustrator.

Troubleshooting Tips are at the end of this article for some of the problems I encountered while making this pattern, you might encounter different problems that I'm unaware of. Leave a message for Wittner Design on the contact page and I'll work through the problem and add it to Troubleshooting.

Illustrator: Use these settings when creating a new document.

STEP 1: Creating the Document.

Create a New document, use the settings in the image above then click Create. If you have a different color mode than RGB you can find it in More Settings, click on More Settings to open up its panel and find Color Mode, click on it and in the drop down menu click RGB then click Create Document.

Create and Align Your Beginning Line.

STEP 2: Creating and Aligning the Beginning line.

Make sure you have No Fill, and you have a black Stroke. Click on the Pen Tool and create a 1 px line straight across the width of the artboard, while pressing the Shift key to constrain the angle.

Check the length of the line with the Transform panel, ( which can be accessed on the top toolbar, or right side toolbar, or by clicking on Window to get it from the drop down menu) if needed, change your line Width to 1000 px.

Keep the line selected and click on Align. Select Align to Artboard then click on Align Horizontal Center and Vertical Align Center. Your line should be a width of 1000 px and perfectly centered at the top of your artboard.

STEP 3: Making Waves.

We'll make a wave out of this line with the Distort & Transform Effect. Keeping your line selected, click on Effect then go to Distort & Transform and click on Zig Zag.

Transforming Your Line to a Wave

The Zig Zag panel opens. Use the settings I've entered in the image above. Select Smooth for a round wave or Corner for a pointy wave, select Preview to see your changes, then click Ok.

Note: The important number to enter is in Ridges per Segment.

You might ask why or you might want the short answer.

Warning: Long Answer ahead followed by Short Answer.

Long Answer: Ridges are the waves. Your 1000 px line is made up of one segment and it’s on an Artboard 1000 px wide. The number of ridges (waves) per this one segment line must be a number that fits into these constraints. This provides for both ends of the line to meet seamlessly when the pattern is made. I came up with any two digit number that ends in 9, or just 9

(I didn't go as far to experiment with 3 digit numbers). The Short Answer: Use one of these numbers 9, 19, 29, 39, and so on, use whichever number meets your design needs and ends with 9.

STEP 4:

Duplicating the Wave.

Now that you have your wave, next we'll duplicate the wave so it fills the Artboard. Click on Effect then go to Distort & Transform, click on Transform.

Notice the Left and Right ends of the wave are identical.

The Transform Effect panel opens, (since the wave height is 10 px the Vertical Move should be at least 10 px unless you unless want your waves to overlap). Continue to enter the settings in the above image. Select Preview to see the copied waves, Click Ok. And there it is.

Next let’s make this into a New Pattern Swatch and take it for a test drive.

Step 5:

Making a New Pattern Swatch.

We'll drag your waves into the Swatches panel to make a New Pattern Swatch.

Create 1000 px by 1000 px square with the Rectangle tool with no Fill and no Stroke.

Important: There's a good chance that this new square 'adopted' the Effects on this layer, go to the Appearances panel and check, see Troubleshooting at the end of this article to for instructions and a visual on how to find and get rid of the unwanted Effects.

This new square needs to be underneath and aligned with the waves. Keep the new square selected and with the Selection tool, Right click on the Artboard and a menu will come up, go to Arrange and click on Send to Back.

Your 'invisible' square is now in the back and aligned.

Next Align the new square to the Artboard by clicking on Align, make sure Align to Artboard is selected, select Horizontal Align Center and Vertical Align Top as you did to align your beginning line in Step: 2.

Open the Swatches panel, select both your waves and your new 'invisible' square together and drag them onto the Swatches panel. A plus sign should appear as your selection enters the Swatches panel.

A New Pattern Swatch is created. Now it’s ready to test.

This is a good looking pattern!

The Test Drive:

To Make sure the pattern is seamless, we'll make a rectangle and fill it with the New Pattern Swatch.

Make a new layer to put the 'test' rectangle on. Zoom out to give yourself some room and Drag out a Rectangle with the Rectangle tool

(any size rectangle is good, in fact, the less square it is the better it is to test the pattern).

Fill the new rectangle with white then Copy it by pressing Command C, paste it on the front of the rectangle by pressing Command F. Fill the top rectangle copy with your New Pattern Swatch. It should be seamless and look fabulous. If not see Troubleshooting fixes at the end of the article.

Scaled Pattern from 100% to 50% (Waves are 4pt Stroke)

Scaling the Pattern:

You can use the Scale Tool to further test the pattern or as one of the many ways to customize it. Keep your 'test' Rectangle selected and double click the Scale Tool to open up the Scale Tool panel. Make sure that only the Transform Patterns option is selected. Select Preview to see the changes. Enter any percentage in the Uniform option and the pattern changes size. Carefully inspect your pattern for any irregularities.

Change your waves to Objects & customize your pattern!

There are a lot of other ways to customize the wave pattern by using Illustrator tools and options. Try expanding the waves and turn them into Objects for more and different options. You can add a variety of colors and cut out sections of the wave to add interest.

Of course, you’re only limited by your imagination and the limits of a seamless pattern. Whatever changes are made, make sure the top and side elements of your wave pattern remain unchanged so they will line up seamlessly, this means any colors, too. Turn your customized waves into a New Pattern Swatch using the same technique used in

Step: 5 Making a New Pattern Swatch.

Thank you for reading this article, I hope this makes life easier, and keep breaking the rules & changing the world!

Troubleshooting:

If you can’t drag waves into Swatches Panel:

1. Bottom square must have no Fill and no Stroke.

2. Waves and square must be selected together.

3. 'Invisible' square must be on bottom of Waves.

Pattern is seamless but a little or a lot ‘off’ and/or choppy:

1. Make sure the numbers you entered in Ridges per Segment in the

Zig Zag panel are correct. (ending in the number 9)

2. Makes sure Absolute is selected in Zig Zag panel.

Troubleshoot: Unwanted FX adopted from layer

3. Check that the Effects that were used to make the pattern are not applied to bottom square (this can happen if the new square adopted unwanted Effects from the Layer).

Check and correct this by selecting your bottom 'invisible' square then go into Appearances, if there are any Fx in the panel, select the Fx and then select the Garbage Can at the bottom of the panel to get rid of the offending Fx’s. Select both the waves and bottom square together and re-drag them into the swatch panel.