“Funky Chic” Save The Date Card – An Illustrator Tutorial
Today’s Save the Date card is very easy to make, in spite of its intricate design. If you didn’t try my first Save the Date-tutorial, I would suggest at least reading through it before starting this one, just because I describe certain things in more detail there. This post assumes you’ve done that already, or have a basic knowledge of Illustrator. You might also want to take a look at my Illustrator notes/problem solvers, as well as the Illustrator Toolbar.
Ok, let’s get started on what I call the “Funky Chic” card.
For this card, I again started by downloading a free vector file. This one is also by jlwdesign (love her designs!) and you can download it here. Make sure you read through the License and Usage Info.
1. After you download your design (make sure you select the Adobe Illustrator CS download option), open the ai (Illustrator) document in Illustrator.
2. Copy everything by pressing Apple+A (or Cntrl+A on PC), then deselect the text by holding down the shift key and with your selection tool, click on the 3 different rows of text (you have to click 3 times, and you will see that they are no longer selected).
3. Copy your selection by pressing Apple+C (or Cntrl+C) and paste in a new document (Edit-Paste or Apple+V or Cntrl+V) The new document can be letter sized, it doesn’t matter right now
4. Make sure everything you pasted here is selected and resize it to 4×6 (by typing in the dimensions in the Transform palette. The “swirly curls” will be a little bit distorted, but that’s ok, we’ll fix that soon.
5. Deselect everything by clicking anywhere on the document outside of the artwork.
6. Create a new layer and drag it to the bottom so that it becomes the bottom layer. You do this by clicking on the layer in the layers palette, hold down your left mouse key, and just drag
7. Go back to the layer with all the artwork and select the brown background only (by clicking on it with your select tool) and cut it (Edit-Cut or Apple+X or Cntrl+X)
8. Click on the new layer and hit Apple+F (or Cntrl+F). This pastes it in the exact same place as it were on the previous layer. Lock this layer.
9. Go back to the layer with the swirly curls.
10. Get rid of any parts you don’t want by selecting them with the direct selection too (the white arrow) and hit delete. (I got rid of the black, or perhaps it was dark brown, “blob” in the middle)
Now, select everything on this layer (which should be the parts you want to keep) and group them (by going to Object-Group or clicking Apple+G or Cntrl+G). A design like this is tricky to resize and move unless it’s grouped.
11. Switch to the selection tool (the black arrow) and select the artwork. Resize it any way you want by dragging any of the little white squares. I made mine a little bit “rounder and fatter” by pulling the middle bottom square upwards and then made it a bit larger by pulling one of the corners out and holding down the shift key at the same time – this keeps it proportionate
12. Place it where you want it on the background by just dragging it around until you like what you see.
13. Create a new layer and lock the others
14. With the Type Tool, click anywhere on the document to add your text. For SAVE THE DATE, I used Helvetica 14pt, and just typed one letter, hit return, one letter, return, and so on.
Once you’re done typing this text, switch to the selection tool and move the text to where you want it.
Then, select the text tool again; click right beneath the swirly curls (or anywhere, you’ll move it later) and type in the rest of the text. I used Helvetica 12pts for the date and “are getting married in Barcelona, Spain”, Helvetica 10pts for “formal invitation to follow” and Zapfino 14pt for the bride and groom.
15. Once you’re done typing, switch to the selection tool again, and pull the text to where you want it.
16. To make sure the background and text are aligned, unlock those two layers, select both with the selection tool and click on Horizontal Align Center in your Align palette.
That’s it!
Added Bonus: This particular download also gives you a free brush kit. To open the brushes, go to Windows – Brush Library – Other Library and select your downloaded file. A small window will pop up with all the funky brushes. To use them select one of them, click on the paintbrush tool, and have fun!
Filed under Design, Illustrator, Save The Date, Tutorial | Comments (3)Illustrator Notes & Problem Solvers
I love Illustrator. It’s admittedly not that easy to use at first, and if you haven’t worked with Adobe’s programs before, it can take a little while to get the hang of the different tools. Once you learn the basics though, it is so much fun, and you can get really creative with your own designs.
Below are a few tips and problem solvers that may come in handy. I plan to build on this list, so keep checking back.
- Always work in layers. It will save you tons of time later if you want to make changes, or just use a few layers for a new document. You can turn layer visibility on and off by clicking the little eye next to the layer name in the palette. You can lock and unlock one or several layers by clicking the box next to the eye.
- It’s a good idea to name the layers. This is especially helpful if you are working on a huge document with tons of layers, or if you are two or more people all working on the same document. Or if you want to go back and make changes to one particular layer say a year after you created the document. To change the layer name, click on the flyout menu on the layers palette, click on Options for “Layer 1″ and type in your new layer name.
- If you can’t see the palette you need (transparency, color, align etc.), go to the Window menu and click on the one you need – a small window of your selection will pop up
- If you add photos or other images to your design, make sure you embed them in the
document. Otherwise, if you move those images on your drive, or put them on a different drive, Illustrator will not be able to find them. You embed a photo (or image) by opening the Links Palette (in the Window menu). You will see thumbnails of all the photos in the document. Make sure the photo you want to embed is selected, and click on the flyout menu and go down about halfway and select Embed Image. That’s it!
- If you want to save a color you created in the color palette, just click and drag on the little square filled with your new color (it’s right underneath the ikons for frame and fill) and pull it to the swatches menu. There, you can name it if you want.
- There are always more ways than one to do pretty much everything in Illustrator: you can go to a menu and make your choice, use shortcut keys (Apple+Key on a Mac and Cntrl+Key on a PC), or right click and make your choice from the menu. Once you get comfortable using Illustrator, you’ll find the method that best fits your work flow.
If things are not doing what you expect them to, or an area you want to change is grayed out, there are a few things you can check:
- make sure you have selected the appropriate tool (your current tool will be shaded in the tools palette
- check so that you’re in the right layer (the layer you’re on will be shaded in the layers palette)
- make sure the layer you need isn’t locked (if it is, just unlock it by pressing the lock symbol next to the layer name)
- If the toolbox and all the palettes suddenly disappear, you probably hit TAB by mistake. Just hit TAB once again, and they will reappear