pattern making

[glittermagic]

Hi,
I would like to make repetative patterns in illustrator. Is this possible?

thanks

[sandy.s]

Hi there,

there are lots of different ways to make repeating patterns in Illustrator, the simplest way is to select a few objects, then use the selection dialog box (double click on any arrow tool in the toolbox) to copy the objects horizontally or vertically according to the height and width of the intended unit of repeat. You can use the shortcut "Command D" to repeat any copy move in one direction, which is handy. Or, if your unit of repeat is a square, you can set the height or width unit of repeat dimension as a keyboard increment in "Preferences", and use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move your selection of objects around in all directions. I usually make sure that my artboard is the same size as the unit of repeat, but that's not 100% necessary. It does help though, to see the edges of the unit of repeat and if there are any "gaps" that might be obvious when the unit of repeat is multiplied over and over.

If you want to create a unit of repeat that repeats many times over a large surface, you may want to save the unit of repeat in your Swatch palette, then you could use it as a fill like in Photoshop. This can also be a way to check if there are "gaps" in your repeat, so make sure you have a master copy saved as a seperate file or locked on another layer to go back to if you want to make little tweaks to your unit of repeat.

Hope that helps,

Sandy.