Stylin’ Effects: Free Illustrator Tutorial

Topics covered in this Illustrator tutorial:

Using the Appearance panel, Transparency, More blending modes, More drop shadows, Arrowheads

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

In this exercise, you’ll use some of Illustrator’s many styling effects to add some spice to this graphic. In this process you’ll use the Appearance panel, which works similarly to the Properties panel’s Appearance section, but has additional controls. You’ll learn the basics of this panel before using it to change the opacity of a fill and a stroke at once, which can’t be done in the Properties panel.

1. In the Illustrator Class folder, open the stylin-effects.ai file.

   The drawing is mostly complete, but we still need to color some parts and put the finishing touches on it using various effects.

Swatches & Strokes

The Appearance panel is your one stop shop for applying and editing colors, strokes, swatches and so forth.

1. There are two large shapes in the background: one white and one gray. Select the white shape.

2. At the bottom right of the Properties panel’s Appearance section, click the Open the Appearance panel button . Alternately, you can go to Window > Appearance.

3. In the Appearance panel, select the Fill.

4. As shown below, click on the Fill’s Color Picker to open the Swatches picker.

   

5. Select the Green swatch, and the shape’s fill turns green.
6. Press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows) to close the pop-up Swatches picker.
7. Select the other background shape.
8. In the Appearance panel, select the Fill.
9. Click on the Fill’s Color Picker to open the Swatches picker.
10. Select the Salmon swatch and press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows).
11. The two white shapes on the monitor glass need color too. Select the shape at the top left.
12. Through the Appearance panel, fill it with the Light Blue swatch and press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows).
13. Good, but it’d look better without the stroke. The Appearance panel can change that too. In the Appearance panel, click on the Stroke weight (1 pt) so the amount becomes editable.
14. Change the Stroke weight to 0 and press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows) to apply the change.
15. Select the last white shape on the monitor.
16. Use the Appearance panel to fill it with the Dark Blue swatch.

17. Still in the Appearance panel, change the Stroke weight to 0, then hit Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows) to apply the change.

Transparency

The background shapes would look better if the colors were lighter, and it’d be cool if the shapes were slightly transparent as well.

1. Select the large green background shape and go to the Appearance panel.
2. Click on the word Opacity to open the Transparency pop-up.
3. Change the Opacity to 8% and press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows) to apply it.
4. Click off of the shape to see that both the fill and the stroke are almost completely transparent. You just changed the opacity of both at once, which can’t be done in the Properties panel’s Appearance section!
5. It’s nice to know that we can control the entire object’s opacity, but we don’t want to do that in this case. The shape would look better with an opaque stroke, so press Cmd–Z (Mac) or Ctrl–Z (Windows) to undo the change.
6. Reselect the large green background shape.
7. In the Appearance panel, click on the Arrow to the left of Fill to expand it.

8. Underneath Fill, click Opacity to open the Transparency pop-up as shown below. Be sure not to click the Opacity at the bottom—that controls the entire object’s opacity, and we only want to adjust the fill.

   

9. Change the Opacity to 8%. Notice that this only affects the fill color and not the black border. Since you’re specifically changing the fill’s opacity, the stroke stays at 100% Opacity and remains nice and dark.
10. Select the other background shape (salmon colored).
11. In the Appearance panel, make sure the Fill is expanded so you can see Opacity below it.

12. Click on the Fill’s Opacity and change it to 15%.

Blending Modes

1. Now let’s make the highlight and shadow on the monitor’s glass look more realistic. Click on the light blue highlight shape.

2. In the Appearance panel, click the bottommost Opacity to open the Transparency pop-up.

   NOTE: Because there is no stroke, it doesn’t matter which Opacity setting you use. We’re using the bottommost one because we don’t have to expand the Fill to see it.

3. Change Opacity to 55%, then from the menu to the left, change Normal to Screen.

   NOTE: The Screen blending mode makes sure that this object will only lighten what’s underneath it, as a highlight would work in reality.

4. Click on the darker blue shadow.

5. In the Appearance panel, click the bottommost Opacity to open the Transparency pop-up.

6. Change Opacity to 65%, then from the menu to the left, change Normal to Multiply.

   NOTE: The Multiply blending mode makes sure that this object will only darken what’s underneath it, as a shadow would work in reality.

Drop Shadows

1. Let’s make the word Stylin’ stand out more by adding a drop shadow. Go ahead and select it.

2. Go into the Effect menu. Under Illustrator Effects, choose Stylize (eighth from the top) and then Drop Shadow.

3. In the dialog that appears, apply the following settings:

   Mode:	Multiply (this should already be set)
   Opacity:	75%
   X Offset:	7 pt
   Y Offset:	7 pt
   Blur:	5 pt
   Darkness:	50%

   When done, click OK. (If you get a warning about Spot colors, click OK again.)

4. We need to set the resolution for effects such as this. Go into Effect > Document Raster Effects Settings.

5. For Color Model, choose CMYK and change the Resolution to High (300 ppi). This is the resolution we use for print-based graphics.

6. Click OK.

Adding Arrowheads & One Last Touch

1. Click on the straight line underneath the words Beige is back. Let’s put an arrowhead on this.

2. Go to the standalone Stroke panel (Window > Stroke) or the Appearance panel’s pop-up Stroke panel (by clicking on the word Stroke).

3. Click on the rightmost Arrowhead and set the arrow end to Arrow 16 as shown:

   

4. One last thing. Select the grille lines on the back section of the monitor.

5. From the Appearance panel, change the Opacity to 35%, set the blending mode to Multiply, and press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows).

6. Save the file as yourname-stylin-effects.ai. In the dialog that appears, leave the default options checked and click OK.