One Minute To Make A Seamless Plaid Pattern In Illustrator – Design Trick #3
December 27, 2009 | Thoughts & Words By Sneh Roy | 7 Comments
A few days ago I was experimenting with plaid or gingham patterns in Illustrator for a Christmas cartoon I was making. It was a fascinating experience to see how simple it was to make a basic plaid pattern and then with just the additions of a few lines of varied widths, it transformed into an intricate, woven plaid pattern that would do any textile maker proud.
Today I will show you how to make a very basic seamless plaid pattern in Illustrator in just one minute. I guarantee that you will be itching to make more and experiment once you make this. It can be quite addictive. It is also a wonderful way to build up your own personal design stash.
Step 1
In Illustrator, open a new document. With Stroke set to null and Fill set to a color of your choice, click on the Rectangle Tool and then on your artboard. In the box that opens opt for "1 inch" for both height and width.
Step 2
Go to Object>Transform>Transform Each. Just scale Horizontal Width to 50% and click on "Copy". Fill this rectangle with another color of your choice and set opacity to 50%.
Step 3
Making sure this new rectangle is selected, Go to Object>Transform>Rotate. Rotate by an angle of 90o and click on "Copy". Set opacity of this horizontal rectangle to 20%.
Step 4
Select All[Cmd A in Mac/Ctrl A in PC]. Drag into the Swatch Palette. Now using this swatch as the "Fill", fill up any shape you want with the seamless pattern you just created.
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Nice tip Sneh. Plaid pattern always useful
kuswanto´s last blog ..20 Deviants Worth To Watch
Hey really nice tutorial. really nice way to crank out plaid textures and stuff like that.
I seacrhed a couple sites on creating plaid and this was by far the best. Very easy to adapt to more complex patterns too. Thank heaps.
Thank you for this – I can already tell this will be providing me with hours of entertainment and tinkering. Cheers!
Hi,
great straightforward tut. However, try as I might, I was unable to drag selection into my color swatch. I’m on CS4. Suggestion?
Terri Conrad´s last blog ..Creative Visualization and Meditation – Ohm
Terri, I am on CS4 too and I just tried it again and it works for me. Are you sure your layer is not locked and that all your artwork is on one layer?