One Minute To Make A Seamless Plaid Pattern In Illustrator – Design Trick #3
December 27, 2009 | Thoughts & Words By Sneh Roy | 10 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 [type] ..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?
I’m having problems with Step 3. I’m working with CS2 and I cannot set the angle to 900. The value must be between -360 and 360. Any suggestions?
Ok, I feel really stupid. I guess it is a typo. Just did 90 and it worked. Sorry.
Hi – thanks for showing this. A quick question. When I fill an object, I see a very tiny white line separating each pattern step and repeat. Is there a trapping setting that I should apply to get the step and repeat pattern to but up against each other? I’m in CS3 btw.
Thanks in advance!