How to Draw a Certificate in Illustrator

In this tutorial, I will be teaching you how to make a certificate pattern just using lines. You will learn how to blend lines and the process of making it tile seamlessly. I will also be proving a template for drawing your pattern and cover how to do the tricky corner. Beginners can attempt to try this tutorial if you have mastered your Pen Tool.

Once you have learnt this new technique, you can start designing your own custom awards and certificate.

Difficulty: Intermediate tutorial
Requirements: Illustrator 10 and above

• Step by step to create a certificate border
• Unique technique by author
• Easy to follow with screenshot for every step
• Learn how to make the border tile seamlessly
• Comes with source file for easy reference
• Template for drawing certificate pattern
• 30 days money back guarantee if not satisfied

Usual Price: $8.00
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Examples done using this technique:

Feel free to drop me a note at tony[@]vectordiary.com if you have any questions.

More Premium Tutorials:
Seamless Patterns - Secrets of making complicated patterns tile seamlessly.
Rope Brush - Learn to create your own rope brush easily. Comes with bonus tutorial on weaving text using rope bush.

Method 2: Using Area Type Options
Another way is to draw a text field and go Type>Area Type Options. You can setup your columns and rows there. Enter your value in the first table cell. Press Tab repeatedly until you reach until another table cell to enter the next value.

This method uses text flow, hence adjusting your table after you enter all your table data will make your text overflow into the next table cell. Not a good solution as it always drive you screaming…

Method 3: Using Microsoft Word
Yes, you can actually copy and paste tables to illustrator. Table lines will be converted to fills and text remains editable. Fast and easy way to draw simple tables.

Method 4: Using Indesign
By far the best method is to use indesign to draw you table and import it to illustrator. Simply copy and paste the table from indesign to illustrator. Your table lines, colors and text will still be editable. You can have total control of the padding, columns font and even create alternating colored background fields in indesign.

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Also, help cast your votes at the sidebar poll to decide whether Vectordiary needs a new look to step into year 2009!

This technique can be used to create nice colorful waves for background deign. Try blending 3 lines of different color to make it even more attractive.

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See Illustrator’s Blend Tool: A Comprehensive Guide for more uses of Blend Tool.

By default when you resize an object, the stroke weight remains the same. At times, you may wish to scale the stroke weight with proportion to the shape. This can be achieved by turning on Scaling Strokes & Effects. This can be found under Edit>Preferences>General. Check Scaling Strokes & Effects to turn on scaling strokes.

This applies to the Scale Tool too. Double click to open up the options and make sure Scale Strokes & Effects is checked. When you use the Scale Tool to scale, the strokes will scale together.

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Here is a very quick tip to align shapes to an object. For this example, I want to align the 2 red crosses with the white button without moving the white button. To do this, select the 3 objects and click the white button again. This will set the white button as the object to align to when you align horizontally and vertically.

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1. Drawing the Snowflake

First turn on the rulers by pressing Ctrl/Command+R. Next drag out 2 lines from the Rulers to form an intersection. This will be the middle point of the snowflake. Select Polygon Tool and click the intersection point while holding Alt/Option to draw a Hexagon. Give it a thick stroke and set the Fill to none.

Next, select the Rounded Rectangle and click on the canvas once to pop up the Options window. Set the Corner Radius to 2mm. Delete the shape after that.

Using the Rounded Rectangle, we will draw the stem of the snowflake as shown above.

Draw another branch, branching out from the main stem. Rotate it to an angle of 30 degrees and duplicate 3 more branches by Alt/Option drag the first branch.

Offset the individual branches to form the snowflake pattern you want. Then select the 4 pieces and go Pathfinder and click Add to Shape.

Using the Rectangle Tool, draw a rectangle to cover the areas protruding from the center of the branch. We will remove it by selecting Minus to Shape. Click Expand after that to expand the shape.

To reflect the pattern, select the Reflect Tool and Alt/Option click the horizontal guide. An Option window will pop up. Select Vertical for axis and click Copy to duplicate a mirror of the pattern.

Select both pattern and hold Alt/Option as you click Add to shape from the Pathfinder.

2. Creating the Snowflake Pattern

Select the Rotate Tool and Alt/Option click the center of the snowflake. Enter 60 for the Angle and click Copy. Click Alt/Option+D a few more times to repeat the rotation until you got 6 branches.

Here is the snowflake effect.

Select the pentagon at the center and go Object>Expand to expand the stroke. You will notice weird triangle points coming appearing at the corners. To solve this, click Merge once in the Pathfinder.

We will now combine the shapes. Select all the shapes and go click Merge while holding Alt/Option.

3. Glowing Snowflake Effect

Next, draw a background with a radial gradient fill. Set if from dark blue to bright blue in the middle of the background. Select our snowflake and fill it with white.

Go Effect>Stylize>Outer Glow. Select Screen for Mode and set the color to white. Set Blur to the amount you like.

Here is the final snowflake with glowing edges. You can use this method to create different snowflake patterns for your Christmas card. Have fun!

Most people thought that the Eyedropper tool is used for picking colors or gradients in Illustrator. However, not much people knows that the eyedropper can be used for picking character styles and appearances. To do this, select the text you want to change and select the Eyedropper tool. Using the Eyedropper tool, pick the text style you want to copy from and it will set you current text to that new style.

You can also set the options you want to pick by double clicking the eyedropper to display the Eyedropper options window.

Appearance - Color of the text
Character Style - Font of the text
Paragraph Style - Paragraph settings of the text

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Here is a quick tip to change art brush direction. Sometimes when you apply your custom art brush to your path, it goes in the wrong direction. So here’s how to swap the direction, using your Pen Tool, click one of the anchor corners again and it will swap the direction. Simple as that!

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Learn the tricks to create to become a better illustrator by subscribing to my list of 101 Illustrator tips & tricks. I will be coming up with a new tip/trick every week to help you speed up your work and uncover the secrets in Adobe Illustrator.

Remember to subscribe to my RSS feeds so that you will not miss any new upcoming tips & tricks!

List of 101 Tips & Tricks

1. Dotted Lines in Illustrator
2. Tilde Fun
3. Repeated Patterns
4. 7 Exceptionally Useful Text Shortcuts
5. Art Brush Direction
6. Copying Text Styles with Eyedropper
7. Aligning to objects
8. Scaling Strokes & Effects
9. Colorful Waves
10. Coming soon…

Learn how to create a wire fence pattern from scratch using the line tool.

1. Drawing the Zig Zag Fence

First, select the Line Tool from the Tool Palette and draw a long straight vertical line. This will determine the fence height. Go Effect>Distort & Transform>Zig Zag to apply the zig zag effect. Adjust Ridges and Size to set the fence mesh shape. Make sure the Points is set to Corner.

Now we will round the corners. Go Effect>Stylize>Round Corners and enter the radius to round out the sharp corners. Next, set the Weight of the Stroke to 5pt and set it to dark grey color.

Select the line and press Ctrl/Command+C to copy it and Ctrl/Command+F to paste a duplicate infront. Set the duplicated line weight to 1pt and change the stroke color to light grey.

2. Blending the Wire Fence

We will now proceed to blend both lines to give a 3D look. Go Object>Expand Appearance to expand the effects. Then go Object>Expand to expand the strokes. The stroke will now turn into shapes. With both shapes still selected, go Object>Blend>Make to blend both shapes. Next, go Object>Blend>Blend Options and set the Specified Steps to 3 for Blend Options. Finally, we will need to expand the blend before diving it in the next step. Go Object>Expand to expand the wire.

3. Dividing the corners

Now, select the line tool and draw straight lines over the corners of the wire. We will need to break it into individual segments so that we can achieve the wire twisting effect. Select everything and go to Window>Pathfinder and select Divide. Press Ctrl/Command+G to ungroup it.

Select each individual segments and group it by pressing Ctrl/Command+G. Do this for all the segements.

4. Creating the Fence Pattern

Select all and press Alt/Option as you drag a new instance beside it. Offset it until the edges touches the next wire as shown on the left. Select all and press Alt/Option while holding Shift to create a duplicate beisde it. Press Ctrl/Command+D to repeat the steps to generate a row of wire fence.

We notice that the wires are stacking on top of each other. To create the twist effect, we will need to send some segments of the wire below each other. Starting from the top, select a row of segments you want to send down and press Ctrl+Shift+{ / Command+shift+{ to send it to the bottom. Repeat from the top to the bottom, until you achieve the twist effect for the fence.

5. Final Wire Fence

Here is the final wire fence. Hope you find this trick useful for creating repeated patterns.

Gradient Mesh Tool can be quite daunting to beginners. But once you have mastered the basics, you can start drawing realistic objects in Illustrator. I have compiled a list of helpful gradient mesh tutorials to help you get started with gradient mesh.

Red Pepper

A neat tutorial with tips on creating a red bell pepper in this 12 page pdf using gradient mesh.

Read Article

Leaf Tutorial

Basic tutorial on creating a leaf using gradient mesh.

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Sweet Cherries

Realistic cherries created using gradient mesh.

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Realistic Curtain

A useful trick for drawing realistic curtain folds using gradient mesh.

Read Article

Fish

Drawing a fish illustration using gradient mesh by the Adobe Team.

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Vector Portrait

A mini tutorial on drawing a vector portrait from a photography model.

Read Article

Gradient Mesh

Leo Blanchette has a very detailed tutorial on making a crayon using gradient mesh. He shows us the steps to turn a photo into a realistic gradient mesh crayon. Great for beginners!

Read Article

Maple Leaf Illustration

Learn to create a maple leaf using gradient mesh and clipping mask.

Read Article

Basic Rendering with Gradients

Master Kevin Hulsey is an expert in automotive and industrial cutaway illustration. He has a list of very useful tutorials for students in his website. He has also included a short tutorial on working with gradient mesh and gradients to create photorealistic drawings.

Read Article

Photorealistic Veggie Drawing

Veerle has a very quick tutorial on create a simple veggie illustration using gradient mesh tool.

Read Article

Thumbdrive

Step by step instructions and screenshots to create a realistic thumbdrive using gradient mesh.

Read Article

Car Ring

WForrest provides some really useful tips and tricks on using gradient mesh. He shows us different methods of using gradient mesh to create the rings of a car.

Read Article

Step by Step Illustration of Angel

Step by step screenshots by Ussa Methawittayakul how she created the Angel Illustration.

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Takashi Morisak (Japan)

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Link to old website of Yukio Miyamoto

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Reggie Gilbert (USA)

Wayne Forest (Canada)

Highside (Japan)

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Designing a logo is a common task in Adobe Illustrator. In this final project, we will sum up what we have learnt so far in Illustrator to create your own custom logo. I will show you the process in drawing a logo and hopefully you have more confidence after this tutorial.

Drawing the Honey Farm Logo

First scan the sketch of your logo and save it as a jpeg.

Next, we need import it to Illustrator. Go File>Place and select your picture. Make sure Template is checked to place it as a template. When you open your Layers Palette. You will see that it is locked and the colors are faded out. This makes it perfect for tracing.

We will start with the bee’s body. Draw an oval shape. Edit the points using the Direct Selection Tool to form the body of the bee.

Next, draw a cirlce shapes for the head. Edit the points to make it slightly pointed.

To draw the antennae, I use an oval and draw a thick line using Pen Tool connecting to it.

Next, draw 2 ovals and rotate it to form the wings. Select the bigger wing and press Ctrl/Command+C to copy. Press Ctrl/Command+F to paste infront. Now, hold Shift and select the small wing. Open up your Pathfinder (Window>Pathfinder) and hold Alt/Option as you select Subtract from shape area.

The overlapping part of the wing will be subtracted.

We will move on to create the body stripes. Draw 2 rectangles with the height of the stripe thickness.

Select both rectangles and go Effect>Warp>Arc. Set Bend to 23% to bend the rectangle. Go Object>Expand Appearance to expand the effect.

Rotate the stripes and place it over the bee. Copy the the bee’s body by pressing Ctrl/Command+C. Then paste it infront by pressing Ctrl/Command+F. Select the body’s copy and stripes and right click to select Make Clipping Mask. This will hide the extruding areas.

Select the Polygon Tool and hold Shift as your drag a polygon on the canvas. Hold Alt/Option and drag the first polygon to make another copy of it. Do this until you have 3 copies of it.

Select all 3 polygons and swap it to black fill. Then group it by pressing Ctrl/Command+G.

We will now crop away the overlapping areas of the polygons. Select the bee’s body and go Object>Path>Offset Path and set the Offset value to 10pt. Send the new path to the top by pressing Ctrl+Shift+] / Command+Shift+].

Select both the offset path and polygons and open up your Pathfinder (Window>Pathfinder). Hold Alt/Option as you select Subtract from shape area.

Final Touch ups

Finally, we will add in the text for our final logo. Notice I have increased the strokes for the bee’s body to make sure that the line doesn’t fade out when printing. Also zoom out to see whether it still looks clear and sharp when it is small. Print out a copy at different sizes to see how it will look in letterheads and continue tweaking until you are satisfied.

Cleaning up the Logo

Once I am happy with my logo, I will start cleaning up my logo. Save a copy of your logo so that you still have the original copy to work with if you need to make any adjustments. Now select your text and outline it by pressing Ctrl+Shift+O / Command+Shift+O to convert it to paths. This will prevent missing fonts on other computers.

Next, select the bee stripes and go Pathfinder and select Trim to trim away the edges.

Select the paths of your bee that are made contains line strokes and go Object>Expand and click OK. We will need to expand it to maintain the same stroke thickness or else the proportions get distorted when we rescale the logo.

After we expanded the bee, hold Shift and select the bee stripes. Go Pathfinder and hold Alt/Option as your select Add to shape area. This will combine the bee shapes together.

Finally, we will add in the colors for the logo and we are logo is done.

This is the last lesson of my 30days Illustrator CS3 tutorials. For more illustrator training resources, read my list of recommended illustrator books & videos.

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In this lesson, we will learn how to crop your artwork for exporting to JPG for website or printing. We will also cover about EPS file which is the universal format for saving vector graphics.

Savings Files Using Crop Area

When you try to export your file to a JPG, sometimes you may notice white areas around the image. This is due to the hidden images under the mask (see example below). Illustrator exports the bounding box of all the objects in the artboard regardless of whether it is masked away. To solve this problem, you will need to define a crop area to tell Illustrator this is the area to export rather than exporting the whole graphic.

Defining Crop Area

Draw a rectangle to define the area your want to export. Select it and go Object>Crop Area>Make.

The crop marks will appear.

Go File>Export. Select JPEG as file type and click Save. The JPEG Options will appear. Depending whether you are saving for website graphics or printing, you may need to change the settings.

For Website/Screen:
Quality: 6-8
Resolution Depth: Screen

For Printing
Quality: 12
Resolution Depth: High

Saving As EPS File

I have introduced you the Illustrator file .AI format in the first lesson. However, this file can only be read by Illustrator. There is also another universal format which Designers normally save for printing and exporting artwork to Indesign and QuarkXPress. This is the EPS file. Go File>Save As and select EPS for file type. When you save the EPS Options will pop up. Saving at default normally will work. However you may need to save to a lower version if someone else got problems opening your file.

Version: Choose Illustrator 8.0 if you want it to make sure that all programs are compatible. However, transparency objects will be flattened.

Preview: Embeds a quick preview for seeing your artwork when importing to other softwares

Transparency Preset: Set it to High Resolution if you are printing and the artwork contains transparency

Embed Fonts: Check this if you want to embed the fonts in the EPS so that the font will be available when someone else opens it.

Next Lesson: Designing a Logo »
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With Clipping Mask and Opacity Mask, you can quickly mask away any unwanted areas you wish to hide. Let’s take a look how it works…

Clipping Mask

In this illustration I have 3 layers. The background, sunburst effect and the sun. I will need to mask the sunburst to a square.

First, I will select both the sunburst and background and group it together. Select both with Selection Tool and press Ctrl/Command+G to group it.

Draw a rectangle to decide the area you want to show. Make sure it is at the topmost layer.

Select both the background and the path. Right click and select Make Clipping Mask (Object>Clipping Mask>Make).

Next send the background to the back by pressing Ctrl+Shift+[ / Command+Shift+[.

Editing Clipping Mask

To make any changes to the clipping mask go under the group and select Clipping Path. You can rescale your clipping path in here. To remove the clipping path, go Object>Clipping Mask>Release.

Opacity Mask

Opacity lets your create transparency to your layer. The Intensity of black will determine the opacity of the layer. Black will be transparent and white will be opaque.

Instead of drawing a square in our previous example, I’m now going to draw a circle instead and fill it with gradient.

Now select both shapes and select Make Opacity Mask by clicking the Options icon at the corner of the Transparency Palette.

So now, I have an opacity mask that has the edges fading out. Opacity Mask is a very good way of blending edges to the background and it will prove useful in your illustrations.

Next Lesson: Saving & Printing »
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