Premium Tutorial: Illustrator Seamless Patterns

By
Tony Soh
-
13
3349

illustrator seamless patterns

Secrets of Making Illustrator Seamless Patterns

If you ever tried making your illustrator seamless pattern, you probably have failed to make it tile perfectly. Things get even harder when the pattern is random and chaotic.

In this tutorial, I will show you my own unique technique of creating seamless patterns and tiles effortlessly. I will start with a leaf and show you how to create a pile of leaves with different shades. After that, I will reveal my trick to make it tile seamlessly. With this technique in hand, you will be able to create your own wallpaper patterns.

Difficulty: Basic - Intermediate tutorial
Requirements: Adobe Illustrator

What will you get?

    • Instant download of PDF e-book (10 pages)
    • Easy to follow with screenshots
    • Learn about using Symbol Sprayer
    • Discover the trick to create perfect seamless patterns
    • Learn to use illustrator pattern swatches to create repeated tiles
    • Source file for easy reference
    • 30 days money back guarantee if not satisfied

Tutorial Preview:

1. After you have drawn the graphic you would like to repeat, open up your Symbols Palette(Windows>Symbols). Select your graphic and drag it into the Symbols Palette to create an instance. Leave this object aside as we will not be using it anymore.

2. From your Tool Palette, select the Symbol Sprayer and click and drag to duplicate more symbol instances.

3. Under Symbol Sprayer, you can find the Symbol Sizer. Select it and click on the symbol instances to resize it. By default, the tool will increase the size of the symbol instances. Holding down the Alt/Option will decrease the size of the symbol instances. To change the settings for Symbol Sizer, you can double click on it to open up the Options window.

4. Now we will randomly rotate the leaves. Select the Symbol Spinner and click and drag in one direction to rotate it. Arrow icons will appear to indicate the direction it will spin towards. Repeat this for all the leaves until you get a pile of scattered leaves.

5. To create a variety of tones for the leaves, we will use the Symbol Stainer. Select a dark tone of green for your Fill in the Tool Palette. This will set the tint color. Click on areas you would like to tint with the chosen colour and spread it out evenly.

6. Next, we will use Object>Expand to expand the symbol instances. This will break it up into editable instances. By default, Illustrator places the symbol instances in a group after expanding it. Hence we will need to ungroup it by pressing Ctrl/Command+G.



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13 COMMENTS

  1. fantastic! thanks so much for making this available… patterns have always thrown me, so this tutorial will come in handy. i look forward to your other premium tutorials!

  9. I want to make seamless patterns with complex swirls and flowers (I have something like what I want to make as the background to my website now). I have downloaded and purchased many.. but want to make something similar to what I use as my background (swirls and dashes on a large scale that). Will this tutorial help me create something like that?

  10. Hi Lolly, this tutorial will teach you how to make the 4 edges tile with your pattern. But for your pattern, you will still need to know how to use illustrator to draw the swirls and dashes. For such a complicated pattern, I will work on the edges and use my tiling technique to make sure they tile before working to the center of the tile.

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