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Adobe Illustrator CC - Advanced Training

Class Project 08 - How to make multiple lines using offset path in Adobe Illustrator CC (Create a type design using offset path)

Daniel Walter Scott

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Hey there, we're going to make multiple lines from one line. It's called Offsetting Path. We're going to start with this kind of first guy, where we expand him out and do some cool race track looking stuff. We code in, then we do a little bit more elaborate when we both do the outside, like this kind of Drop Shadow effect here, plus an inner line here so we can slice out, and lots of strappy lines. All right, let's go learn how to do that now in Adobe Illustrator. 

Let's start with a really simple thing. Let's draw anything you like. I'm using the Curvature Tool. I'm trying to convey you across. So double click for corners, I'll even hold 'Shift'. Click once for a curve. Double click for a corner. What am I drawing? I don't know, I just kind of made this up before I made this tutorial. Seems kind of a cool shape. So double click in, and I'm going to go back this way a little bit. Double click for a corner, double click for a corner. Mine's kind of weird because it's got a Fill. So I'm going to get rid of that Fill, goodbye Fill, and add a Stroke. I'm using that kind of lemony green color. Awesome! 

So I've got this. Now I want to go and create those extra lines. It's very simple, with my 'Black Arrow' I'm going to go to 'Object', 'Path', there's one here that says 'Offset Path'. I'm going to turn Preview on, to see how far apart it's going to be. Depending on your measurements, yours might be set to points or inches. I can adjust this. One of the things you might do is the joints here. Basically what you're looking for is the ends, and where these corners change. So Miter does a Square Corner. Round, obviously it's rounded ends, might be cool, or Bevel, kind of chops them off at the sides. You can decide what you want to do. 

So it's created this kind of extra separate line. With that selected, you can just keep going. I'm going to make another one. I'm going to go to 'Path', and go to 'Offset Path'. I'll leave it at the same dimensions, click 'OK'. Now I've got a few of them, cool. My drawing wasn't the best even though I'm trying to show you how great the tool is. I'll get rid of the Curvature Tools, doesn't matter. I should have spent a bit more time at the beginning. What I'm going to do now though is just extend this off for no reason. That's why it looks kind of cool. Let's say you want to fill these lines, let's select them all. Use our Shape Builder Tool, which is that guy there. I'm going to pick some Fill colors, and stuff, and get in. The outside's going to be that. You're going to be that. And maybe, that is going to be that one. Maybe I'll get rid of this Stroke, goodbye Stroke. 

So that is phase 1 of Offset Stroke. Let's look at doing that slightly more advanced one we saw at the beginning, with the text. So I've just made a new Artboard on the side here. I'm going to pick a Font. I've picked Abril, Abril Fatface. It is another one from Typekit. You can download them for free if you've got a Creative Cloud subscription. Type a word, I'll type my name. I'm going to give it a Fill of white. And for this to work it needs to be outlined. So I'm going to make a duplicate over here just in case I forget what the font is. To outline, it is 'Type', and it is down here, 'Create Outlines'. For this to work, if I leave it with a Fill and no Stroke, it doesn't quite work, so we're going to flip those over. Super shortcut time, it is 'Shift X'. Will toggle whatever you've got in the Fill with the Stroke or just change them manually. 

So I've a got a Stroke around the outside, no Fill. Now I go up to 'Object', I can go to 'Path'. And I can go to 'Offset Path'. Exactly like what we did earlier. Make sure Preview is on, and if it is in Offset, you can just click in here, and use your up arrow and down arrow just to kind of find where you want this thing to be. How far out you want it to be? This is the outside bit, but we kind of lob off the sides to make it look like a Drop Shadowy line thing. So that works for me. I'm going to click 'OK'. Let's do the internal one as well, so I'm going to click back on this-- like this thing is all grouped now, so I'm going to right click it, and say 'Ungroup'. I just want the center of these Ds, and As, and Ns. Same thing, 'Edit', same thing, 'Object', 'Path', 'Offset Path'. I'm going to do negatives. So I'm just going to do the exact same, but with that negative at the front. Turn Preview 'on'. 

There's always going to be some weird bits you might have to tidy up with the Anchor Points. Like that N in there, everything else looks okay, click 'OK'. Those are the inside parts and the outside parts. Let's slice the holes out of the middle, then do the Drop Shadow. It's a little bit messy, I'm going to grab these outside ones. I'm just going to turn the Stroke 'off'. So it makes it easy for you to see what I'm doing. Clean this up a bit later. So what I want to do is I'd love to fill the outside shapes. Remember our shortcut, 'Shift X', switches the Fill and the Stroke around. I've still got these internal ones. So this is where we're going to slice them out. I'm going to hold 'Shift', and—

Actually it's going to be a little hard with these outside lines. What I might do is just grab them, give them a Fill again, or a Stroke again. Just move them off. I'll be able to line them up again perfectly later on. So I've got these lines. I've got a Fill and there is this Stroke around the inside. So I'm going to use my Shape Builder Tool. It's 'Shift M' for grabbing the Shape Builder Tool. And just hold down the 'Alt' key on a PC, or 'Option' key on a Mac. Just click them, and that kind of slices the holes. 

What we might have to do before we do this one here-- I'm going to go to 'Outline Mode', which is 'Command Y' on a Mac, 'Control Y' on a PC. And then it's just these bits that need to be tidied up. Actually I'll grab my Pen Tool, just get rid of these points. Go back to my Anchor Point Tool, just tidy these up. Your name might not be Dan, so you might not have these dramas. It's really good extending itself, Smart Guides are really good. I love them. Cool. 

So, out of Outline mode again. And I'm going to select this guy, 'Shift M'. So these are my insides, now what we're going to do is the outsides. So really kind of slice parts of it off because we just want it kind of, like dropped off to the right. And what I'm going to do is-- I'll show you a couple of tricks. One is, first of all it's painful when that one's joining, so I'm just going to kind of move him across. You might want to track it out before you get started. There's two ways, let's look at these two ways. I'm going to make two copies. One way is the Scissors Tool. The Scissors Tool is one of those weird ones-- I never use it, then I sometimes grab it. I know it is the C Tool, there it is there. It's underneath your Eraser Tool, Scissors Tool. His job is to go, snip and snip. Then grab your Direct Selection Tool, click off click back on, and delete twice. Kind of gets rid of the junk you don't need. 

You could keep doing that, right? Just kind of guess where the Drop Shadow would fall. Now what I like to do-- I'll leave that one there. What I like to do is, let's say we'll do the D first. I'd like to grab it, make a duplicate by dragging. So while I'm dragging, I'm holding down the 'Option' key on a Mac, 'Alt' key on a PC. I'm holding 'Shift' as well, because it goes down at a 45° angle. It's going to kind of work for me. So we use one as like the slicer, and one as the result. To make it easy for you to see I'm going to make the Slicer green. So we're going to delete all of the green stuff. We're just going to use it. And we're going to go back to my favorite tool in the world, the Shape Builder Tool. 

And now what we're going to do is, we're going to say we don't need that line. I don't want that line. I do want that line down the bottom here. Great, Dan. So I want him, I want him. It's really for you to decide where the Drop Shadow goes. It can be tough. Don't want this green thing, go away, don't want that bit. I don't want you now. I'm going to click off now. I think there's some bits that I want left. I'll just use my Black Arrow to select those. So now I'm going to grab him, and that bit's done. It can be easy to line back up, Smart Guides to center. I wanted to be super smart. You get to do the same for this one. 

I'm not going to do the rest of it with you. I'm going to go do it when this video is over. It's Class Project time, I would love to see what you've done. You don't have to use the word Dan, unless your name is Dan. I'd like to see what font you use. If I was going to do it again now I'd probably make this inner part bigger. because I feel it's not doing what I want. You can put like stripes inside of these. Any which way you want, pick your font, pick your colors. I'd love to see what you've done. Post your projects here on this website. Also send me a-- tag me in. On Instagram, I'm bringyourownlaptop. Or on Twitter, I'm @danlovesadobe. Love to see what you've done. All right, on to the next video.