Pathfinder Tools : Exclude

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Wrapping your head around the Pathfinder Tools in Illustrator:

Okay. A lot of newbies out there may not know or fully understand all the capabilities of the Pathfinder Tool in Illustrator. So if you are an experienced designer you may find this post dull and boring and blah blah blah. But! Please read on regardless and feel free to elaborate and expand upon this little "how-to" in the comments. 

If you'd like to work along go ahead and open a new project in Illustrator in whatever size you want, this is just an exercise/tutorial. I will be using my logo as examples.

Make sure your Pathfinder Tools window is in full view by bringing it forward: easy way is to navigate to Window option up top, find Pathfinder, click!

This is what your Pathfinder window looks like:

I will go over each one in different posts because I have not had the chance to use all of them and some options I just don't understand.

Today I will be addressing the Exclude tool:

If you would like to play along go ahead and make two shapes: circles, squares, one circle, one square, whatever. Just make two shapes that are different colors so you can more readily see results of our actions.

Here is my original logo (one of many actually, but this is my most recent logo I chose to use) and although I like it, it was too tall and skinny to be implemented in all these web applications.

So I wanted to re-adjust some elements

oh where oh where should that exclamation mark go...

After playing around I wanted the exclamation mark to overlap in some way.

Ta-da! Hmm. Still looks awkward.

I want the parts of the exclamation point that are overlapping to be (hmm how best to put this?) "transparent" so we can see the H passing through the point.


At this point in your own exercise, take one shape and put it on top of the other. Not directly on top, but just so one of the edges are overlapping.

For your simple exercise it doesn't matter which shape is on top when we use the exclude tool, however in my logo I want the exclamation point to be in front of the H so the parts of the exclamation point will be taken away and not the H. I want to see the curves of the H. The shortcut on a Mac is "command+shift+]" or just go to Object - Arrange - Bring to Front (I don't work on a PC, sorry folks)

With both shapes selected go ahead and click on that exclude button!

I only selected my H and exclamation point.

Voila! To better see what happened on your end- make another shape a different color and send it to the back ("command+shift+[" or Object - Arrange - Send to Back) and move it behind your other shapes and you should see that the exclude tool took away the shapes that were overlapping:

Seeeeee????

But wait. In my logo I have a leftover piece hanging around that I don't want:

Lets get rid of it. Easy enough since the points are overlapping making it a separate shape.

I chose the Direct Select tool (the white arrow tool) and selected that little shape. Then I hit DELETE! Easy. Peasey.

Wouldn't want to be ya!

And there my friends we have a finished logo:

©Amanda Haskin. Word!

Questions? Comments? Let's hear it!

Feeling Sheepish

My family and I have been on a bit of vacation. Could barely afford it but we made our way to the Carolina coastline for some rest and relaxation. Our First Family Vacation!

And we returned more poor than ever!

But you know, even poor people need vacations every now and then, however the majority would rather stay home and drink then travel. Not that I object to that activity, to each their own! I like drinking away from home... :)

I've been hemming and hawing away at this website dilemma. I don't know which direction I want to take; I want to keep my Blogger account- I enjoy the simplicity and ease of use, but I want more freedom in changing things up. I guess its my total lack of understanding CSS that is keeping me down. I'm reading scores of articles and have watched countless tutorials but my brain just doesn't want to cooperate. It doesn't help that my life is bogged down by a job I am not satisfied with, I'm not ungrateful, there are lots of people unemployed, but good grief retail drains the soul right out of you.

You've been on People of Walmart, you see what I have to deal with daily...

In the meantime I've managed to make a simple vector illustration of my sheep drawing, I may transfer it to a linoleum cut and see about stamping stuff:

Cheers!

My Personal Design Profile

So I just purchased my own domain name with Blogger! I'm so excited that I have my very own personal URL... one step closer to total web domination!

Not exactly, but I am working hard on my web design skills, so hopefully sometime in the very near future this site will be totally redesigned by me.

In the meantime I would like to introduce you to my personal design style:

I am a designer with seven years immersed in the design industry; six of those years spent in higher education while also working and freelancing in the graphic arts. Acclaimed by instructors and employers for having a discerning eye and learning new methods quickly. I am in a constant state of perpetual creativity by exploring and learning through cyberspace and text.

My personal design style reflects minimalism, however I love to explore new techniques in texture and layering, pushing my creative limits to the next level. My Illustrator skills outweigh my Photoshop skills which is evident by the numerous vector graphics I have created over the years.

Here are some samples of my vector illustrations:

I'm working very hard at putting my full portfolio up here, so please be patient, with work and family it is hard to carve out time to learn new things. But I'm excited for these new opportunities to stretch my design muscles!

Here's a question for any web designers, or anyone who knows HTML: what is the code for a downloadable link? Or how do I make one?