Need a seaworthy pattern for your summer designs? A patterns with anchors and life preservers might just do the trick.
In this tutorial, we’ll be designing a simple and stylish nautical geometrical seamless pattern, creating the perfect pattern for a light touch of summer. Armed with the Pattern Tool, basic shapes in Adobe Illustrator, and a
very handy free script, you’ll be able to make great geometric patterns using any design you want in no time.
1. Create a
Simple Anchor Using Basic Shapes
Step 1
To start, create a New Document of 600×600 px size. Take the Ellipse Tool (L) and
make an even circle by holding the Shift
key. Use the Convert Anchor Point Tool
(Shift-C) to move the anchor handles in the bottom of our circle. Set them
perpendicular to their initial position, so that we get a sharp corner at the
bottom of our shape.
Here is how
our shape looks now.
Step 2
Copy the shape and Paste it in Front (Control-C > Control-F). Move the
created copy up a bit. We will need only the bottom part of these two crossing
shapes, so use the Shape Builder Tool
(Shift-M) to delete the upper part that we do not need. Hover the cursor
over the unneeded part: you’ll notice this part becomes grey, then just click while holding the Alt key to delete this part.
Step 3
Delete the
big middle part of our shape in the same way. Now we have only the bottom part
left—just what we needed. Fill this shape with black color.
Step 4
Take the Rectangle Tool (M) to create a narrow
rectangle shape running up from our anchor’s bottom part. Select two lower
anchor points with the Direct Selection
tool (A) and move them to the opposite sides from each other in order to
make the rectangle wider at the bottom.
Step 5
Now make a smaller rectangle and put it across the middle part. Add a small even
circle on top of our anchor.
Step 6
Keep the
circle selected and go to Object >
Path > Offset Path. Set the offset value to -15px or adjust this value to the size of your anchor, according to
the screenshot below. Use the Shape
Builder tool (Shift-M) again to cut out the smaller circle, thus creating a
nice ring.
Step 7
Make a
triangle by using the Polygon Tool and
setting the Sides value to 3. Go to Effect > Warp > Arc and set the Bend value to 20%, Vertical in order to make our triangle slightly curved.
Step 8
Place the
curved shape over the left part of our anchor to create a fluke.
Modify it
slightly by adding the anchor point in the middle of the base and moving it up a
bit. Convert it to sharp corner by clicking the point with the Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift-C).
Step 9
Use the Reflect Tool (O) to reflect out fluke
over the vertical axis and place the copy on the other side of our anchor.
Step 10
Make the
bottom part of the anchor a bit wider and more massive and Unite the shapes in Pathfinder
Panel.
Step 11
Select the
anchor point in the bottom of the middle part and use the Convert selected anchor points to smooth option in the control
panel above in order to make a smooth curve, as shown on the screenshot.
Step 12
Make the
handles shorter with Convert Anchor
Point Tool (Shift-C) to straighten the center shape and use the Guides to make
both sides of our anchor symmetrical.
Our anchor
is ready! We can move to the next part and create a stylish pattern!
2. Design a Simple Anchor Pattern using the Pattern Tool
Step 1
Select our
anchor and go to Object > Pattern
> Make. After entering the Pattern
Mode, you will find the Pattern
Options window, where you can change the Name of your pattern and play with other options. Here I’ve set the
Width and the Height of the Tile to 600px (which is equal to the size of
our Artboard) and left other options as default. You can still change the
position and size of your objects, recolor them, add new shapes and do whatever
you like to improve the overall composition. I’ve added one more anchor,
turned it upside down and placed a
couple of circles to make the pattern more fanciful.
Step 2
Return to
normal mode and use the Scale Tool (S)
to reduce the pattern’s scale smaller by half. Don’t forget to uncheck all
other boxes except the Transform Pattern
box in the Scale options window.
Step 3
Go to Object > Expand after you are
satisfied with the size and overall look of your pattern, thus turning it into
a set of separate objects. Don’t worry, you can still find and edit your
pattern in the Swatches Panel.
Step 4
Select the
expanded pattern and click it with right mouse button to Release Clipping Mask.
Select all the black shapes and turn them into Compound Path by hitting the Control-8
keys combination or finding this option in Object
> Compound Path > Make.
Step 5
Create a
square white background of a size of our Artboard and Send it to Back (Shift-Control-[ ). Now select both the
black compound path and the background and use the Minus Front function in Pathfinder
to cut out the anchors.
Here is how
our pattern looks now: the pink part has anchor-shaped holes, under which the
background is clearly seen. I’ve applied random contrast colors to show the
effect of Minus Front function.
3. Render a
Stylish Geometrical Texture with Pathfinder and Scripts
Step 1
Let’s move
on and create a geometrical background for our pattern. Firstly, create a
straight vertical line with the Line
Segment Tool (\) and align it with the left side of our Artboard. Keeping
the line selected, press the Enter key to open the Move options window. Set the Horizontal
Position value to 20 px and Vertical – to 0 px, leaving all other options as default. Hit the Copy button in order to duplicate your
line.
Step 2
Press Control-D keys combination several
times to make more copies of the line, covering the whole Artboard.
Step 3
When you
have enough lines, select them and use the Rotate
tool (O) to rotate the lines to 90
degrees and press the Copy
button, thus creating a set of horizontal lines.
Step 4
Create
another line and this time rotate it to 45
degrees with the Rotate Tool (O)
or by holding the Shift button and
rotating the line manually with the Selection
tool (V). Place it at the top left corner of your Artboard. Be sure that
your line is long enough to cross the whole Artboard. Better make it as long as
possible, because later you can delete the unneeded parts.
Use the Move option again to move the line 20 px by vertical axis and Copy your line.
Duplicate
the line multiple times by pressing Control-D.
Step 5
Select all
the lines and Divide them in Pathfinder.
Step 6
Delete the
parts outside the Artboard. Now we have a nice grid, consisting of separate
triangles.
Go ahead
and set the Fill color of these
shapes to a bright blue color and the Stroke
color to none.
Step 7
Now we need
to apply a vivid color effect to our geometrical pattern. We could set the color of every triangle manually, but that would be very time-consuming. Luckily, we
have an opportunity to use a great free script by John Wundes,
called “Vary Hues / Randomize Colors”, which you can find here, in John’s Scripts. Check out this article if you’re not sure how to install and launch the
script in a right way. All in all, using scripts is pretty easy and
saves a lot of time.
To start
with, Ungroup the shapes.
Find the Vary Hues script by opening Other Script menu with Control-F12 combination and execute the
script. Firstly, we need to vary the Fill colors. Follow the instructions on
the pop-up window and enter a number from 1 to 100. The bigger the number, the
more variations you get. Set the value to 25
and hit the OK button.
Step 8
Secondly,
we need to vary the Opacity of our
shapes. The result already looks quite intricate, however, let’s try it out.
Enter two numbers, for example, 5 and 60, separated by comma. These numbers represent the opacity range.
Step 9
Our pattern
became more transparent.
Now we can put a nice background under it. Add a square of a size of our Artboard and fill
it with a vivid radial gradient from bright blue in the center to darker blue
on the edges, making our pattern sparkling and bright.
Step 10
Place the
anchor seamless pattern that we’ve created earlier over the geometrical
texture.
Now you can
drag the whole pattern to your Swatches Panel and apply it to any shape of any size!
Great job!
Your Geometrical Seamless Pattern with Anchors is finished!
We’ve
managed to design a pattern using a trendy geometrical background and still
preserving a nice nautical look and simple neat shapes. You can create your own similar pattern with other objects and colors if you like. Have fun experimenting!
{excerpt}
Read More