HOW TO CREATE A REPEATING TILE OR PATTERN IN ILLUSTRATOR

By: Caleb Tomplait

August 11th 2009

contact: ctomp1984@yahoo.com

STEP 1:

Start by opening Adobe Illustrator and creating a new document from the FILE / NEW DOCUMENT menu. You are presented with a dialog box where you can then click OK leaving everything at its default value.

STEP 2:

Once your document is open the you need to SHOW RULERS. You can do this by going to VIEW / SHOW RULERS or you can use the shortcut key of CTR + R on PC and CMD + R on Mac.

STEP 3:

From the same VIEW menu you also want to turn on SHOW GRID and SNAP TO GRID. I will not list all shortcut keys in this tutorial however please take note that they are listed next to each option in the menus you will be accessing.

STEP 4:

To start our pattern we need to set up our layout and to do this we need a perfect square. From your TOOLS you will need to SELECT the RECTANGLE TOOL. Make sure your fill is set to white and your stroke is set to black.

STEP 5:

Now if you notice your grid is separated by small squares and larger squares with a darker outline. Move your cursor over the cross areas of two dark lines. While holding shift to constrain the square, CLICK and DRAG until you have something like what is shown in the picture.

STEP 6:

With your square shape still selected go to OBJECT / LOCK / SELECTION to lock the square in position.

STEP 7:

Now go to VIEW / HIDE GRID to hide it. You also need some guides to help you out with your pattern. Remember how we turned on show rulers earlier? Move your cursor into the ruler area and DRAG OUT RULERS to the edges of your square. They should snap right to the edge of your square because we also turned on snap to grid earlier. Your art board should look like the following image.

STEP 8:

Now you can make any shapes you want for your tile pattern. For this particular exercise I have made some Moorish patterns and arranged them on my art board. You will want to arrange your shapes within the square making sure that they overlap the edges of the square. This is where the pattern will start to repeat.

STEP 9:

Now unlock your guides by going to VIEW / GUIDES / LOCK GUIDES. If it has a check mark next to it then the guides are currently locked. If there is no check mark then they are unlocked.

STEP 10:

Now with your guides unlocked and your shapes arranged on your square, you will want to DRAG A MARQUEE around one of your shapes and one of the guides to select both the shape and the guide. Your selection should look like the image here.

STEP 11:

With your guide and shape selected HOLD ALT or OPTION and SHIFT and CLICK and start dragging to the right. Your cursor should turn from a black arrow to a black arrow over a white arrow (this indicates that you are about to duplicate your selection). As you start dragging, you will see a blue preview of what you are about to duplicate. Keep dragging until your new duplicate guide line snaps to the guide to the right as shown in the picture.

STEP 12:

Repeat this method to get your shapes duplicated to the bottom of your square while making sure your guides remain intact. Now why are we doing this? The square represents the area of the repeating pattern we are creating. Anything outside of the square will be cut off, but what gets cut off on one side needs to be duplicated to the opposite side of the square.

STEP 13:

Your image should look similar to the following.

STEP 14:

Unlock your square by going to OBJECT / UNLOCK ALL and then select your square and go to OBJECT / ARRANGE / BRING TO FRONT. Also you will want to remove the stroke and fill from the square so all we have is an outline.

STEP 15:

SELECT EVERYTHING except the guides and in your PATHFINDER pallet CLICK CROP as indicated in the image.

STEP 16:

What just happened? Well you just used the square you made to crop everything on the outside of the square away leaving you with something like the following image. ALMOST THERE!

STEP 17:

SELECT YOUR PATTERN and go to EDIT / DEFINE PATTERN (you can also drag your selection to your swatches pallet). You will be presented with a NEW SWATCH dialog box. What's this? Well in here you will want to name your pattern. I named mine "My Pattern". Once you CLICK OK your new pattern will be stored in your swatches pallet.

STEP 18:

NOW FOR THE MOMENT OF TRUTH! Grab your rectangle tool and drag out a new rectangle of any size. SELECT YOUR PATTERN as the FILL and if you created your pattern correctly then your pattern should tile within your rectangle. CONGRATULATIONS!

STEP 19:

Now you'll notice that if you scale your rectangle, your pattern will by default keep filling more and more of your rectangle as you make it bigger. What if you want to squash your pattern? Easy! To do this you need to go to OBJECT / TRANSFORM / SCALE and make sure your PATTERNS box has a check in it under OPTIONS.

CLICK HERE FOR SAMPLE START FILES