INFOGRAPHIC SERIES - Making Patterns in Illustrator

Create anything in Illustrator and turn it into a pattern in a few quick steps. If you have ever used a pattern in Illustrator, you may have found that PATTERNS DON'T MOVE WITH THE SHAPE! This tutorial will show you how they can scale and move with the shape and how to edit and create cool patterns. Enjoy!

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Draw a shape, fill it with a color.

Rotate it 90°.

Create a copy of the first shape.

Draw a rectangle over half of one of the shapes. Select both shapes and use the Pathfinder>Minus Front

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This will leave you with half a rectangle. 

Reduce the size, fill it with white and line it up inside the first shape.

Add a stroke with white. Select all the shapes. 

Under Window>Patterns, open up the Patterns Panel. Click on the Panel "cheesgrater" and choose Make Pattern.

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Patterns are added to you Swatch Panel.

Once saved, the Pattern Panel will show all options. 

Choose the Tile Type (layout) of the pattern you want to achieve.

On the page you will see the original artwork inside a bounding box, with the pattern displayed beyond the edge of the box. 

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You can scale the content and have it affect the entire pattern. 

Once you have achieved the look o the pattern, click DONE in the upper left corner of the document. This will exit out of the pattern editing process. 

Draw andy shape and apply the pattern fill from the Swatches Panel.

Patterns WILL NOT MOVE WITH THE SHAPE! This can be frustrating to say the least. If you want to scale, move or rotate the shape AND have the pattern move with it, double-click on the Scale tool in the Tool bar. Click the box Transform Patterns. 

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To edit a pattern, click on the shape that has the pattern fill on it and the click on the Pattern Panel ”cheesegrate” and choose Edit Pattern.

Once you complete the editing of the pattern, click DONE in the upper left side of the document to exit out.