Gautch

Transmissionapps.com download button in AI

gautch — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:02:32 +0000

So Carrsonified.com posted “5 Advanced Photoshop Techniques for Web Designers” and in the 1st tip they show you how to make some buttons in Photoshop. Upon seeing the final result I thought I could do it in Illustrator.

So minus the arrow, here is the final result:

Yep, all that text is editable and the box will resize for you so here is the download link: Download.

Vector Paisley Pattern Tutorial

gautch — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:12:55 +0000

Ok, sooo after a long wait I’ve found the art and is prepping it to upload, it turns out I didn’t find the final AI i originally posted. But instead I found the files I used to build it. A big plus for you all!

So in this post ill give you a quick tutorial on how to use the pattern.
Step 01
Open the file and open your Swatches and Appearance pallets.

Step 02
Create a box:

Then fill it by selecting the pattern swatch (top left):

Step 01
You can resize it or even grab your pen tool and make an odd shape.

Step 01
Simple right? So the only problem is when your Paisley shape is over something else like so:

Step 01

Lets fix that. Open your Appearance pallet if its not already.
Add a fill. And fill it with white.

Step 01
Then move it down below the Paisley pattern fill.

TADA!!! Nice work.

Step 01
Lets go a step further and look at the resizing issues. In your Transform pallet lets click “Transform Both”.

See what happens when you resize it? The pattern resizes with the shape.

Now select “Transform Object Only”…

… and see what happens. This time the shape resizes, but the pattern stays.

Step 01
You’ll witch between “Transform Object Only” and “Transform Both” as you move the object around. This setting doesn’t only affect resizing but also position.

Now go and have fun with this. Oh whoops i almost forgot the link to the download.
Illustrator CS2 (but im pretty sure it will work in version 10 and CS):

Be sure to check out the rest of this blog and all my freebies!

Anouncement.

gautch — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:14:54 +0000

Ok.. so after looong months of looking and making phone calls ect… ect… I have found the Vector Paisley Pattern files. If you don’t remember you can see it here.

Ill be posting it in the next day or two. I’ll also update this post and the original.

Update: Ok so i posted a tutorial and the file here.

-Gautch

Blue Gloss tutorial

gautch — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:21:10 +0000

Today we will learn how to create a simple glossy graphic style using a couple of gradients. All of this magic will happen in the Appearance Pallet.
Oh and then we’ll go on to resize everything Dynamicaly. Hold your horses, ill explain Dynamic Objects shortly.
Here is what we are going to make:

Step 1

We are going to start with a rectangle, with out round corners. This one is 200 px X 200 px.

Step 2

Open your Appearance Pallet (Shft+f6 or Window->Appearance). Select your Fill layer and add a gradient. Make sure the Angle is set to 90.

Step 3

Select your Stroke Layer in the Appearanc Pallet. And choose white in your swatches. Set it to 2 pt.

Step 4

Add a new Stroke and set its color to C=100, M=100, Y=0 and K=0.

Step 5

Select both layers by clicking on one, then shift+clicking on the other.
Now pull them below the fill. Then pull your Blue stroke below your white one.
Set your blue stroke with to 4 pt.

Step 6

Here is where it starts to look really good. Add a new fill (make sure it the top most layer).

Step 7

Give it a gradient according to this image.

Step 8

Open yoru Transperancy Pallet (Shft+Ctrl+F10 or Windows->Transperancy) and set the mode to Multiply.
Awesome! So far.

Step 9

Lets add a drop shadow. Select the top “Path” in your Appearance Pallet.
Click Effect->Stylize->Drop Shadow. Turn on the Preview. I like subltle shadows, I hate when it screams “Look im a noob and use the defult settings” Soo… Play with your settings till you like it.

Step 9-b

If your Drop Shadow Effect isn’t on the bottum most position, you’ll need to drag it down.

Step 10

Again, click the Path on the top of the Appearance Pallet. Then select Effect->Stylize->Round Corners…
I set mine to 0.403 pt.

Further more…

So there you have it. A nice shiny blue box with round corners. Why did we choose Effects rather than Affects? Well this keeps it as a Dynamic Object. This means it editable. Go a head and grab that box a squish it.. see the corners stay perfectly round. If you did that with a “Rounded Rectangle Tool” it would have squashed your corners.
As you can see here, you can quickly add this Apperance to any Object or Text. The “design” having been done in your Appearance Pallet keeps that Text (or any object) editable. Though with text you’ll probably want to drop the Round Corners on text.

…one more thing.

Ok you got your nice Appearance, now you want to apply it to somthing else. Open your Graphic Styles Pallet (Shft+F5 or Windows->Graphic Styles). Click the Pallet Menu and select “New Graphic Style…” That saves it for later use.

Soo… Your a tad lazy and want the source file. Well your in luck, i posted this way back in May of last year. But im a nice guy, so here’s a link to the original post. Though, I’d rather you learn how to do this your self.

-Gautch

Outlining your text = Bad idea!

gautch — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:11:43 +0000

I worked at an in-house design agency a short while back that would do about 100 to 150 ads a week. They had a practice of outlining text before it went to print, to save them from font issues. While this can help you with a printer, one thing we learned was artists didn’t Un-Do the create outline step, thus saving over the editable version. One of the worst things you can do is click on “Create Outlines”. Now there is something to be said about taking a little time and thinking about what your doing, but 6-8 artist working on that many ads per week can ensure a mishap every so often. This short tutorial, hopefully, will save you in the future.

Here is how I prep a file for print. First, the best way to have something printed, is to send a PDF. And to do that you’ll want to “Print” a PostScript to Acrobat Distiller. Why PostScript? Postscript is what you print; it contains multiple pages, page sizes etc. Why not just “Save As..” an .EPS? Well an .EPS is different from a .PS. That “EPS” stands for “Encapsulated PostScript”. It is an element (contain graphics, text, fonts) that can be placed into QuarkXpress, PageMaker, InDesign and other applications. It may also contain a preview (TIFF or PICT) It does not contain a page size nor multiple pages.
If your in InDesign you’ll want to use the PostScript. So its best to get in the habit now, even when your doing one page designs in AI.

(Hint hint, nudge nudge… Eh-hem, I’m talking to you LAD.
You know who you are)

Where was I? Ah yes.. printing:

Once you click “Print”, on the left side click on “Advanced”. Here you are presented with your Overprint and Transparency Flattener Options. You can also see you only have three options, High, Medium and Low.

If you click Custom you’ll be presented with this window. Now while there is a “Convert All Text to Outlines” option, this is not the best way to do it. Soooo lets hit cancel in this window, and the print window.

Here is where the 5 step tutorial starts…

Click Edit->Transparency Flattener Presets…

Now your presented with this window. Lets click “New…”

I named mine “OUTLINED.” Pretty creative huh?! You can name yours anything else,
but keep it simple. The default settings are fine.

Note: you can set your Raster/Vector Balance to 100, and the Line Art and Text Resolution to 1200, then set your Gradient and Mesh Resolutions to 300. those are the setting for the [High Resolution] preset. If your PDF is to big of a file, then go in and set these back to 75, 300, and 150.

Here is the most important step… click that check box
“Convert All Text to Outlines”:

Click “OK” then “OK” again on the Presets window.

Now go Flie->Print

And again go to your “Advanced” settings.
You can now see your “OUTLINED” settings are there in the drop down.

Set all your other print settings and hit print. Once its done, you can save the document and not worry about your print settings our your outlined text. The AI file will save these settings, and your text will be safe and sound.
See isn’t that better than “Creating Outlines”, saving and forgetting to undo it. Only to find out your up against a deadline and you suddenly can’t edit the text? Id say so.

Web Navigations

gautch — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:43:12 +0000

Here are some free web navigations.

Here is the link with Illustrator 10, CS, and CS2:

Be sure to check out the rest of this blog and all my freebies!

Update

gautch — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:55:56 +0000

While i was trying to update my hosting and URL i didn’t back up the blog. Whoops. So let this be a lessen to all of you, back it up! Now on to your regularly scheduled program.

So I’ve given a few (around 20) free Illustrator files with countless Styles and tips. Now I have a question for you.
Is there a Graphic Style you’ve seen on my site that you would like a tutorial for?

Thats it, simply name one and ill get going on it.

Host is down…

gautch — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:40:55 +0000

I have to apologies, my hosting provider sucks and is down. Ill let you all know when its up and running.
It should only be a few days.

Sorry.

UPDATE:
Ok so here is an update. Apperantly my URL (gautch.com) expired. Doh! So all my links were down also.
The good news, my web host was good to me and helped me out. Soooo… that means all thoes links should be working.

-Gautch

Adobe Exchange Downloads: 46,532 and counting

gautch — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:05:08 +0000

Thats right, I said 46,532 downloads. What is the Adobe Exchange Downloads? Well Adobe has a section on there site called Exchange. Its basically a place artists can upload Adobe files for others to download. I started offering what I offer here on that service. It allowed me to reach a good amount of artists without having to come up with a web site, such as this.

46,532 is how many time my file have been downloaded (at the time of this post) with 12,695 being the highest for my Illustrator Plastic Style and 1,838 for my Illustrator Plastic Style V 2.0. So my reason for this post? Well I feel 50,000 downloads is some pretty good bragging rights. Yep, I’ll be bragging when it hits the big 50! Its about time I brag a tad.

Thats it, I’m a pretty modest guy so I’ll stop there.
Oh and here is a link to those files in case you want them-> Link

I’ve Moved!!

gautch — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:05:41 +0000

Just a quick FYI, this blog has moved to a new home. You’ll need to update your RSS to this ->Link. If you want to see the blog in all is glory you can see it here. -> Link.

So you ask why the move? Well it was originally because I wanted to use a better theme. I currently have my personal site (here) and wanted to co-brand it with my blog. Its an exercise in branding. I had been wanting to brand me and my work so people will associate it all as one. Currently people say, “Gautch? Whats that?”. Then i have to explain is actually pronounced “Josh”, and then I have to go on about how its my brand and all that goes with that explanation. So this move is basically the first step, of many, to creating that brand.

Head over to the new site and ill be posting new downloads for you shortly.