The Shape Builder and Pathfinder in Illustrator CS6

okay so we're going to take a look at the Pathfinder tool and the shape builder tool so let's take a look where both of these are first thing we want to do is we want to open up the Pathfinder tool so the pet not the Pathfinder tool the Pathfinder window so we want to do is we want to go to window and we want to come on down and we want to open up Pathfinder and there we have it now we want to look for the shape builder tool just so we know where it is it's actually over on our tool panel and it is right here and if we come on down it's right under the free transform tool or right next so right around the free transform tool about in the middle and we can you know however we have our tool panel set let's start first with the Pathfinder window what you're going to find is that both these tools really do the same thing and you might find that you like one over the other let's take a look so we begin we draw our shapes grab our shape tool draw a rectangle a draw of another rectangle now in order to make the Pathfinder tool work you need to select the objects you want to apply the effect the the Pathfinder tool so in order to do so I need to get my black arrow again a keyboard shortcut is the letter V hold down shift select both of them I both these select selected now I can hit unite okay and they should have now we can say this is all one shape it's one shape I'm going to undo that okay I could do my next one the next one is to minus the front okay so that's what that looks like undo that the next one is to intersect voila right now and then the next one is to exclude where they overlap so you kind of get the sense of how you might work with something like that in creating a logo and so many of the logos that we see have are based on shape and the relationship of different shapes how they work with one another or so let's actually go on down and now what you're going to find too when you do these effects a lot of times are going to be grouped so if you ungroup it let's see if it's seen this is one shape or you're going to find actually these will move independently of one another so you actually put a little space in and you know keep working with it all right moving right along let's go to these commands at the bottom we're going to find that they're going to work in a pretty similar way and again what you're fine I always have found with Adobe software is that many times there are lots of different ways to do the same thing to end with the end result so it really is about what you feel the most comfortable with doing so we begin let's actually start with a different now if you have grabbed an ellipse and you want it to be a circle you have to hold down shift and then you can get a perfect circle alright so I'm going to click off I'm going to grab my shape tool again I'm going to change the color let's change the color come on up in here let's go for that perfect and again learning the keyboard shortcuts the keyboard to the shape tool is a letter L so are these two different shapes this guy over and up over and up okay so again in order to apply one of these effects I need to select both of them holding down shift to select both you can also come grab your black arrow draw a box around them and this one right here is to divide this is a cool one I like this one now a lot of times what you're going to find when you click off is that your it might be grouped but if you grab the white arrow you can select one object the time so I could take this up we can see what happened here was it divided okay I can click this one I'm just moving this with my arrow so there's just a little bit of an implied line and we can see you know as we look at this and we think too about a lot of logos that we see a lot of logos that we see are really based on shape sometimes they're more descriptive but a lot of times they really are based on the relationship of shade and color alright so there we have it here is this one was to divide alright let's take a look at trim I'm going to select off I'm going to grab my shape tool which is again I just did the keyboard shortcut was the letter L let's grab a different one let's grab the rounded rectangle tool now same thing if you want a perfect square you just hold down shift up okay just hold down shift release your mouse then really shift first okay um and do another one okay it looks like I put a circle in which is totally fine move this circle over alright so the next one that we want to take a look at is the trim okay so let's do the love so again I need to select both of them trim again if I grab my white arrow I can see the relationship and the difference okay that one would be trim the next one merge merge is going to be very similar to this first one of unite crop is going to be very similar to this one of intersect okay and then outline outline is an interesting one too so let's see if we grab the outline one again we'll draw to shape 22 another change change change of the color so we have a little bit of visual differences up here again to get perfect circles we hold down shift like that color better okay we'll draw another one okay again we need to select both and I believe I was right at outline alright so now we can see the outlines of these two the last one would be to minus the back and I think that that one's actually a lot like this one right here - front this one would be - back so you can do either one of these if you wanted the front whatever was on front and whatever was behind would disappear so now let's take a look that was with the Pathfinder let's take a look at hmm how does the shape builder tool work and what you're going to find with the shape but are told you're going to be able to do exactly what you did with the Pathfinder but you'll actually will really make the decisions as you work through so here goes alright so we're going to start again let's grab let's grab our polygon tool then a load color in let's go for a little bit of orange okay again so we have one shape let's change the color grab draw another one right I have a little bit of different one which is totally fine now again what we need to do is we need to select both of them so we need my black arrow shift click then they both need to be selected and then I can come and I can grab my shape builder tool now on in with the shape builder tool you're also going to have your Live Paint Bucket and your Live Paint selection so we'll do those in a little bit later but if I grab my sheet builder tool I can come on in I can click this okay now what happened was when I clicked this they all change the same color so that's fine you can change it though I can click this and click this now what what has happened what I've just done is just by clicking them I'm going to probably need to ungroup them object let's say hold on let me click off they were all selected okay so just by selecting them I divided them okay just by selecting them I actually I ended up dividing them alright so this was just like trim all right let's do let's do another one let's keep working with this shape builder tool let's move this guy down here and let's try another one so I'm going to put up some now what I could do too is very quickly I could come on in and I could change the color of this so even though when you pull them all together the color changes it's easy for it to so you can get get it back pretty easily alright so there we go alright moving right along let's do some more experimentation with the shape builder tool come on in click click alright and let's actually I want to just select this edit copy edit paste in front all right so just so I have a couple more of these that we can experiment with so we have a couple we have a book alright good alright so here goes if I wanted to work with my shape builder tool with this and I have a couple over here okay let's actually put these three together a little bit differently I thought there was another one alright so we have a couple of these that we're going to experiment with here's our first one here's our second one and here is our third one so let's get started alright so again first thing I need to do in order to work the schaeffler tools I need to select them I can come on over here I could grab my shape builder tool and then you know I could click and draw like so and those two in the back now are intersected I just remember that whole intersect ok these two are now part of the same ok now let's see if I click on this when I pull it away it has not divided it yet and the reason why it hasn't divided it was because I did not apply the shape builder to it but let's see if I was to click on to this again and hit the sheet builder so if I move this over see I can see that perfectly underneath it now but what's going to find though is that this shape is still now right there and this shape is still right there okay let's put that back and I'm going to put this one back to where it was right there perfectly over here and the reason why that didn't happen was because I just applied the shape builder to those two shapes now let's take a look if I was to select this all again and I was to come on in and grab my shape butter tool and I was just to come on in I can see actually all of these relationships right so I could click this oops I could click that I could click that now what I've done once I do that I have applied the shape builder tool to that so I could now I could grab need to grab my direct selection tool and I could start coming in here and deleting some different shapes and create you know really pretty interesting and cool design let's say I wanted to merge all three of these shapes we'll probably you already know how to do this again I just merged two shapes and then worked over here so all that I would do let's say I wanted to merge these first two shapes and then minus the front okay so we did - front - back I want to - actually I want to - the back okay let's see how I can do that our first I'm going to do actually I could even just select these top two shapes right I could say I want to merge those two and then - the back so I could grab those to grab my shape builder tool click drag those two are merged okay um actually - in the back would be really boring so I'm going to change my mind on that what I could do though is I could I could intersect I could - where they intersect and all I would want to do would be actually is I want to I want to select both of these okay and I want to - where they intersect so I think you probably get the sense of how you would do that hit the shape builder tool and I could click right here oops again I need to deselect I need to grab my black arrow deselect and then just select that one object and it's gone so I've - where it intersected now I could take this and we're seeing that these are reading as different colors I could change this color I could come on in I could change this color okay and there's the possibilities are endless so wallah if I wanted to merge I think that you're getting the sense of this right that we can do if we come on in we could even trim this we started to do we did that for with the trim right so let's just see you can - the front and really what the shape builder tool does is it lets you take the shape and it really creates these cutouts of the shape you can merge them all together you can delete different parts you can move things around you can create space in between your shapes so there's a lot of possibilities that you can do as far as design goes to really push the boundaries of design so thanks for listening that is the Pathfinder and the shape builder tool

Channel: Maggie Hobson-Baker

Views: 468,508

Keywords: Pathfinder, Shape Builder, Illustrator CS6, Adobe, Maggie Hobson-Baker, www.learnartanddesign.com, Learn Art and Design

Id: WPP7Nh_waNs

Length: 14min 29sec (869 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 06 2012