This chapter is an overview of Illustrator’s basic shape tools and related panels that you would use to start creating infographic rudimentary shapes.
Once you have created and scanned your logos in a digital format, you will want to start using Illustrator to trace over your drawing. Or maybe you just want to start drawing some basic shapes or edit your Illustration. You will explore some tools that may already be familiar to you and new and updated tools in later chapters. Later in Chapter 9, based on what you have learned here, you will create and review a few project ideas that can be created with basic shapes, custom shapes, and text.
Note This chapter contains reference examples that can be found in the Volume 1 Chapter 6 folder. Some of the text in this chapter on shapes has been adapted and updated from my earlier books Accurate Layer Selections Using Photoshop’s Selection Tool and Perspective Warps and Distorts with Adobe Tools: Volume 2.
In this chapter, we are now going to cover some of the tools that can be found in the Toolbars panel, as well as some of the main panels that we can use to assist us in infographic creation. I will only be focusing on the basic features of each of these tools, but I will also provide an Adobe help link if you would like more details on that tool. For now, if you would like to practice along, create a new document as you did in Chapter 4 so that you have an artboard to practice with the following tools and panels.
© Jennifer Harder 2023
J. Harder, Creating Infographics with Adobe Illustrator: Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/979-8-8688-0005-4_6
Drawing Tools Overview
When starting to draw an infographic or logo, there are several basic tools such as Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Star, and related panels we can use to build our shapes. These basic shapes are found in the Toolbars panel. Refer to Figure 6-1.
Figure 6-1. Drawing tools found in the Toolbars panel
As you select and use the following tools, make sure that your Toolbar setting is set to Draw Normal as you want to draw your shapes, in this case, in front of one another. In other situations, you may want to use one of the other two settings of Draw Behind or Draw Inside. Refer to Figure 6-2.
Figure 6-2. Drawing settings in the Toolbars panel
However, for this book, our focus is to draw the shapes one at a time in Draw Normal mode. You can use the keyboard shortcut Shift+D if you need to switch or cycle back to this setting. Later, I will mention how you can arrange shapes if they are not in the order you want when they overlap. See the section “Arranging Shape and Path Order.”
Also, this book will not be focused on the Flare tool as this is a specialized tool and not often associated with infographic creation.
You can explore the basics of that tool on your own here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/tool-techniques/flare-tool.html
Now we will do a basic overview of each of the five main tools. These tools for initial shape building can be used in conjunction with the Control, Properties, and Transform panels. Refer to Figure 6-3.
Figure 6-3. Use the Control, Transform, or Properties panel to edit your shapes and paths
Later in Chapter 7, I will mention the Pathfinder panel as well. See the section “Combining Shapes with the Pathfinder Panel.”
With nothing selected on your artboard, make sure in your Properties panel that Scale Strokes & Effects is unchecked so your stroke does not change should you decide to scale the shape later on while you practice. For these examples, I also left Scale Corners unchecked as well. Refer to Figure 6-4.
Figure 6-4. Properties panel setting when nothing is selected on the artboard
In these steps, make sure that you press the D key to ensure that your colors for fill and stroke in the Toolbars panel are reset to white fill and black stroke. Refer to Figure 6-2.