Pattern Swatches in Illustrator

Pattern Swatches are a hidden gem in illustrator. You can use them to quickly fill shapes with patterns and illustrations. Here's a short tutorial using a t-shirt design.

A simple example

In this quick example of using pattern swatches we are going to use a t-shirt design. Pattern swatches allow you to quickly fill shapes with patterns and even illustrations. I've drawn a simple t-shirt on the canvas using the pen tool.

Example one - stripes

To create a pattern swatch you simply draw your pattern or shape as you normally would on another part of the canvas.

Draw two rectangles on the canvas and then fill them with two different colours. I've chosen blue and white. Then select both shapes and drag them into the Swatches box.

If you can't see the swatches box go to Window > Swatches. You should see the pattern that you dragged into the Swatches box now available. To use the pattern select the Object you want to fill using the selection tool (v) and then click on the pattern you just dragged in. If everything went well you should now have a striped t-shirt.

Example two - flower power

The real power of this feature is that you can quickly fill shapes or objects with illustrations. Let's say we are going to a 60's flower power party and we want to design a t-shirt for the occassion. Using Pattern Swatches we can draw a flower, drag it into the swatches and then quickly fill the t-shirt. Easy.

Comments

fatihturan Jun 25 2007

Great tip!

whiteangel Jul 6 2007

thats v.nice

Stephanie Jul 12 2007

This is really helpful! I cool trick!
Thank you!

Abhijit V. Chaore Jul 18 2007

Really nice!! Another good and simple tutorial by you....can you give some more complx tutorials please.

Nikki Aug 8 2007

This has been a great help thanks!

I’m also trying to fill a shape (a jigsaw puzzle piece) with a photograph. I dragged the photo into the swatches panel, and used it as a fill, but it’s repeats within the shape - I just want a straight fill. Could you help?

Thanks!

George Ornbo Aug 9 2007

@Nikki - would an opacity mask do the trick?

grubedoo Oct 23 2007

@Nikki - Use a mask. Place your vector puzzle piece on top of the image. Select both the puzzle piece and the image. Go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make (Ctrl/Command 7 is the key command)

Brain88 Dec 6 2007