Customizing Lines and Strokes

Customizing Lines and Strokes

Learn to change the appearance of lines and strokes in Illustrator.

When to use

Customizing lines and strokes is useful anytime you want to increase the thickness or change the style of a line.

Instructions

Adjusting Line Weight

• Grab the Pen Tool (P) and create two points to make a line.
• Select the Stroke Panel and click the dropdown menu next to 'Weight' and increase the weight of your line to 10pt.

Creating Rounded Lines

• Select your line and return to the Stroke Panel.
• If you don't already have it, click on the hamburger menu in the upper right corner of the panel and choose 'Show More Options' from the menu.
• Change the 'Cap' and 'Corner' to the second option to change your line from a hard edge to a rounded cap.

Line Profiles

• Select your line and then go to the Stroke Panel and click on the menu that says 'Profile' to reveal custom presets.
• Go through and try some of the line profiles to see how it changes the shape and appearance of your line.

Creating Dashed Lines

• With your line selected, check off the 'Dashed Line' box in the Stroke Panel.
• Enter a value of '24' for the dash and '30' for the gap, and then alternate between these two values for the rest of the empty fields.
• You can align the dashes to the corners by clicking on the small icon directly to the right of the 'Dashed Line' check box.

Using the Width Tool

• Create a new line with the Pen Tool and increase the weight.
• Grab the Width Tool from the toolbar or use the shortcut (Shift + W).
• Move your cursor along any section of your line and then drag outwards to increase the width of your line at that point.
• Try going inwards at another point along your line to decrease the width at that specific point.
• You can also use this tool to create your own line profiles that you can save as presets by dragging them to the profile menu.

Applying What You've Learned

• Go to the lines we created on the inside of the pepper and select each of them before modifying their appearance.
• Try increasing the weight or tapering the edges using the Width Tool or by using some of the line profiles to add variation to your lines and strokes. 

Hints & tips

• The shortcut for the Width Tool is Shift + W on the keyboard.
• You can create your own custom line profiles.
• Changing the appearance and look of your lines helps make your illustrations look less uniform, and more organic.