Locked lesson.
About this lesson
Showing how you can use the Line Tool along with the Arc and Spiral Tools.
Quick reference
Arc and Spiral
Showing how you can use the Line Tool along with the Arc and Spiral Tools.
When to use
Using the Arc and Spiral Tools are a great way to create decorative elements, flourishes, or corner elements for your designs, especially when combined with some of the other options found in the Stroke Panel.
Instructions
- In a new document, grab your Line Segment Tool.
- Click and drag out a line and make sure you have a black stroke and no fill to create a basic black line.
- Return to the Line Segment Tool but this time click and hold on the tool icon to reveal the Arc and Spiral Tools.
- Select the Arc Tool and then click and drag on your canvas and notice how the appearance of the line shifts as you move your cursor around.
- Now do the same thing while holding down the Alt/Option keys.
- You can also double click on the Arc Tool selected to reveal a dialog box that allows you to have even more control over the customization of your arc.
- In this dialog box you can preview changes such as the type of line, the slope, whether or not you want to fill the arc or leave it empty, and the length along the X and Y axis. You can also choose which corner you would like to be rounded.
- Now switch to your Spiral Tool and click and drag on your artboard. Notice how the line changes as you move your cursor around.
- Try the same thing only holding the Alt/Option key while you move your cursor to create a deeper or shorter spiral.
- You can also hold the Command/Ctrl+Shift keys while dragging around to change the length of the spiral.
- Experiment with the different types of lines that you can create, and also try changing the weight, cap, and profile of the lines to see how it changes the appearance of your lines.
Hints
- If you wanted to create a decorative flourish in Illustrator, one of the best ways to do it would be with the Spiral Tool. You can add a rounded cap to the line and then use the Width Tool (Shift+W) to vary the thickness of the line in certain spots.
- You can also change the profile of your line from the Stroke Panel and try reversing it by clicking on the small icon that looks like two arrows facing each other next to the profile dropdown.
- 00:04 In addition to creating a path using the Pen Tool,
- 00:07 there's also another very handy tool in Illustrator called the Line Segment Tool,
- 00:12 which is over here just below your Pen Tool and your Curvature Tool.
- 00:16 And a shortcut for that is the \ key on the keyboard.
- 00:21 Now if I select that, I can just click and drag to create a line, pretty basic.
- 00:25 Although at the moment I have a black fill color, so I don't really see anything.
- 00:30 In order to change that I would have to press Shift and
- 00:33 X in order to toggle the fill and stroke.
- 00:36 Now it just looks like any other line that we've been working with and playing with,
- 00:39 and you can use your Direct Selection Tool to either move or manipulate those points.
- 00:44 But what's better than that is if I click and hold on the Line Segment Tool,
- 00:48 I've got these other options here, called the Arc Tool and the Spiral Tool,
- 00:53 as well as the Grid Tool and the Polar Grid Tool.
- 00:55 Now the ones that I'm interested in right now are the Arc Tool and the Spiral Tool.
- 00:59 So let's go ahead and double-click on the Arc Tool, and
- 01:03 you'll see that we get this dialog box here that appears.
- 01:05 And we have a couple of options here, such as the Length on the X Axis,
- 01:09 the Y Axis, whether we want it to be Open or Closed.
- 01:12 You can choose whether you want the base to be on the X or Y Axis, and
- 01:16 you also have this slider here going from Concave to Convex.
- 01:20 And lastly there's a little box down here that says Fill Arc.
- 01:24 So for now,
- 01:24 I'm just gonna hit Cancel for a second, so I can just show you guys how this works.
- 01:28 So as long as I have the Arc Segment Tool selected, I can click and drag, and
- 01:32 it's basically just going to create this curved line.
- 01:35 But if I wanna have more control over that line, I'm gonna come back in here and
- 01:40 choose where I want the corner to be bended, or arced.
- 01:47 And I can choose whether I want it Open or Closed, and you can play around with all
- 01:52 these other options as well, just to kind of see what they're doing, right?
- 01:57 So you can see in the preview box here the kind of lines that you can create.
- 02:01 Now I'm gonna leave this one Open, and let's just say,
- 02:07 we'll put in 2 inches here, or 8 inches, depending
- 02:12 on if you want the line to extend more in one direction than the other.
- 02:17 And now we'll get this kind of line instead, so again,
- 02:19 double-clicking, you can bring up the box here.
- 02:24 You can choose if you want it to be filled, Open or Closed, and
- 02:28 you can play with how curved or how bent inwards you want this to be.
- 02:35 All right, so you can really produce a variety of cool shapes using that, and
- 02:39 then you can actually fill it, if you want, all right?
- 02:42 So that's the Arc Tool, and in addition to the Arc Tool,
- 02:45 we also have what is called the Spiral Tool.
- 02:48 And similar to the Arc Tool,
- 02:49 you can double-click to bring up some options here.
- 02:52 And you can choose things like the Style, the number of Segments, the Radius, and
- 02:56 the Decay, all right?
- 02:57 So I'm just gonna hit OK there, press D on the keyboard, and
- 03:01 then X, and choose None for the fill color, so that all we have is a line.
- 03:06 I can select this and I can scale is up, I can rotate it, and
- 03:10 I can even add a rounded cap or a corner, just like we did with some of our others.
- 03:15 And, in addition to that, I can also use the Width Tool by pressing Shift and
- 03:19 W, to maybe extend the end of this.
- 03:24 So this is really a great tool if you wanted to create some kind of
- 03:26 decorative ends to some cursive writing, or just making flourishes and
- 03:30 things like that, okay?
- 03:32 But if I select it, and I just click and drag, if I hold down the Command key,
- 03:38 it's actually going to to allow me to toggle how tight or
- 03:41 how open I want that spiral to be, okay?
- 03:44 Or if I do that while holding down the Alt Option key,
- 03:48 it's actually going to increase or reduce the number of segments.
- 03:51 So as I'm dragging down, it's making that spiral more and more deep.
- 03:56 And if I scroll up while I'm holding down the Alt Option key,
- 03:59 it's actually going to make it a little bit more open, all right?
- 04:03 So these are very cool and useful tools if you want to
- 04:07 practice creating some more intricate or decorative lines.
- 04:12 So play around with these a little bit and experiment with some of these options to
- 04:15 see what other kinds of things you can do with them.
- 04:17 In addition to some of the techniques that we already covered,
- 04:22 such as changing the Weight, the Caps, or the Profile.
- 04:26 You can really produce and great variety of lines in this way.
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