Locked lesson.

Upgrade

About this lesson

How to blend lines or shapes either gradually or with a specified number of steps.

Quick reference

The Art of The Blend Tool

How to blend lines or shapes either gradually or with a specified number of steps.

When to use

The Blend Tool can be used to create a variety of effects ranging from transitions from one shape to another to creating extruded shapes that have a 3D appearance. You can use either smooth transitions or use a specified number of steps.

Instructions

  • Begin by opening the The Art of the Blend Tool - Exercise.ai file
  • With your Selection Tool (V), click and drag around both of the two long triangular shapes at the top of the artboard.
  • Go to the Object Menu and choose Blend>Blend Options.
  • From the Spacing dropdown menu, change the setting to 'Specified Steps' and enter a value of 5 before pressing 'OK' to close out the dialog box.
  • While you still have both shapes selected, return to the Object Menu and choose Blend>Make to create a blend with 5 steps in between the two shapes.
  • This time, use your Selection Tool to click and drag the star and the circle in the second row.
  • Use the keyboard shortcut Command/Ctrl+Shift+B to apply another blend with the same number of steps that were used previously.
  • You can now see how the tool works for transitioning from two similar shapes, as well as two different shapes.
  • Hold the Alt/Option+Shift keys and drag a copy of the star-to-circle blend downwards to create a copy below the original.
  • Go to the Object Menu and choose Blend>Release to release the blend.
  • Select both of these shapes again using the Selection Tool and return to the Object Menu and select Blend>Blend Options.
  • This time we will choose 'Smooth Color' instead of the previous option, and then hit 'OK' to close out of the dialog box.
  • Once again, use the keyboard shortcut of Command/Ctrl+Shift+B to apply a smooth blend.
  • Notice how this time there are more instances of the shapes creating a smoother blend than before.
  • Grab your Text Tool (T) and type out a single word before increasing the size of your type.
  • Next, go to the Type Menu and choose 'Create Outlines' to convert your text into a shape.
  • Select your text and press Command/Ctrl+C to copy it, and then Command/Ctrl+F to paste a copy in front.
  • With your top copy selected, hold the Shift Key and press the down arrow and then the right arrow a few times to offset the text.
  • Select both copies of the text and return to the Blend Options before setting it to Specified Steps and a higher setting of around 165-175.
  • Press 'OK' to close out of the dialog box and then use the same shortcut as before to apply the blend.
  • You should now have a 3D looking extrusion that is completely black.
  • Now, press Command/Ctrl+F to paste a copy of your original text on top, and then press 'D' on the keyboard to change it to the default colors of a white fill and black stroke. 

Hints

  • When using the Blend Tool to create extruded text, you can lower the opacity of a blend behind your original text to give the illusion of a long shadow effect.
  • Not only is the Blend Tool great for text, but it also is very useful when you want to create a shading effect by making several copies of the same shape as shown with the long triangle shapes in the exercise file and video.
  • In addition to using the menu to get the Blend Options, you could also select two shapes that you want to blend together and then double click on the Blend Tool (W) in the toolbar.

 

Login to download
  • 00:04 Now one of the great features of Adobe Illustrator that I tend to
  • 00:07 use quite a bit is called the Blend Tool.
  • 00:10 Now the first thing I'm going to do to demonstrate the Blend Tool for
  • 00:12 you guys is to just draw a basic triangle here using the pen.
  • 00:16 And once I've created the shape, I'm going to press D on the keyboard and
  • 00:21 then Shift + X to swap my stroke and fill colors.
  • 00:25 Now with black set as the fill color, I'll press X and
  • 00:28 get rid of the stroke, so that all I have is this shape.
  • 00:31 Now once I have it,
  • 00:32 I can stretch it out, I can make it a little bit more narrow like that.
  • 00:36 And I'm going to select it and then hold down the Alt and Option key and
  • 00:40 drag it down to make a copy.
  • 00:42 Now any time that I have two shapes or two elements in Illustrator,
  • 00:47 we have an option that will allow us to blend these together.
  • 00:51 And to do that I'm gonna select both shapes and come up to the Object menu,
  • 00:54 and then choose Blend > Blend Options.
  • 00:58 And you'll see this dialogue box here which allows you to choose whether you
  • 01:01 want Smooth Color or Specified Steps, or Specified Distance.
  • 01:05 For this first example, I'm just gonna choose Specified Steps, and
  • 01:09 maybe enter a value of about 5.
  • 01:11 Now after I hit OK, nothing has happened,
  • 01:13 because we still have to tell Illustrator to actually make the blend.
  • 01:17 So while you still have those shapes selected,
  • 01:19 come back up to the Object menu, and choose Blend > Make.
  • 01:24 And once you do that, you'll see you now have
  • 01:26 five copies in between these two shapes, that has blended these two together.
  • 01:32 And the same thing kind of works, or the same idea applies, to any shape.
  • 01:36 So if I were to create two stars over here, or
  • 01:40 better yet, let's create one that's a star and then make one that is a circle.
  • 01:45 I can select both of these, and
  • 01:47 then press Cmd + Option + B to blend those together, all right?
  • 01:54 And now it's using those Specified Steps,
  • 01:56 the same number of Specified Steps, to blend from a star into a circle, okay?
  • 02:01 So that's a pretty cool way to use the tool,
  • 02:04 or you can use it if you wanted to create multiple copies of the same shape,
  • 02:08 transitioning from one to the other, and that's how that looks.
  • 02:12 So if I wanted to make a copy of this, I'm gonna hold down Alt + Option + Shift, and
  • 02:17 drag down.
  • 02:18 I can come up to the Object menu and choose Blend > Release.
  • 02:22 And this time, I'll select them again, and instead of choosing Blend
  • 02:27 > Specified Steps, let's try Smooth Color and see how that looks.
  • 02:35 So now when I do that, it's just kind of manually filling this in to create
  • 02:39 the smoothest type of transition possible, okay?
  • 02:42 But the cool thing is this that this also works on text, so if I had for
  • 02:47 example a word, I'm just gonna type out the word BLEND.
  • 02:51 And then I will Create Outlines by coming up to the Type menu and
  • 02:54 choosing Create Outlines.
  • 02:57 And now let me copy this by selecting it and pressing Cmd + C.
  • 03:01 And then I will paste it in front, either by pressing Cmd + F, or
  • 03:04 coming up to the Edit menu, and choosing Paste in Front.
  • 03:09 Now, I'll basically have two copies of this right on top of each other,
  • 03:13 so if I wanted to, I can just offset this text a little bit by tapping it down, and
  • 03:17 to the right a few times.
  • 03:18 And now I can select both of these copies, and
  • 03:21 I can try to blend them together by coming up to Objects > Blend > Make.
  • 03:27 Now, when I do that, it's kind of filling in the gaps here, so
  • 03:30 you can see that it's kind of going from one copy to the other.
  • 03:33 But, if instead I change those blend options to be from Smooth Color back to
  • 03:37 Specified Steps, and I enter a pretty high value of, say, a 165, even 170 or so.
  • 03:45 And now I blend it again,
  • 03:47 it's going to create this almost 3D kind of extruded look, right?
  • 03:52 And you can see on my copy in the front here,
  • 03:54 if I select the front of each of those letters with the Direct Selection Tool,
  • 03:58 change the color of them, you can see what's happening.
  • 04:02 So it creates a pretty cool effect actually that you can use to create some
  • 04:06 depth in your text in Illustrator.
  • 04:12 So if I wanted to go back and change the parameters here,
  • 04:16 I can then come back up to Object > Blend > Release.
  • 04:20 And this time I'll grab the text in front and make a copy of it by pressing Cmd + C.
  • 04:25 And I'll select these two, blend them together, and
  • 04:30 then press Cmd + F to paste this copy on top.
  • 04:34 And now I can press D on the keyboard to get my default colors.
  • 04:37 Now you can see a little bit better what's happening,
  • 04:39 now you can have it look like the extrusion is going this way.
  • 04:44 So the Blend Tool is a really powerful and
  • 04:46 versatile tool in Adobe Illustrator, there's a lot that you can do with it.
  • 04:49 Whether you want to create a blend from one shape to another in a completely
  • 04:55 different shapes.
  • 04:56 Or you can use it to create shading just by going and
  • 04:59 producing multiple copies of one shape to the next.
  • 05:02 And you can even use it to produce a 3D kind of extruded look on some type.
  • 05:07 So those are just some of the ways that you can use the Blend Tool in
  • 05:10 Adobe Illustrator.
  • 05:11 And I encourage you guys to experiment on this a bit on your own, so
  • 05:14 that you can become more comfortable using the Blend Tool.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Gift this course