3 Illustrator Features That Will Make You More Productive
Adobe Illustrator has been the standard in vector graphics since 1986. Although, now there are many drawing applications like Affinity Designer and Procreate. Illustrator is still a workhorse when it comes to your vector art and logo design workflow. It has the tools to be as simple and complex as you want it to be.
Like many things, there are so many ways to do the same thing within Illustrator. There is the menu bar way, the tool bar way, or there are hotkeys, the properties panel, and actions. If you want to speed up your workflow when designing then it’s important to learn these simple tips and tricks.
The Properties Panel with Shapes Selected
The Properties Panel with nothing Selected
The Properties Panel with Text
The Properties Panel
The properties panel is your friend. This recently added feature creates a tool panel that changes by the current tool you're using. Instead of having the stroke, pathfinder, align, appearance, and transform panels cluttering your workspace; you can now have one panel that changes as you work. Yes there are times where the actual panel is necessary for certain tasks, but for the most part you’re good with this one simple panel. When nothing is selected you get access to document settings, when shapes are active you can use the stroke and fill, and when more than one shape is selected the align and pathfinder options become available. When working on a laptop this is a game changer and gives you more room to work. For me I like to have my layers, properties, and library tabs open and nothing else. This helps working on an 11” laptop really nice (although I do like plugging into an external display from time to time).
Hotkeys
Hotkeys. I am sure you’ve heard it a million times, but hotkeys are your friend. There are so many hotkeys in Illustrator one for almost everything you can think of. Not having to run your mouse over to the tool or menu bars every time you want to change tools can also save you a lot of time. I especially like using the hotkeys for tools like the rectangle tool, ellipse, pen tool, and selection tools. Going back and forth between those tools happens frequently as I design and the hotkeys saves a ton of time. Another great tool is the space bar for moving around the art board instead of the hand tool.
My Most Used Hot Keys in Illustrator…
Rectangle = M
Elipse = L
Section Tool = V
Direct Selection = A
Pen Tool = P
Pan Tool = Space Bar
Eyedropper = I
Download the Cheat Sheets for Illustrator for Mac HERE and Windows HERE
Create a Set of Actions for Your Function Keys to streamline tasks
Actions
Lastly, Actions. Actions are another way to speed up a workflow. You can make each action custom to what you do. By grouping multiple sets of actions with a single keystroke. For example, everytime you use certain pathfinder tools it leaves the shapes grouped. Instead of selecting the shapes, selecting the divide function, then selecting ungroup, you can now select the items, hit a key stroke like “shift F2” and presto you have divided shapes that are ungrouped. You could also add an exclude function and ungroup again and it would subtract the overlapping shapes that were divided. Actions can take time to set up but if you have a lot of repetitive tasks it makes it really easy to get things done quickly. In my experience creating digital maps that had aisle numbers, using actions for distributing and nudging was a time saver when you have over a 1,000 maps to adjust.
Bonus: The Blend Tool
A bonus tip is the blend tool. Not a productivity tool, but a fun one none the least. The blend tool makes custom gradients and even custom shapes. Draw a shape of one color and then alt-drag to copy it across the art board and select a different color. Select booth with the blend tool and adjust specified distance to create a gradient. It also works with stroke widths and opacity.