From the course: Illustrator One-on-One: Fundamentals

Creating a time-saving template - Illustrator Tutorial

From the course: Illustrator One-on-One: Fundamentals

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Creating a time-saving template

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- [Instructor] Over the course of this chapter we're going to be creating a couple of state flags. Once again, entirely from scratch. But this time using Illustrator's shape tools. And the flags in question are from my home state, Colorado as well as my four corners neighbor, Arizona. And we're going to start things off the same way we did in the previous chapter by creating a new document complete with center guides, which may make you wonder if there's some way to save those upfront steps so you don't have to perform them over and over again. And the answer thankfully is yes. The method is to create a time-saving template. And I'm going to show you exactly how that works in this movie. And so the first step is to go up to the file menu and choose the new command or you have that keyboard shortcut of control+N here on the PC or command+N on the Mac. Now, if you've been working along with me you should see a thumbnail for the last document you've created. But just to make sure that you and I get the same results, switch over to art and illustration up here at the top of the dialog box. And then just go ahead and triple click on the word untitled followed by a number and change that guide to RGB with center guides. Just so we're naming the file upfront. Now, tab down to the width value, make sure your unit of measure is set to points and dial in a value of 1,008. Then tab to the height value and change it to 672 points which once again works well inside of our videos and ensures that you and I get the same results. The color mode should, once again, be set to RGB which is exactly what we want. Then tab your way to the first bleed value top and change it to 12 points. And assuming that all the bleed values are linked together that will change the values in kind. Next you want to click on the create button, not close, but create. I mentioned that because the buttons are in different orders on the Mac and the PC. So just keep an eye out for that. All right, now we want bigger thumbnails here inside the layers panel. And so click on the fly out menu in the top right corner of the panel and choose panel options from the bottom of the menu there. Change the size to other and dial in a value of 60 pixels and then click okay. And now we have a big meaty thumbnail. Now this first layer is going to contain those center guides. So I'll go ahead and rename it guides like so. Now what you want to do is go up to the view menu drop all the way down to rulers and then choose show rulers or more simply you have that keyboard shortcut of control+R here in the PC or command+R on the Mac. Now in a previous chapter, I showed you how to create a couple of guides and then center them. There's another way to work, however which is to go up to the view menu and make sure that smart guides are turned on In my case, they're not. So I'll go ahead and choose the command and then press and hold the control key. That's going to be the command key on the Mac and drag out from the intersection of those two rulers in the top left corner. And now you're looking for center. Notice at this point I'm seeing the word center in magenta. I'm also seeing an X value of 504 which is half of the width of the art board. 1008 points as you may recall. The Y value is 336 which is half of 672. At which point, just go ahead and release in order to create those center guides. You don't need the rulers anymore. So press control+R, command+R on a Mac, to get rid of them. And I'll just go ahead and zoom in slightly. Now the purpose of the guides layer is to hold the guidelines and nothing more. And so let's go ahead and create another layer for the drawing itself. By dropping down to the little plus icon, used to look like a little page icon, in previous versions of the software, press the alt key or the option key on the Mac and click that icon to bring up the layer options dialog box, and then go ahead and call this guide drawing like so, and then click okay. All right, now we want to save this file as a template which you can do by going to the file menu and choosing, save as template. And that's going to take you by default to this templates folder which is buried deep inside the system folders whether you're working on the PC or the Mac then you just want to go ahead and click on the save button. Now, if you're working on the PC you may get a very irritating permissions error. In which case you're going to have to call up your IT guy or call one of your tech savvy friends. In my case, I called my son. It was a very painful process in order to give yourself permissions to your own folders or you can just save the file to a different location. In my case, when I click save because I've already created this file in advance Illustrator invites me to replace it. At which point I'll just go ahead and click yes in order to save over that file. And now you can close that file, like so and then open it up as a new document by going to the file menu and choosing new from template which is how we're going to be working throughout this and future chapters. And then just go ahead and select this guide. Then you can click the new button or you can just, double-click on this file. And it opens untitled as if it's an absolutely new document. And that's how you create a time-saving template in the RGB color mode, which is great for both local printing, as well as screen graphics complete with a couple of center guides in these generously sized layer thumbnails here inside Illustrator.

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