6 Ways to Make Adobe Illustrator Your Very Own
- Kiara Brown
- Mar 4, 2018
- 4 min read
Like I mentioned a few posts ago, Adobe Illustrator has keyboard shortcuts for just about anything; but if there isn't one (or you just don't like the pre-existing one) you can almost always add one. In fact, almost every aspect of Adobe Illustrator can be customized to your liking; from base units to colors. Up ahead are my six favorite customizations on Adobe Illustrator.
*If some of these don’t work immediately after don’t panic- try restarting your program first*
Keyboard Shortcuts
By far the number one thing to personalize on Adobe Illustrator is the keyboard shortcuts. This is especially useful if you dislike an existing shortcut or want to create a shortcut for a feature without one.
To do this:
Go to the ‘edit’ tab
Select ‘keyboard shortcuts’ from the drop down menu (near the bottom)
Select which keyboard shortcut set you want to edit (or make a new one)
Choose either ‘tools’ or ‘menu’ depending on where your feature/tool is normally
Click on a shortcut or the space where a shortcut would be an add whatever you want
Hit ‘OK’ when done
The only issue you may run into here is finding the right shortcut to add/replace. Because there are so many keyboard shortcuts on Adobe Illustrator the majority of single letter shortcuts have already been done. If you try and insert a shortcut that's already been done (for example “a”) it will let you know that something already exists with that shortcut. You can either choose to erase that shortcut to make way for your new one or choose a different shortcut for that tool/feature entirely. To help with this, you can check the ‘match case’ box to make separate shortcuts for upper and lowercase letters.
Light vs. dark color scheme
This is before my illustrating time; but I’m pretty sure at some point Illustrator had a default color scheme that was light instead of dark (I know this from old tutorial videos I would watch to learn how to use the program). Me personally, I prefer the dark gray color scheme; but if you like a different one better or just want a throwback, you can change your program color scheme.
To do this:
Go to the ‘edit’ tab
Choose ‘preferences’ from the very bottom of the drop down menu
Choose ‘user interface’
Choose one of the four color brightnesses
Default Color Mode
Aside from being the age old struggle of design; CMYK and RGB color modes can also be a huge hassle to switch between if you accidentally start with the wrong one. To avoid making this mistake without thinking, you can change your preferences so that Adobe Illustrator defaults to one of the color modes. Whichever one you choose as your default will be how all your documents start out; so choose carefully based on what you tend to illustrate for. If you do more illustrations for websites than you should probably go with RGB; if you do more illustrations for print then you should probably go with CMYK. I switched to CMYK when I was working on Princess Pretend and The Not Knight; and despite the fact that I tend to do more illustrations for the computer now, I haven't switched back. I prefer CMYK’s color mixer to RGB’s (I think the way the sliders move makes much more sense).
To change color default:
Create a new document
Under color mode select the color mode you want
This will be your new default
Units
One of the biggest learning curves of first using Adobe illustrator is adjusting to the measuring units. It can be super overwhelming to try and figure out how many pixels you need on your artboard (not to mention it changes with your dots per inch?). If having to look up the conversions for every measurement is getting old don't worry! You can change this preference too.
To do this:
Go to the ‘edit’ panel
Choose ‘units’
Change your units to whatever measurement system you prefer
Layer Color
When you have multiple layers on an Adobe Illustrator document it will automatically give each layer a different color to help differentiate between them. This is helpful because everything in that layer will be that color; handles, anchors, selection tool boxes around objects – everything. By default, the first layer is an almost royal blue, however, sometimes you want your layers to be different colors than the default; whether that be for organization or aesthetic purposes. Luckily, you can do that! Me personally, I am so used to the original blue that sometimes I use only that color for all my layers. Other times I'll switch some of the brighter neons to different colors just so they're nicer to look at for extended periods of time.
To Change Your Layer Color:
Double click on a layer
Select a color from the drop down menu next to ‘color’
Workspace Presets
Like I mentioned in my last post, there are a lot of windows you can choose to have open on Adobe Illustrator. Some of these windows are generally necessary no matter what you're doing (i.e. color or layers). But if you rarely use the fonts or never work with specific colors, it makes no sense to waste space with the ‘type’ and ‘swatches’ tabs. While you can choose to add and delete certain windows over and over again you can also choose to change your workspace entirely Adobe illustrator has some preset workspaces (basically their own selection of windows) for different things you might be using their program for. For example the typography preset has colors, libraries, character and paragraph tools (character deals more with individual letters and words well paragraph deals more with sentences and paragraphs but more on that later).
To do this:
Select the workspace drop down (about ¼ from the top right of your screen)
Choose your desired workspace preset
The good thing about presets is that they’ll automatically reset the same when you reenter the program. But if none of the presets work for you, you can also create your own present with all your own windows.
To do this:
Make sure your windows are set up how you want them
Select the workspace drop down (about ¼ from the top right of your screen)
Choose ‘new workspace’
Well, this concludes our series Adobe Illustrator. Hopefully you've learned a thing or two about personalizing your program to your tastes. If you enjoyed this post be sure to check out some of the others for more helpful hints, tricks, and tools.
Tried one of these tips? Have something to add? Leave it in the comments below!
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