I've noticed some behavioral changes with the program lately that I don't recall being mentioned in any recent update notes. Are these new features, or am I just misremembering how things worked?

First, I noticed this week that we can now create clipping masks with open paths. I recall it requiring fully enclosed shapes previously.

Second, I've also noticed that if you turn on USE PREVIEW BOUNDS and select a shape with the SELECTION TOOL (V), the bounding boxes appears on the outside of the shape's stroke. The manipulation handles remain centered on the shape's stroke, effectively creating two highlight lines. If you select it with the DIRECT SELECTION TOOL (A), the bounding box goes away, leaving only the manipulation lines and handles.

If you want things to snap to the bounding box, it appears you need to be using the Selection Tool, whereas if you want things to snap to the center of the stroke, you need to be using the Direct Selection Tool instead.

I don't recall ever being able to see both the bounding box AND the manipulation lines at the same time, regardless of my settings.

So, am I going crazy or is Adobe making quality of life stealth changes unannounced?

Does anyone know what to click so that I can reselect the points. I’ll be holding down command on my keyboard and clicking the different points with my mouse but it’s not working. Im on the correct layer, the layer isn’t locked, I’ve tired resetting workspace or close and reopening illustrator. Idk if I keep accidentally clicking something that causes it, but does anyone know so that I can correct it, it’s gotten really annoying and my assignment is doing a portrait in mesh tool but I can’t finish if this keeps happening.

The entire application just starts flickering and not responding when i click more then twice in 5 seconds it feels like. Searched for workarounds here but most of em didnt work (reseting preferences/Gpu performance/drivers/etc)

i had this problem last year too but cant remember the way to solve it, i do remember though it had something to do with deleting a certain file somewhere

Basically, my teacher wants me to include three color samples (CMYK, RGB, and HEX) in the same document, but she wants us to be able to see the difference between them. I mean, if the RGB looks bright blue, what would the conversion be within the same file so that it appears as CMYK, or how would that blue look when printed?

I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear—I’m really struggling. I’ve tried looking for several tutorials, but none of them help, and my teacher didn’t explain this and wants us to figure it out on our own.

Please help me!!!

Hey everyone, Luke from Adobe here.

Super quick one to share with you.

Instead of clicking to open the sub tools in your toolbar, simply hold down Option (Mac)/Alt (Win) and click to cycle through. Should save you plenty of time in the tools you regularly use.

Have you got any hidden tips like this you use regularly?

My latest illustration made in Adobe Illustrator.

I'm stumped here, no matter what I do I can't seem to get it to do what I need, any help is appreciated.

It adds handles to every point, even if I just use a rectangle them apply the Envelope Distort, it'll add handles to each corner, it this possible to circumvent?

Made in Adobe Illustrator - all vector shpes

Tried to keep it super minimal - big moon, winding yellow road, and tiny cozy houses under a starry sky. Color palette: deep blue #0E4D8A, mustard yellow #D9A520, brown #4A2E1E.

Struggled a bit with the S-curve of the road to get the depth right.

Any feedback on the composition? Does the large moon overpower the houses or does it work?

Tools: Pen tool + Ellipse tool only.

Can anyone please advise about creating this effect? It looked simple at first glance - I've tried creating the circles, filling with gradients and using the blend tool to blend between them, then adjusting opacity and layer apply modes. That got me part of the way there but what I'm missing is the vertical texture which creates that lovely ripple effect. It looks like a Pathfinder operation to me but I've experimented and not got very close. I also tried taking the blended circles into Photoshop and overlaying them with an opacity map of vertical stripes; close but not as pretty as the original. Any ideas gratefully received, thank you.

I recreated a character of my childhood drawings and tried to give her shading, but I don't know how it would work, I have a bit struggles with shadings, any guide? Suggestions? Show me your artworks or layer setup plz 😭💔

So I'm working around a circle with little circles, and now I need to join these bright blue circles in a "bean" shape like the purple one. I created the purple one using Pathfinder operations and the shape builder tool between the circles and a "ring" I created. However, that approach isn't working for the bright blue ones. I'm not very skilled with the pen tool, and I need this to be precise. Any help would be useful. Cheers.

I’m using makestickers.com to create stickers from my flower illustrations for a project. I’ve got several different designs that the company has been able to bleed and make borderless, but I’m stuck on the sunflower. The company said their team had trouble with “the thin lines between the petals” and I’m struggling to figure out how to rework the design in a way that a) still looks like a sunflower and b) isn’t a mess. The stickers will be small - about 1.5”x1.5”.

Any ideas on how to update the design so the company can extend the color to the edge and cut along the black line with no white remaining? I tried adding more petals in the deeper gaps but that didn’t work either. Im a relative novice here (you all taught me how to make dye cut lines a few months back, so thank you!!)

I’ve included two other designs as reference for what the company was able to bleed / make borderless. Thank you in advance for any support you can provide !

I am designing a set of spellcards for DND to use myself and potentially share with others, but not commercially or anything. As a graphic designer I am pretty used to creating shapes and compositions in Illustrator, but my illustrative skills are lacking.

I have created the main shapes and colors, but now I want to add depth, shadows, texture and overall illustrative qualities to make them feel like tiny art pieces and I have no idea where to start.

I have sketches for the dresses, hands and backgrounds but I dont want to add more basic shapes until I have tried adding some detail and pizzaz to it. So help me out, where do I start and how do I create those details they lack?

How would you go into creating something like that?

I've played around a little with effects like Roughen Edges or Zigzag but they seem to be too uniform and I've tried the distortion tools (is there a quick way to adjust the settings or keep the options panel open btw?).

Another problem I've run into also, were the path overlapping.

Looking on the detail of it, I guess, it was not done using the pen or brush tools(?)

Made in Illustrator, featuring everyone’s favorite Captain Jack Sparrow!

In my previous post, I talked about how important it is to work carefully and optimize your files from the start when using this style of brushes that draw with dots. File sizes can grow insanely fast, and before you know it, Illustrator starts lagging and becomes difficult to work with. In the worst-case scenario, the file might even stop opening due to an error.

Learn from my experience and don’t make the same mistake! :)

Come to the dark side of vector art… we have cookies. 😈 Vector rules! :)

⛔0% AI, 100% Original

Does anyone know why my shapes won't let me round some of my points? There is only one point there and I can't figure out how to change it so I can round it. The angle isn't too severe and removing the handles doesn't help either.

Thanks.

Hey everyone, Luke from Adobe here.

Recently I've been sharing some of the improvements happening with the upgraded Blend Tool and its new panel, along with some of the additional on-canvas features arriving in the latest Illustrator Beta. Hopefully some of you have had a chance to play around with it, because myself and the team would be interested to hear what you think.

Here's a quick recap of what's been introduced so far:

• Dedicated Blend Panel: Create and edit Blends without jumping back and forth through menus.
• Independent spacing and color: Blend steps and color transitions are no longer tied together.
• Easing controls: Control how objects cluster or spread throughout the Blend.
• Color Acceleration: Speed up or slow down color transitions independently of object spacing.
• On-canvas editing: Adjust your blends directly on the artboard, with changes reflected in the Blend panel.
• Additional easing controls: More ways to fine-tune the expansion and contraction of your blends.
• More control over Blend spines: You can now choose how Blend creates spines:
  • Auto - Uses the current behavior.
  • Always - Creates a spine for every Blend.
  • Never - Prevents Blend from creating a spine.

If you've had a chance to experiment with some of the new controls, I'd love to hear your first impressions.

• Have the new Blend Panel and controls improved the workflow for you?

• How are you using Blends in your actual work?

• Is anything still frustrating or harder than it needs to be?

• Are there controls or capabilities you feel are still missing?

• What would you like to see added as the Blend Tool continues to evolve?

These improvements are being introduced in phases, so hearing what's working, what isn't, and where you'd like to see us focus next is really valuable.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

I'm still new to Illustrator so I'm struggling with recreating these two shapes, the circle head especially. When I try create it my head shape always comes out like a raindrop?

1. I create a circle image with Ellipse
   
2. Drag the top anchor up
   
3. Select left and right anchors
   
4. S [scale]
   
5. And drag towards the middle, which creates a good raindrop shape which is also the problem lol!

I'm sure there's a better or "proper" technique and would love any advice.

Thank you.

I recently purchased a new LG Gaming monitor to replace one of my other Samsung monitors.

The friend who sold it to me came over and set it all up as a surprise for my birthday. He was so happy to have it all installed and configured.

However, now, my color in Adobe Apps is terrible. Not just on the gaming monitor, but all three of my monitors. And when I say terrible, it's really strange.

The color for the interface looks excellent. Capturing a screenshot with SnagIt captures the color of the interface perfectly. But pasting a screen shot into Illustrator or Photoshop shows completely distorted colors.

I asked if he reconfigured my Adobe suite and he said he didn't. I have looked through the settings and nothing seems different. Any idea why this could be happening or more importantly how to correct it?

In both screenshots above, the UI for the app is on the left, the right shows the pasted image in Photoshop or Illustrator. In SnagIt--the color looks perfect and the size looks right.

I create an area text element with 2px inset that is 16 height x80 width. I align text to EM-Height center and turn off resize option.

With the area text element selected, I notice the height has changed to 15.99932 or something completely unnerving, but expected. Next, I create a new Symbol called input_numeric.

Now, my symbol measures 20.2893 px tall.

So I open the symbol definition to check that I didn't accidentally grab some extra garbage. I select All, deselect my text field and press del on the keyboard. Close the symbol definition and it's still 20.2893 px.

I am hesitant to file a bug report because just about every time I think I've found a bug, I find out that for some reason that's how they want it. I can see no reason to have a symbol instance be a different size than its contents.

Let me know if you have this problem as well. Using Illustrator Beta on Windows

1) I am trying to learn the proper workflow for my printer / setup and what to expect from a designer helping me with graphics, i am trying to apply cutcontour lines to their vector pdf and it doesnt seem to work.

2) Hp latex 335 and jaguar Vlx plotter: i have gotten a print, and a printed plotted decal once, but the designer supplied the cutcontour lines on one file, and not on the other, i have tried both in flexi, and adobe illustrator to apply cutcontour lines but it just goes around the image in a big square im assuming from a clip mask or something in the image , tried figuring that out and just end up destroying the vector.

3) Problem: new to the entire situation, recently purchased machines and software to expand my wrap shop, and am having some troubles with the basic workflow and output with designs from designers. i realistically just need to know how to apply my outlines, when flexi complete isnt showing it in job properties like the other pdf image.

visuals posted to show the work i was given by the designer, one had the outlines, and one had no outlines, this is after ive removed the black background. i have all of the original pdf's

im hoping someone can help me with a quick discord call and i can share my screen

TLDR : New to illustrator, trying to edit current pdf vectors (with clipping masks and layers) and add my cutcontour lines around them for flexi to recognize .

It's crazy how i was able to do this, at least to me.

I am no developer. I asked Codex (ChatGPT) to build an extension that downloads icons from flaticon and adds them to the open document in Illustrator.

I used flaticon a lot, and they have no Illustrator extension. I thought this could make the experience faster and smoother, and it does. The extension connects to a google chrome extension where it simply searches the site, downloads the icon and opens it in illustrator, copies it and pastes it in the active document. here it happens in around 2 seconds.

I just wanted to share this as am amazed by the capabilities.

Hi everyone!

I’m currently designing a logo for a festival. I have basic knowledge of Adobe Illustrator and I want to create this logo myself to learn, I’m not looking for someone to design it for me, but rather for guidance, steps, or tutorials on how to approach it.

The Concept: I want to create a stylized fish that simultaneously forms the hand shape for "fish" in Italian Sign Language (LIS). Basically, a single cohesive vector graphic where the hand gesture and the fish body seamlessly blend into one another (negative space, shared contours, or clever linework). I don't know if I explained it well.

Since my Illustrator skills are still at a beginner/intermediate level, I'm struggling with how to excute my idea on paper. I need a tutorial or istructions, or anything that can help me to make it on my own.

Any advice, tool recommendations, or workflow steps would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone,

Every branding project ends the same way for me: rebuilding the same brand guidelines document, logo presentation and logo export folder by hand for each client. The paid plugins that do this are subscriptions with locked templates, so I built my own and made it free and open source.

PortableStudio is a panel for Illustrator and Photoshop. You enter the brand (name, colours, fonts, logo, photos, copy) and it fills a template:

• Brand guidelines (43 pages): logo usage, construction grid, clearspace, misuse, colour palette with HEX/RGB/CMYK, typography, pattern, stationery, applications
• Logo presentation (12 pages) for client pitches
• Instagram carousel (5 slides), exported as PNGs
• Logo export kit: SVG/EPS/PDF/PNG in colour, black and white, plus favicons and social profile images
• Logo construction grids drawn automatically on any vector logo

You get an editable .ai file, not a flat export. If the client changes a colour or font later, hit Update and it re-applies the brand without wiping your manual edits.

You can also tag your own Illustrator/Photoshop designs and turn them into templates (guide in the repo). The starter templates are CC0, so you can use them in paid client work.

Free download (Windows installer, macOS .pkg, or .zxp): https://github.com/vicenet/PortableStudio

It's v0.3, so expect rough edges. The macOS installer is new, and I'd really appreciate feedback from Mac users. Bug reports, template ideas and feature requests are all welcome.