A Comprehensive Guide to Illustrator's Tools: From Artboard to Selection Tools

In this video, we'll be going over Illustrator's tools. So let's begin by starting on the left where we have our Toolbar.

As we've already discussed, we have multiple tools within this Toolbar. However, let's first reset our Toolbar so that it's consistent across our interfaces. To do this, we'll select Edit Toolbar—the three small dots at the bottom of our Toolbar.

We'll click OK to customize it, and now we'll see all of the tools available to us within the Toolbar. To reset our Toolbar, we'll go to the top right-hand side and select the bullet-point-looking icon and click Reset.

If it's grayed out, as it is on mine, that means our Toolbar is already set to the default settings. We can simply click outside, and we now have our Toolbar in order. The first tool we'll go over is our Artboard Tool.

If we go towards the bottom of our Toolbar, we'll see the Artboard Tool. The Artboard Tool allows us to adjust the size of our Artboard. Let's click on Properties, and we can see the details.

Currently, our Artboard is 612 points by 792 points. To change this, we can simply type in a new measurement by double-clicking the width or height and typing it in. For example, I'll type in 800 and hit ENTER, and we'll see our Artboard change.

I'll then hit CTRL+Z to undo. Additionally, we can change the size of our Artboard by clicking and dragging only when the Artboard Tool is selected. We can click and drag to our desired width, and I'll hit CTRL+Z again to undo.

Another way to change the size of our Artboard is to go to our Selection Tool, and with the Selection Tool selected, we can go to File > Document Setup and select Edit Artboards. We'll see that the Properties Panel brings us back into the Properties for our Artboard Tool. Additionally, with the Selection Tool, we can click Edit Artboards.

So as we see, there are many ways to edit our Artboard and its size. However, one way we cannot edit it is by simply clicking and dragging the Artboard with the Selection Tool. For our next tool, let's select the Rectangle Tool.

We'll go to our Toolbar and select the Rectangle Tool. Here, with the Rectangle Tool, all we need to do to create a rectangle is simply click and drag. You can drag to whatever size you'd prefer.

I'll leave my rectangle about here, and when I release, we'll see that we now have a rectangle within our Artboard. Let's add one more element. We'll go back to our Rectangle Tool and open the Tool Group by clicking and holding with the left mouse button.

In this case, we're going to select our Line Segment Tool. With the Line Segment Tool selected, we'll click and draw, adding a line on our Artboard. With these two elements on our Artboard, let's next go over Selection Tools.

To do this, we can go to our Toolbar and select the Selection Tool found at the top. Additionally, if we hit V on our keyboard, it's the shortcut for the Selection Tool. The Selection Tool works by selecting different objects.

If we hover over the object we'd like to select, we can simply click. With it selected, we can click and drag with the left mouse button to move it around. I'll then click on the path—or the Line Segment—and drag it to move it. Additionally, we can change the shape and size of an object.

For example, I'll click back on the rectangle, and by clicking on the white boxes at the corners, we can adjust the size of the shape. We'll do the same thing with the path by clicking and dragging, adjusting the angle as well. So the Selection Tool allows us to select different objects.

Additionally, the Direct Selection Tool right below it—shortcut A on the keyboard—allows us to select individual anchor points, which are the points that make up a line. For example, within our rectangle, we have four different anchor points. With the Direct Selection Tool, we can click on these points individually and move them to change the shape or its dimensions.

I'll undo this by hitting CTRL+Z twice on my keyboard to move it back to its original spot. Let's now go back to the Selection Tool using the shortcut V on the keyboard. If we click outside the rectangle, we'll see that no objects are selected.

However, let's now click back on the rectangle and go over Fill and Stroke. On the left-hand side, we’ll see both Fill and Stroke settings, as well as within our Control Bar. The Fill is currently set to white.

This is shown by the box on the top left-hand side, and the Stroke—or the line and border of our object—is set to black. To change this, we can simply double-click on the Fill or Stroke. Let's change the color of our rectangle from white to blue by double-clicking Fill and using the Color Picker to select a blue color.

We'll leave it about there and click OK. We'll see that our rectangle is now blue. Additionally, we can change the Stroke color by double-clicking Stroke and choosing whatever color you'd prefer.

I'll change mine to green and click OK. While we can create different looks using different Fill and Stroke colors, we can also revert to default colors by selecting an object and hitting the shortcut D on the keyboard. This will revert to a white Fill and a black Stroke.

Finally, let's now look at our Layers Panel, where we'll see that we have “Layer 1.” If we click the drop-down arrow to the left of the title, we'll see both a line and a rectangle. The Layers Panel shows what's in our file, as well as the stacking order of different elements. This will be important in upcoming videos as we discuss how to organize our layers—both within our Artboard and within the Layers Panel.

Let's now save our work using CTRL+S on the keyboard. In the next video, we'll begin drawing our icons. See you there!