Discover how to add a bottom download box to a download icon using guides and the pen tool. This article provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to manipulate artboard rulers, create guides, and use the pen tool to draw multiple points, ultimately creating a distinct path.
Key Insights
- To add a guide to an artboard, it is crucial to click on the intended artboard first to ensure the ruler measurements are accurate for that specific artboard.
- Instead of the line segment tool, the pen tool allows for the creation of multiple points forming one path. The pen tool continues adding anchor points until the 'escape' button on the keyboard is pressed.
- Upon creating a shape, the fill and stroke may default to no fill and stroke. To change this, press 'd' on the keyboard. If the shape covers any elements behind it, change the fill from white to no fill to make the middle of the shape transparent.
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In this video, we're going to be adding the bottom download box to our download icon. So, before we begin, let's add some guides to help us distinguish where we want our lines to go.
To add a guide to this artboard, we'll first want to make sure that we've clicked on the artboard. When we click on the artboard, we can see that the rulers are appropriate for this artboard, going from 0 to 30. However, it is important to know that if you click the ruler from another artboard (in this case, the ruler is hovering over the left artboard), we'll see that our units change, and they now go from 50 to 80 because it still thinks we're on Artboard 1. Therefore, I'll release the guide by hitting CTRL + Z, and let's now zoom in using CTRL + PLUS (+) on the keyboard.
Now, with this artboard clicked again, we can create a guide that will be on this artboard. Let's create a guide right at 4 pixels. We'll hold Shift and release at 4, and let's create one more, going to the other side, and 4 back from 30 is 26.
We'll release the guide here. Additionally, let's create a guide at the bottom, where the bottom of our box will be. We'll drag from the top and release it right at 28 pixels.
We’re now ready to begin adding our box. Rather than using the Line Segment tool found in the toolbar, we'll use a different tool—the Pen Tool. We'll click on it, and what the Pen Tool does is allow us to draw multiple points to create one path.
We'll start by clicking on the intersection, and with the Pen Tool, we don't have to continue holding the left mouse button. We'll click our next anchor point at the next intersection, then click one more anchor point at the bottom right intersection, and our final anchor point on the top right intersection.
As we can see, the Pen Tool will continue wanting to add anchor points until we hit Escape on the keyboard. Looking at this now, we don’t have a line. This is because our fill and stroke have been set to "no fill" and "no stroke" again.
As we've discussed, we can change this by pressing D on the keyboard for the default settings. However, the shape we've created is now filled with white, covering up the arrow behind it. So, let's change our fill now from white by clicking on it and going to our color panel, then selecting "No Fill" so that the middle of our shape is transparent, showing the arrow behind it.
We can then zoom out using CTRL + MINUS (-) on the keyboard, and we've completed our download button. Let's see what it looks like without the guides by first pressing V on our keyboard to select the Selection Tool, then pressing CTRL + Shift + A to deselect, and finally right-clicking and selecting "Hide Guides." Nicely done! This download button looks good, so let's move it into our "Final" layer by highlighting all the elements, clicking and dragging the selection box over them, and dragging using the red square to the right of "Working, " moving it into "Final."
When these have been moved to "Final, " we'll see that the selection turns blue. We can now zoom out using CTRL + MINUS (-) on the keyboard to see that we've completed our first two icons. Let's now save our work using CTRL + S on the keyboard to save, and in the next video, we'll begin working on our third icon.
See you there!