This article outlines the process of creating a digital postcard design using Adobe Illustrator. The focus is on creating the back of the postcard, including the addition of a striped background, a solid color backdrop, and various text and image elements.
Key Insights
- The design process begins with the creation of a new layer in Illustrator, which is filled with a solid color using the Rectangle tool and the Eyedropper tool to select the color.
- To add the striped pattern, another layer is created and a pattern fill is selected from the Basic Graphics Lines library, which is then customized in terms of color, rotation, and opacity.
- The article also mentions the addition of various text elements and a character image on the postcard design, as well as the use of drop shadows for each object, although these processes are not detailed in the content provided.
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In this video, we'll begin working on the back of our postcard. So, before moving forward, let's open up our PDF example of this and observe the back of the postcard.
Here, we can see that the back of the postcard contains a solid background color with stripes going across, as well as a shape. On top of this, we can see that we have one banner going across with the words "Start a Career in Construction." We have the large "Job Fair" text, the smaller details on a square, and one subline saying "Meet Industry Leaders and Hiring Directors."
Each of these objects has a drop shadow added, and to the right, we have a character of a woman. So let's get started creating this, and in this video, we'll be creating the background with the stripes. We'll click back into Illustrator and let's get started.
The first thing we want to do is create a new layer. We'll create this layer and double-click, titling it "Back Background" and hit ENTER. From here, we'll go to the rectangle tool, and we'll be dragging a rectangle from the top left to the bottom right, making sure that we cover all of the area in the bleed. We'll drag from one intersection of the bleed to the other, and we now have a white background.
Let's now change the color of our background using the eyedropper tool shortcut I on the keyboard, and from here, we'll choose the color that we'd like for our background. In this case, I'll choose this middle color, and now we've completed the solid background. Next, let's add another layer where we'll be adding our stripes.
Since we'll be adding this layer on top of our current layer, let's first lock our Back layer. We'll go into our Layers panel, click the drop-down from our Back Background, and we'll click in the space to the left of the rectangle entry to lock this layer. Next, we'll create an additional layer.
We'll go to the rectangle tool, and for our fill, let's simply click "None" for now, and we'll drag another rectangle on top of the other one. From here, we want to add a pattern as our fill. To do this, we'll go into fill within our Properties panel and click the fill.
From here, we'll see that we have multiple solid colors to choose from; however, we're looking for a pattern. To go to our patterns, we'll click on the Libraries menu and navigate to the patterns. From here, let's select Basic Graphics, Basic Graphics Lines, and we'll see that we have our basic graphics lines show up on the left-hand side.
We can drag this closer to the center of our file, and this right now is a floating panel. From here, we click on each of the patterns to assign it on top of the blue background. In addition, if we click "Load Next Swatch Library, " we'll see that we move into Textures, then Decorative Legacy, and here we have many different options to add as a background, and the list continues.
Let's navigate now back to Basic Graphic Lines, and from here, feel free to choose whatever background lines you'd prefer. For my background, I'll be selecting "Scotch Rule 2." With this added, we now have black lines as our pattern. However, we want to make a few changes to this pattern.
To make these changes, we'll go back into fill and select our pattern fill. With this selected, we'll then click "Pattern Options." Here, to edit our pattern, we can double-click on the pattern itself, and we'll see that this pattern is actually created from one square of pattern.
To edit this, we can treat it like any other shape. We'll hit V on the keyboard and drag a selection box over our pattern. The first thing I want to do is change the color of the stroke.
It's currently set to black, so let's instead change it to white. We'll go to our stroke and select white from our color panel, and we now have a white pattern. Let's now exit our pattern options by clicking X and double-clicking, and we can see that we now have a white pattern.
The next change I want to make is rotating this pattern so that it's slanted to the right. To do this, I'll select the layer within our toolbar. We'll select the rotate tool, and this tool works by clicking on objects and rotating them.
If we double-click the icon, we'll see that we have different options. From here, we can transform the objects or transform patterns. In this case, transforming the object only rotates it.
However, if we uncheck this and check "Transform Patterns, " we'll see that it rotates the pattern. From here, we'll select an angle that we feel is appropriate. In this case, I like this current angle, so I'll click OK. If you're not seeing it, make sure to have "Preview" checked.
I'll click OK, and we now have our pattern at the right angle in white. As one final change, we want to adjust the opacity of this so it's not quite so visible. To adjust our opacity or transparency, we'll go to the control bar, and from here, we can edit it either by typing in a new number or clicking the arrow on the right-hand side, or we'll have a slider, and we can see the impact.
For this pattern, I'm going to leave it relatively subtle at about 30%. However, feel free to adjust your opacity to whatever you'd prefer. We've now finished our background as well as our pattern.
Well done! Let's save our work using CTRL + S on the keyboard, and in the next video, we'll be adding a shape to our background. See you there!