Discover the intricacies of creating a unique icon design, focusing on customizing a helmet and glasses icon. Learn about the various tools and techniques, such as swapping fill and stroke colors, adjusting stroke properties, and customizing line width.
Key Insights
- The process begins with the copying of a pre-existing helmet and glasses icon onto a new artboard, using the hand tool and keyboard shortcuts.
- Modification of the glasses and helmet involves swapping the fill and stroke colors, as well as adjusting the stroke properties for more character.
- Customization of lines is achieved through adjustment of the stroke profile and width tool, resulting in a stylized and unique icon design.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this video, we'll be working on our final icon and our midterm project customizing our helmet and glasses. So to start, let's use the hand tool shortcut (H) on the keyboard and drag over to our final artboard.
From here, we're going to be copying the helmet and glasses that we've previously made and adding them to this artboard. To do this, we'll go into our layers panel, select the helmet and glasses, and hit CTRL C to copy. Then, going into the working layer, we'll paste it by using CTRL V. From here, we can use the selection tool (V) on the keyboard, and we're going to drag it fully into our artboard and center it.
As an example, let's look to our PDF and we can see that for this customized helmet and glasses, we've changed the fill to black, made the white transparent, and the lines have a little more character. So, I'll walk through the process to recreate this; however, you'll have different opportunities to customize your own helmet along the way. So let's go back into Illustrator and begin the process.
The first thing I want to do is customize the glasses. To do this, I'll double-click to go into isolation mode and select the glasses. From here, it's as simple as swapping the fill and the stroke.
So, I'll click 'Swap Fill and Stroke, ' and I've now created my black-filled glasses. Next, let's work on the helmet. So, let's double-click on the helmet, and we're going to swap this out to have a black fill.
Next, if we double-click outside, we'll see that all of our accent lines have disappeared. We can fix this by zooming in, holding CTRL, and using the mouse to change our perspective. Next, let's double-click back on the helmet, and double-click on the helmet again to go into isolation mode for just the helmet.
We'll then draw a selection box over the entire helmet, and holding Shift, if we click on the helmet, we'll deselect it, only selecting our lines.
From here, we can change the stroke color from black to white. While we have some issues with our lines, this looks like it works well. Next, let's talk about customizing the lines.
The first way we can do this is with the bottom path. I'll hit CTRL + Shift + A to deselect; however, we'll remain in isolation mode. Adjusting this path, we can go into the properties panel and adjust our stroke.
We'll click on 'Stroke, ' and here's where we have many different options for how we can adjust this line. Clicking on the profile, we can go through different profiles. Feel free to choose whichever one you'd prefer.
For me, I'll use this profile; however, I'm going to customize it a little using the width tool.
So, clicking with the width tool, I'll drag down from the edges to make this line a little bit thinner. Next, we'll work on these lines at the top.
To do this, I'm going to minimize the width at the bottom by dragging to the right.
I'll do the same thing by clicking and dragging to the left this time. Finally, in the middle, I'll click and drag so that they're all pointing directly down.
Next, I'll adjust these lines so they're reaching over the top of the helmet. To do this, I'll use the selection tool (V) on the keyboard, and I'm simply going to drag up so that all three lines are raised above the helmet.
We've now completed the stylizing of our helmet. If we double-click, we can exit, and we've stylized the helmet appropriately.
Let's now save our work using CTRL + S on the keyboard, and in the next video, we'll be completing our midterm project.
See you there!