Unravel the essentials of graphic design as you learn the finer details of managing complex icon design projects. This article discusses the importance of grouping in design, which aids in organizing multiple assets for simplified handling and improved efficiency.
Key Insights
- Grouping is a fundamental tool in design that enables you to treat multiple individual assets as a single unit, enhancing project organization and simplification.
- Isolation mode is a feature that still allows for manipulation of individual assets within a group, maintaining the flexibility of design adjustments in a grouped setting.
- Artboards, an integral part of graphic design, allow for a better visual organization of your design. The article describes how to add and arrange them in columns for a more coherent depiction of a design project.
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In this video, we'll be discussing grouping as well as creating all of the additional artboards for the remainder of our icons. So, let’s begin by discussing grouping.
Currently, if we look at our icons and select them using the Selection Tool, we’ll see that we can select individual paths within our icons. In addition, if we go into the Layers panel and click the dropdown for "Final, " we’ll see that we have multiple paths, lines, and guides. While it may not be a big deal for our current Layers panel with only two icons, we’re going to want to organize this in preparation for additional icons in the future.
One way we can accomplish this is by making it simpler through grouping our icons. To do this, we can select all the elements of one icon and group them. So, let’s do this in practice.
The first way we can do it is by using the Selection Tool and clicking on one path. We’ll now hold Shift and click on the two additional paths of our first icon. As we can see, we have all three lines currently selected, and if we look in our Layers panel, we’ll see that we also have all three lines selected, as shown to the right of each of these elements or art.
Next, we want to group all these lines together. To do this, we’ll simply right-click and select "Group." Now, while the actual appearance hasn’t changed, if we look at our Layers panel, we’ll see that we now have a group. If we click the dropdown, we’ll see that all three lines are within the group.
Let’s now retitle this group by double-clicking on it and typing "1 for our first icon arrow, " then hitting Enter. When we collapse this, we’ll see that all three lines are within "Arrow, " but it simplifies our Layers panel. In addition to simplifying the Layers panel, it also keeps all three lines together.
Therefore, in the future, if we want to move it, we can do so by clicking and selecting only one piece of our icon. So, let’s click outside the arrow to see how this works. We’ll click outside, and now, rather than selecting just one element, when we click, we’ll see that it selects the entire icon or grouping.
As we can see, we have selected "Arrow." Next, let’s do the same grouping with our second icon. To do this, we’ll go over to our download icon, and rather than selecting each individual segment by holding Shift, we can draw a selection box with the Selection Tool.
To do this, we’ll deselect everything by clicking outside the artboard, and we’ll simply click and drag a box selecting everything inside. We now have all our segments selected, so we’ll right-click and select "Group." Next, let’s also rename this group by double-clicking on it, typing "2. Download, " and hitting Enter.
As we can see, we’ve cleaned up our final layers significantly, and finally, we can delete the guides. We’ll click on each of them, holding Shift, and click the trash icon to delete the selection.
In the future, if we want to move our grouping or icon, we can simply click and drag it to where we prefer, rather than selecting all the icons. I’ll hit CTRL + Z to undo and let’s now save our work using CTRL + S on the keyboard. When talking about groupings, it’s also important to know that while they’re grouped together, we can still make changes to any of the individual art pieces.
To do this, we’ll go into Isolation Mode. We’ll double-click, and we’ll see, first, that we have a blue line over our file. When we have this blue line, it shows us that we are within a grouping.
We can also see this in the Layers panel. This is called Isolation Mode, meaning that we’ll only be editing the objects within the group. Therefore, now I can select individual pieces of art and move or manipulate them as needed.
For example, if I were to grab this line and move it up, I can then exit Isolation Mode by double-clicking outside the artboard, and we’ll see in the future that if I grab the group, it still maintains its grouping. I’ll hit CTRL + Z to undo the move and CTRL + Z again to undo the movement of the line. Finally, I’ll double-click outside of Isolation Mode.
Finally, let’s also add our artboards. To do this, we’ll go to the Artboard tool found in the toolbar, and we’re going to add 16 artboards. We’ll click until we see that we have 16 artboards. As we can see, if we zoom out using CTRL + MINUS (-) on the keyboard, they’re currently all in a line. I’ll hold CTRL and scroll over with the mouse.
We’ll see that this isn’t a very convenient way to have all our icons together to see them all at once. So, let’s arrange our artboards into four columns of four. We’ll go to our Properties panel with the Artboard tool selected and go to "Rearrange All."
When we click this, we’ll see a couple of layout options, and we’ll stick with the first one where it moves over, down, and to the left. We’ll then make sure we have four columns by double-clicking, making sure we have four (or typing four), and let’s adjust our spacing by double-clicking it and typing in 15 pixels, as it will provide a bit less space than we currently have.
Finally, we’ll make sure that "Move Artwork with Artboard" is checked, and we’ll click OK. As we can see here, we have all our icons on one screen where we can see them well, and we’re ready to begin creating the rest of our icons. Let’s now save our work, hitting CTRL + S on the keyboard, and in the next video, we’ll begin working on the magnifying glass. See you there!