Master the art of working with icons in a digital workspace, from copying and pasting to creating a new layer, and from scaling to color changes. This article provides a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial on how to effectively manipulate and customize icons in a design project.
Key Insights
- The article provides guidelines on how to copy and paste icons from one workspace to another, as well as the process of creating a new layer for the icon.
- It highlights the significance of scaling and its effect on the stroke and overall appearance of the icon. Instructions are also given on how to maintain the original stroke while scaling.
- The article also covers how to change the color of the icon using color themes, and how to make necessary alterations to the stroke to fit the icon appropriately within designated guides.
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In this video, we're going to be working with our top icon. To do this, we'll go to File > Open, and from here, let's navigate to our unzipped folder and open up our construction icons.
We'll then click Open, and here we have our construction icons. For this purpose, let's use the wrenches icon found on the left, and all we're going to do is hit CTRL+C to copy this icon. Going back into our Three Panel Display file, we'll simply paste it using CTRL+V. Next, we want to create a new layer for this icon, so let's create a new layer and title this layer “Icons, ” then hit ENTER. From here, we can take our icon and move it up so that it's within our first icon area.
Before continuing to edit this icon, let's add a buffer guide. As we remember, this is our separator between the panel below and the icon, so let's add another one-eighth-inch buffer by dragging from the ruler. Holding Shift, we'll release right at one and seven-eighths. We'll do the same thing above, releasing right at two-eighths.
We now have our buffer zone, and we'll want to fit our icon between these guides. First, let's zoom in and view our icon. As we can see here, we have wrenches with a black outline. If we want to scale our wrenches up, we can do so by holding Shift as we drag, creating a larger icon.
However, as we can see, the stroke here changes and gives the wrench a slightly different effect. If we hit CTRL+Z, we can see that the ratio of how thick the stroke is compared to the icon's scale changes. This is because, as we scale, we're not scaling the stroke and effects as well.
In order to change this, we'll click on our icon, right-click, and go to Transform > Scale. From here, we'll make sure that Uniform is set to 100%, and we'll check “Scale Strokes and Effects.” Now, if we want to change the size of our icon, we can do so either by dragging as we did before or by scaling uniformly.
In this instance, let's type 200 and hit OK. From here, we can see that while it's a little bit bigger, we still want to scale it up more. So let's do so by dragging up and holding Shift. As we can see here, we now have our icon with the stroke preserved as originally intended.
Next, let's change the color of our icon. To do this, with the Fill selected, we can choose from one of our color themes found within either Libraries or Adobe Color Themes. We'll then navigate to “My Themes, ” and we can choose one of the colors selected earlier.
In this case, I'll use this green. Let's now remove the stroke to see how this looks. We'll select the Stroke and set it to None. As we can see here, we've really altered the look of our icon and the image.
Even though it fits well, it has a very different feel without the stroke. Let's hit CTRL+Z to undo this change. Currently, we want to fit our icon between the guides, but looking at the stroke, it extends beyond.
In addition, if we remove the stroke, it changes the appearance significantly. To troubleshoot this, we can do a couple of things. First, we can select the Stroke and go into Adobe Color Themes, selecting the same color we used for the Fill to create a unified look.
However, this doesn't quite produce the look we're going for. Instead, let's adjust our Stroke settings. We'll go to Stroke, and as we can see, we have options for Cap, Corner, and Alignment. The stroke is currently set to be aligned to the outside of the shape.
Let's explore what changes when we adjust the corner. As we can see, we get a slightly sharper corner, which I think looks more appropriate for the wrench. Additionally, if we change our stroke alignment, we’ll notice different results.
Looking at this combination, I feel that “Align Stroke to Center” gives us the best appearance. Now that we have this set, we want to make sure our stroke fits between the guides as well. To do this, we could manually scale it by holding Shift and trying to align it so that the edges go all the way to the guides, or we can outline the stroke to make it all one shape.
To do this, we'll go to Object > Path > Outline Stroke. However, before outlining the stroke, it's important to note that this is a destructive change—it cannot be undone. In this case, since we still have our construction icons, I’m willing to take that chance because I know I’ll have a backup if needed.
Now we'll use the Shape Builder Tool to create our two wrench shapes. I'll hit CTRL+Shift+A to deselect, hit V on the keyboard to select the Selection Tool, and we can now simply drag the icon up to our guides while holding Shift. Well done.
Let's make sure that this is positioned in the center, and now let's save our work by hitting CTRL+S on the keyboard. In the next video, we'll begin discussing symbols. See you there!