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filters and effects
Filters and effects are commands from Illustrator’s Main Menu
that change the look of objects by applying a preset algorithm.
Illustrator’s effects menus offer live alterations (which remain editable), while filters are permanent. Note that you can also export an Illustrator file into its sister program, Photoshop, where you can apply another huge array of special effects.
tiling
A sampling of various vector images “tiled” as a back- ground or desktop image. One of the projects in Chapter 7 applies the technique of tiling to real world objects. Jamie Kruse
graphic styles
Do not dismiss tiling as a gimmick. In textile design and in wallpaper design you can find beautiful examples of tiling where it is often difficult to figure out where and how a single pattern is repeating.
Graphic styles are sets of reusable appearance attributes that can be applied to an object with a single click.
Mosaic tiling was refined to a high art form centuries ago in the Muslim world. If you spend time within the tiling sec- tions of Illustrator you will find examples and instructions for making geometric tiles into borders. There are even tools to help morph a given pattern into a corner that extends a pat- tern in a new direction.
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CHAPTER 4: ILLUSTRATION
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When designers work on a series
of graphics projects, they often use custom looks to achieve a consis- tent identity that viewers will like and remember. Illustrator comes with a Graphic Styles Library that has ten categories of styles including Scribble, Neon, Artistic, Textures, and more.
You can fashion a fresh and distinc- tive graphic style that you then save and apply to related projects. This is a strong visual branding technique.
Like everything else within Illustrator, the attributes of a style can be applied to a group of objects or to a layer. Everything is tweakable and reversible.
Here a shape with red, green, and blue colors (far left) has been put through a few of the filters and effects from Illustrator’s Main Menu. There are dozens of them. Choose an object and conduct your own survey.
Tiling is a file size saving technique in which a small image is systematically and seamlessly replicated
to create a regular, patterned, repetitive background.