& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator

FREE Illustrator
resources:
15+ tools
20+ short cuts

Illustrator Accelerator: 20+ short cuts

Use these short cuts to increase your
10+ tools
Including making a custom grid,
Get your mouse at the ready, because
there’s a lot to learn!
Short Cuts & Tools for workflow speed and make working in manipulating type, quick resizing, and
Lightning Fast Design Illustrator more enjoyable. much more.
 A short intro

Illustrator can be daunting when you’re starting out. There are so

many tools, options, and features. Figuring out what they are and
how to use them, can take A LOT of time.

To save you that time, I’ve packaged all the handy short cuts and
tools I use all the time that will double the speed of your work flow!

Hope it helps!

Iris
& the design

& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator

20 Essential Short Cuts
X C \ P
Switches between Scissors tool. Line tool. Draw Pen tool. Creates
outline and fill Allows you to cut straight lines. Drag shapes with bezier
colour paths (and grid and hold (+ shift to handles.
lines). snap).

Shift + O Shift + E Shift + P Z

Edit artboard size, Eraser. With shape Perspective. Build Zoom. Click + drag
name, arrangement selected, you can your perspective to zoom in and out.
& more erase it. and the shapes &
lines will snap to it.

H L Cmd + ‘ Shift + n
Hand tool. You can Ellipse. Draw Turns the grids on Shaper tool. Draw
click + hold + drag circular shapes. and off. shapes and the
to move around the Drag + shift to make programme will turn
workspace. perfect circle. them into perfect
shapes.

N M A Cmd + Y
Pen tool to draw Rectangle. Draw Direct selection Outline. Shows you
freely. squares and tool. Allows you to all the oulines so
rectangles. Drag + select individual you can align things
shift to make a anchor points. better.
square.

Shift + M T I R

T
Shape builder tool. Text. Start typing Eye dropper tool. To Rotate. Place the
Select 2 overlap- any text. pick a colour. center point where
ping shapes to you want the shape
create one shape. to revolve around.

& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator

Tools
Now, let’s look at some of the best tools that Illustrator has to offer.

Priority alignment Quick resizing Manipulating type Tool options

Select 2 objects. Then click on the To adjust anything regarding the size, Select your text box. If you want to adjust the tools to your
object you want the other one to align position, of objects or texts in the liking: double click on them in the tools

Hello
to. properties panel, first select it. menu.

Hello For example, for the pen tool. If you

double click, you can adjust the
smoothness and accuracy.
Use the short cut: shift + cmd + O to
Hover your mouse on the setting you’d create outlines of your text.
like to adjust and scroll with your
mouse wheel. Accurate Smooth

This object will get a thicker blue

T
border. It then becomes the main

T
object to align the other object(s) to. 30 pt As well as within what range you want
Double click and select the character to be able to edit the path.
you want to edit. Click ‘n’ to select the

TT
pen tool. Edit selected paths
30 pt
Within: 15 Pixels

Then, go to align in the properties

TT 12 pt Adjusting the tools to your preference,
will increase your workflow speed and
*scroll up or down
panel and align them horizontally. make your life easier as you’re
Draw the shape you want with the pen designing.
Hello tool. Make sure to start from the
outline and end your line on the outline.
If it doesn’t touch, it doesn’t always
This also works with a trackpad. Just work.
scroll as if you would scroll down a
web page.

& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator

Custom grid tool Type on path Using the mouse
Make a rectangle (m) Adjust the numbers to your preference and If you draw a shape and want If you use a mouse, you can
hit ok! to type on its outline, you can increase your workflow speed
use the type on path tool. by at least 2x.

Split into grids Create a shape With the mouse wheel you
can both zoom in and use the
Rows Columns
hand tool (H hotkey).
Number 4 px Number 5 px

Height 25 px Height 42 px If you scroll up and down, you

Select the rectangle will zoom in. You can turn this
Gutter 4 px Gutter 5 px
on by clicking on Illustrator >
Total 114 px Total 232 px
preference > general. Tick the
box: ‘zoom with mouse wheel’
Add guides
Cancel Ok
Preview If you click, hold the mouse
Click and hold the text tool in wheel and then drag it across
the tool menu. your screen, you will be using

Select ‘type on path’. T the hand tool. This allows you

to easily move across the
artboards.
Go to object > path > split into grids And you’ve got yourself a nice grid!

Object With the tool selected, click on

the outline of the shape
Press and hold

Path
right? s
fun

tar
nt now! it’s
Split into grids

t typing w
Extra tip: I always make the outline cyan, cut and
Activates the
paste it in a new layer and lock the layer. This And just start typing! hold tool

a
makes it super easy to work with! ha

w
tever you

& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator

A grid using the ruler Offset path Path finder Image trace
Turn on the ruler by clicking For whenever you have overlapping With pathfinder you can cut how two You might have drawn something and
on the ruler tool in the proper- paths and you want to cut the overlap- shapes overlap. want to turn it into a vector. Or you
ties panel. ping parts only. have an image of which you only want
The shape modes are: to use the outline.
Make sure the ‘show guides’ With your outlined text selected (shift
is on by clicking on this icon in + cmd + O), go to object > path > offset Unite Intersect
properties. path. Use the image trace tool to create a
vector out of anything.
Object Minus front Exclude
Import the file you want to create
outlines of.

Path
The pathfinders modes are:
Around the border of your working
screen, you will see a ruler feature. Offset path
Divide Crop

With the file selected, go to the top bar.

Trim Outline Click on the drop down for ‘image
trace’ and click on ‘silhouettes.’
Adjust the offset width and hit ok!
Merge Minus back Image trace

Put your mouse on the ruler, hold and

drag down to create a guide line. This tool is very handy for building
custom shapes where the pen tool is
not accurate enough. For example:
Your text now has an extra path Note: to edit the
that is offset of the initial path. You settings, click this
This is what it will create. You can also Silhouettes icon in the top bar
can select everything and use the
move and delete the lines - as long as
shape builder tool (shift + M) to
‘lock guides’ is turned off.
change the look of the text. Then click on ‘expand’ in the top bar
and you’ve got yourself a nice vector!
Note: hold option when using the
shape builder tool to delete paths
instead of creating shapes.

Here I used the interesect tool

& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator

Creating a pattern Live paint bucket
If you are a brand / graphic designer, Now you will see an isolated interface Imagine that you created a complex By clicking on each closed path, you
patterns are likely part of your daily to edit the settings of the pattern. shape with lots of separate paths. Now can fill that section with colour.
tasks. you want to colour fill certain parts of
that shape with different colours.
The easiest way to create patterns in
The section should have a thick red
Illustrator is by first creating the The easiest way to go about this is
outline for it to be able to fil.
elements that you want to include in with the paint bucket tool.
the pattern.

Edit the settings according to your

preferences.

Pattern options
The keyboard short cut for this tool is K
Name New Pattern
Select all the elements Select all paths where you want to apply If that’s not the case, you should check
Tile Type Grid
the paint bucket tool. whether the paths overlap properly. If
they don’t, select and drag the anchor
Width 140 px
points using the direct selection tool
Height 85 px
Select the paint bucket (A) to ensure they overlap.
Size Tile to Art tool in the tools panel.
Then try again.
Move Tile with Art
Now you can change
Copies 5x5
the colour to what you
Dim Copies to: 70% want by double clicking
Go to object > pattern > make Show Tile Edge on the colour fill.
Show Swatch Bounds
Object

Save a Copy Done Cancel

Make
Click ‘done’ and select the pattern
from the swatches panel. Then create
Pattern a circle or rectangle shape and you will
see the pattern appear!

& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator

Distribute spacing Corner tool Transform tool
If you created something with If you create a shape and want to make To create symmetrical, infite shapes. Play around with the settings.
elements that should be distributed rounded corners, this tool is perfect Specifically, change the rotation angle
equally, you can use the ‘distribute for that! Create a shape - rectangle / sphere / to create all the different designs.
spacing’ tool from the align panel. square.
Start by creating rectangular shape.
Select the shape and the hit ‘a’ on your
Select all the elements like you keyboard to get the direct selection
normally would. tool.
Cut the shape so that you have only one
corner / side. Use the scissors tool (c)
(a) to click on the corners / anchor points
and then hit ‘delete’ to delete them.

With the direct selection

tool, select all (or one of the Try it with different shapes and
Go to ‘align’ in the properties panel and corners). This will fill in the settings and have fun with it!
click on the three dots. little circles in each corner. Then go to effect > distort & transform >
transform.

Now you can start dragging Transform Effect

the little circles inwards to Scale

create the rounded Horizontal 95%

corners. Vertical 95%

Move
Horizontal 0 px
Vertical 0 px

Distribute Spacing: With the shape selected, you can also Rotate
go to ‘corners’ or ‘shape’ in the top Angle: 268°
menu and increase the roundedness
px, manually. Options
Transform Objects Reflect X
Select whether you want to distribute Corners: 10 px Transform Patterns Reflect Y
the alignment vertically or horizontally. Scale Strokes & Effects Random
And that’s it!
By clicking on ‘corners’, you can also Copies 60

find additional options on what kind of

Preview Cancel Ok
corner you want to create.

& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator

 Thank you for downloading and reading!

Now let’s put the tools to work!

Iris
& the design

& the design 2023 Illustrator Accelerator