5 Basic Tools Every Illustrator must know|The Trio Illustrations

Hi! I am Nivedita and I am an Illustrator and a Graphic designer. I love designing in Adobe Illustrator. I created an instagram page called as “The Trio Illustrations” where I upload three designs of similar theme.

The interface of Adobe Illustrator is very easy and user friendly. Hence, if you want to be an illustrator and would want to use Adobe Illustrator frequently, here are 5 basic tools that every illustrator artist should know and how it will make easy to design illustrations more perfectly.

The Ruler:

The Ruler is the most important tool for me. It will help you with the alignment and composition of the objects in the artboard.

The Ruler tool is hidden by default. You can go to

View > Rulers > Show Rulers

Once you turn the Ruler on, you can drag the guide and place it in the position of the object you want to measure.There will be Ruler on both top and right side of the interface.

The Ruler will help you in achieving a perfect alignment and composition of your objects in the artwork and will give it a neat and professional look.

I always start my artwork with first opening the Ruler tool.

The Grid

Everything you create sits above the Grid. The Grid is another tool that helps you with the composition. The Grid behind the objects act like tiny boxed shaped pixels that give you a better understanding with the alignment and composition of the object you are trying to create.

The Pen Tool

Pen tool is the most powerful tool. It is basically a digital pen. It gives the Illustrator the power of designing objects with freehand curves. It creates a vector path.

Now Pen Tool is a little difficult to use. Don't be scared. It takes time but you will definitely get hold of it. And once you learn to use the pen tool it is completely worth it.

Take the pen tool. Click once to add an anchor point then add another anchor point to create a straight line, you can adjust the anchors by selecting “direct tool”. These anchors can also be coverted into curves.

You can change the path directions, draw zig zag or in any free way you like.

In my opinion, the best way to learn the Pen Tool is by first drawing an artwork in a piece of paper, scan it and try to trace it digitally in Illustrator.

The Layer Panel

The layer Panel ( shortcut key F7).

The layer Panel gives you a structure that will allow you to recognize the objects present in the current file.. You can also adjust the objects into different positions and sections. Further the tool let's you create as many layers you want. Grouping the objects makes designing artworks more compatible to work on. The layers have sub-layers in it. You can hide or view the layers too.

The Align Panel

The Align Panel lets you distribute equal space between two or more objects. You can align the object to the Artboard or according to the other objects. For example: If I want to center a object above another object I can just select both of the objects and click on the “center” tool. I donot have to worry about the objects not being in the proper position. It can be aligned into:-

● Right

● Center

● Left

● Horizontal

● Vertical

● Center

There are many tools in Illustrator that makes it special than the rest of the other designing softwares.

Find out here: https://thetrioillustrations.wixsite.com/illustrations/blog