Design editorial illustrations from sketches and shapes

Transform basic sketches and shapes into expressive vector art that captures the essence of editorial concepts with Generative Shape Fill.

Published January 26, 2026

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00:01

Introduction

Hey friends, I'm Jasmine Whitaker, Marketer, Strategist, and Illustrator.

And today I'm going to show you how to take your freehand sketches and basic shapes and turn them into beautiful, fully editable vector art and illustrations using Generative Shape Fill in Adobe Illustrator.

Are you ready to get started?

Let's do it!

00:20

Generating vector art from freehand sketches

Let's start with the freehand sketch, and it doesn't have to be perfect.

As you can see, there're some open paths here and some overlapping paths here, but it's good enough for us to get started.

So let's go ahead and go to the Contextual panel, select Gen Shape Fill and click on the Options Cog to open up the Options.

From here, there're a bunch of options that you can play around with.

I'm going to type in the Prompt, colorful map of the world, and play around with some of the details like the Shape Strength, and the Detail.

You can also add a Style Reference, apply different Effects and explore Color and Tone.

After you've done that, select Generate.

And this is where Illustrator does its magic.

In a few short seconds, Illustrator has given me three variations of designs based on my text prompt.

I am curious to see what Gen Shape Fill would come up with

01:13

Refining results with clean outlines and style references

having used a perfect outline.

So let's give that a try.

Now I have my perfect outline of my globe selected, this time in the Gen Shape Fill Options, I'm going to skip the Prompt, put my Shape Strength to High and my Detail at Maximum and add a Style Reference.

You can do that by selecting Choose asset and using the Eyedropper to select your reference of choice and hit Generate.

And again Gen Shape Fill has come up with three different options for me to choose from based off of my Style Reference.

01:49

Creating additional elements from basic shapes

Let's use some basic shapes to create additional elements for our design.

Select Gen Shape Fill and in the Gen Shape Fill Options, we're going to type in the Prompt, person floating in space, character illustration.

I'm going to set the Shape Strength to Low and crank the Detail to Maximum.

For my Effects, I'm going to select Flat Design, and for my Color and Tone I'm going to select Vibrant and hit Generate.

And look at these cute character illustrations that Gen Shape Fill has created.

They are perfect to add some additional elements to my design.

Let's take a look at the final project.

02:31

Reviewing the finished generative design workflow

Today we explored Adobe Illustrator's Generative Shape Fill feature and turned freehand sketches and basic shapes into beautiful vector art.

Try Generative Shape Fill today and elevate your creative workflow.

I'm Jasmine Whitaker and until next time.

Note: Stock assets provided are for practice purposes only. See terms.

What you learned

Start illustrations with primitive sketches

Begin with a simple sketch. Type a prompt in Generative Shape Fill, adjust settings, and explore well-developed options to refine further.

Create detailed art from defined shapes

Skip the prompt if your shape is detailed — adjust Shape Strength and Detail to generate high-quality art. You can use an existing artwork as a style reference for even better results.

Use organic shapes for spot illustrations

Draw an organic shape to generate smaller illustrations — perfect for characters or accent pieces that enhance your editorial design.

Instruction by: Jasmine Whitaker
Adobe Stock Contributors: Euangfa

Try these tutorials with Illustrator

Create illustrations and other graphics with vectors.

View all plans

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