TUTORIAL ARTICLE

Beginner

3 min

Alex Trochut on pushing yourself and trusting the process.

What interdisciplinary designer Alex Trochut has learned about creativity and the importance of experimentation.

What you’ll need

“These digital tools are like superpowers and they can fuel your way of expressing yourself. The technology is there, but you are really enabling it through your own mind and putting things together by yourself.”

How to make a custom brush in Adobe Illustrator.

Alex’s tip on making brushes also features a really smart blend tool. Play around with it. We bet you make something amazing.

Start with an image.

Select the rainbow stripe artwork and drag it to the Brushes panel (Window > Brushes). Or, create your own diagonal brush pattern from scratch using a unique color palette.

Fit the image to your brush.

In the New Brush window, choose Art Brush and click OK. Then name the brush, choose Stretch to Fit Stroke Length, and click OK.

Follow the path.

Choose the Selection tool and Shift-click to select both paths. Then click the new rainbow brush in the Brushes panel to apply the artwork.

Play with Blend Options.

With both paths selected, choose Object > Blend > Make. Then double-click the Blend tool to set the Blend Options to match the settings shown in the image to create a ribbon-like design.


Try these tutorials with Illustrator

Create illustrations and other graphics with vectors.