Doing eye-catching designs in Illustrator

Eye catching swirl spiral

I’m always on the look out for simple eye-catching ways to communicate a message. I think this is a great example of a visually appealing background that could be used when there are no images, graphics or other ways to improve the typography. This is especially useful in direct marketing (email or mail shot).

How to create it in Illustrator

polygon dialog box The first thing you need to do, and it may not be apparent why, is to draw a triangle. How do you draw an equilateral triangle in Illustrator? Easy, simply fetch your Polygon tool from the Toolbar (it may be hiding under the Rectangle or Ellipse tool) and click once on the artboard. Then choose 3 Sides, don’t worry about the Radius. You then need to turn the triangle on it’s side and elongate it so it an isosceles with two long sides and a short base pointing to the left or the right. Don’t worry, it’ll become clear why later!

art brush dialog box Now, with the triangle selected, find your Brushes palette and select New Brush… in the drop down menu and choose Art Brush. Notice the direction the brush is pointing in (left), this will be important.

Now draw a curve from the centre of your artboard to the outside, make sure it has a stroke but no fill. Then apply the triangular brush that is now in your brush palette. Now go Object > Expand Appearance. This changes the stroke to a fill which we will need in order to apply a gradient to the curve.

rotate dialog box Now the exciting bit (you thought this wasn’t so exciting so far?), option/alt click on the apex of your curve with the Rotate (R) tool selected (see inset left). In the resulting dialog box (left) enter a number that goes into 360 evenly and hit copy. Now, the really exciting bit. Go Cntl/Cmd-D and keep your finger on it. Cool, huh?

Now all you have to do is to apply radial gradients to taste. And serve with some attention grabbing copy lines helped along with some well-crafted typography!

This article was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 10:41 am and is filed under Design, Illustrator, Marketing.
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21 Responses to “Doing eye-catching designs in Illustrator”

shepherdfamilyvalues, on August 9th, 2008 at 12:52 am, said:

Eye catching designs expresses the complete public image of a business in one graphic.

shepherdfamilyvaluess last blog post..What are some strategies for selling in a recssion?
RoWeb Design, on August 12th, 2008 at 8:39 pm, said:

Cool tip. It’s so important to find ways to communicate a message in a simple way. KISS (keep it simple, stupid)!
Bebo Skins, on August 13th, 2008 at 3:24 am, said:

thanks for this, will keep this in mind when designing in future. thanks
Jessie, on August 13th, 2008 at 10:54 am, said:

Haha, it’s great! Just great! Super eye catching, that’s for sure, and that is something that works!

It reminds me of a commercial from a Danish homepage, where you can borrow money, and EVERYONE (in Denmark of cause) has seen this commercial, because of the very eye catching background.
I think it’s a super great idea, with those kind of designs. Then you know for sure, that people will notice your message

And by the way, it’s some super good instructions you are giving. Nice job
I think I will try to make something like that, just for fun.
NaldzGraphics, on August 14th, 2008 at 6:16 am, said:

very cool tutorial:)im gonna try doing it.keep it up

NaldzGraphicss last blog post..24 Amazing High Quality Desktop Wallpapers
Rob Cubbon, on August 15th, 2008 at 2:44 pm, said:

Hello shephardfamilyvalues, RoWeb Design, Bebo Skins, Jessie and NaldzGraphics for your kind encouraging messages. It is a good technique for drawing your eye to a message. Better than if they were straight lines, I think. Thank you, Jessie, hope you had fun!
Web Design in Miami, on August 17th, 2008 at 12:28 am, said:

The tutorial is very cute, but I’m much more amazed at how well-written it is. It’s actually hard to find tutorials that give such clear instructions. Great work.

-Erika
wii balance board, on August 19th, 2008 at 6:14 pm, said:

An Eye catching design can deliver the message in pretty good way which a 500 words article can’t. That’s the reason that I have pictures in all my posts on all my blogs. The way you have written this tutorial, is amazing and easy. Thanks for sharing.

wii balance boards last blog post..WiiFlash Now Includes Balance Board Support
lanre from web design nigeria, on August 20th, 2008 at 12:56 pm, said:

An eye catching design is the best way to advertise any good product. I love this tutorial anyway because it is easy to understand
Rob Cubbon, on August 20th, 2008 at 3:16 pm, said:

@Erika from Web Design in Miami, I’m glad you thought the tutorial was cute and well-written.

@wii balance board, I always have at least one picture per post here. I think it’s boring to have text text text. (Co-incidentally, I’ve just bought a Wii Fit!)

@Lanre from Nigeria, thank you for your comment, I’m glad you found the post easy to understand, it requires some knowledge of Illustrator.
Acuity Designs, on September 1st, 2008 at 3:15 am, said:

Thanks! delicous-ed for future ref.

Acuity Designss last blog post..Flash Animated Rollover Video Tutorial
MOin, on September 1st, 2008 at 12:51 pm, said:

Hey thanks.
i tried this, it’s really nice.
you have really informative blog.
keep it up.
i enjoyed being here.
Rob Cubbon, on September 16th, 2008 at 11:04 am, said:

@Acuity Designs. Thank you and thank for delicous-ing my post!
@MOin, how interesting you tried it. You’re welcome to show me the results of your efforts. I could post it up here if you want!
@Website templates, thanks for your comment.
Great Wall of China, on September 17th, 2008 at 1:06 am, said:

I am trying to design stuff but am simply lousy!
Amart Design, on September 28th, 2008 at 8:45 pm, said:

Thanks for sharing with us, this is just an basic idea to lot of great works. This design is very simple but is a good eye catcher!

Keep On!
Headland, on September 30th, 2008 at 3:55 pm, said:

Some people tend to think that Corel Draw’s interface is more intuitive than Illustrator.
Logo Designer Nige, on October 9th, 2008 at 2:12 pm, said:

Very eye-catching. I’m going to give this a go. Thanks for sharing.
ITtradeOnline, on October 19th, 2008 at 10:55 am, said:

Cool tip. I tried it and it works really well.
Andrew Green, on October 19th, 2008 at 3:11 pm, said:

along with that designs u need to have a solid tag lines which gives more strength to the designs

Andrew
Rob Cubbon, on October 25th, 2008 at 5:51 pm, said:

@ Great Wall of China, keep trying!
@ Amart Design, thank you, all the best to you!
@ Headland, I’ve never used Corel Draw but thanks for the comment.
@ Logo Designer Nige, hope it went well.
@ Andrew Green, very true about tag lines!
flash templates, on October 29th, 2008 at 12:02 pm, said:

this info. is really helpful for me it’s some good instructions you are giving.i keep that in mind. thanks.

Freelance Graphic Designer London