Adobe Illustrator - Appearance Panel - Class 14 Tech Learning 4U :

Assalamualaikum, 

Welcome to Tech Learning 4U I am your Teacher Zohaib

Today is our 14th class

Today I want to tell a most important thing ,

we have a small panel here that is our appearance panel

And believe me this is most useful thing and very unique

 (valuable) thing

I don’t understand one thing that many people don’t know

that we can also use this to make many things

I am not saying that everyone don’t know this

but I think many people who are using this in illustrator

are not so familiar with this panel (maybe)

that it has so much power to make many beautiful graphics

Let’s come and start

basically our appearance panel is located here and

it’s icon is made something like sun

I am dragging this and putting this here

as well as along with this I am picking my graphics style

and putting this here

What is the use of this?

You will get to know this after sometimes so I am making this style

 panel smaller for some times

Come to our appearance panel, settings here

by default whenever you will select your appearance panel then

 you will get some defaults

First of all here “no selection” is given here

let me zoom in for you so that

you will get to know about this very well and here First of all

 here “no selection” is given here

Here stroke is 1 point and fill is white

and stroke color is black and opacity is default here

again opacity is default here

What are these things? Whatever you will make here it will show

 all the properties of that in this panel

So now path is selected and

stroke is 1 point here which is black coloR

And fill is white (stroke is black whose value is 1)
Ok what we can do
with this appearance panel now ?
Till now you had know that our stroke panel
(note – I hope you had seen my stroke class – 5 ,
if not then you see the above link in the right side
and you will get a small eye icon (one the right side of the screen)
just click on it,
You will learn from that class of all the properties of strokes please watch that
because that is very important. Alright
Now i am thinking that you had already saw that
so I am moving forward to teach you more in this class
Whatever I am telling you in this class are the further details of my previous classes (must check playlist for other classes after watching this class)
If you see stroke from here so I can also change the property of my stroke from here also
For example I selected my stroke 14
Interesting thing is that
you can also add new stroke here
Till yet you had seen that we can apply only one stroke and one fill in our object but
Appearance panel will give you freedom
to add multiple strokes on one object
How?
come let me show you how to do this
First here there is one stroke
applied whose stroke value is 14 alright
Second this is that here you will know about the fill (showing in the panel)
but let me tell about one more property of single stroke
After that I will come to the topic “ multiple stroke”
One more important thing,
let me tell you the interface of appearance panel
is similar to the layer panel if you had my last class on layers then you will get what i am saying
This is stacking order and what is the meaning of stacking order ?
Stacking order means if I will change fill which is orange color here
and here my stroke is black
If I will hold my stroke and drag it below then your stroke will come to the below
and fill will be on the top position
So if I will increase even my stroke also
then it will increase from behind only
and it is going inside also definitely But why we cant’s see this
because it is behind this fill so if
I will hide this simply with this eye icon
then you can clearly see your stroke here
This is very helpful thing that if you want to change the position ( top or bottom)
you can do this easily from here
(yes you can easily use this)
Ok now I am making the size of stroke less ,
let say I am adding
dash lines here alright
See you can view this
how this dash lines are coming here
and if you want then let me decrease the weight (value) of stroke
I want to add
one more stroke with this right
and I want to take
yellow color for this stroke
And behind this I want to add one more stroke that is red
How to add second stroke ? so see here
if you have cc version you will have icons here and
from here you will add a new stroke from here
If you don’t get these icons then come here (fly out) button and
click on the add new stroke options Right and
when you will click here
it will add one more stroke here
with the the same value exactly that we applied last
First of all I am changing color and I am changing it to the red color
Second thing is that
I am removing dash from here, Now this is solid now
but see here my yellow dash is now totally hidden behind this yellow dashed stroke
because it is in the top position , let drag it to the below
So if you will see here then your stroke is coming like this here
And I am changing the fill
because of this color it is confusing us ( looking like a hotchpotch )
So let’s go for
grey color
alright now you will clearly see the strokes
Now I want here to add one more stroke
see it is so interesting because we are applying (adding stroke ) one by one here
Let say I want to add one more stroke here
but I want it little wider
I mean thick So let’s go ahead and
new stroke and
again I am telling you that if you don’t have CC version
Or you have older version or by any ways these icons are not showing you
So you can always your stroke or fill from here
or otherwise you can click over here
When I clicked here this added one more stroke here
This time let me change
or take my color blue
Alright it is not visible to us
if you see this carefully this is below to these two
alright no problem
let us increase the value of the stroke because I wanted to put this below only
like this and see here is coming dash line again
if you want remove this dash then remove it
You can make it’s thickness as much as you like and
so, yes this is quite interesting that
your shape’s (path’s stroke) strokes
is looking like this now
Alright this quite interesting, this is common path (object) where
you can add multiple strokes and fills in one path only
I mean the single path contain multiple strokes and fills and
here you are adding as much as you want
Now you can do one more thing as I said you in the beginning of this class
to open your graphic style panel in the front
of your screen
Just select your object and from here do new
Now this style is saved here
(i mean saved in your graphics style panel)
At least it is saved in your file, if I will click on my default (shortcut – D)
it will removed from your appearance
but whenever if you make anything
it will look like this sometimes (not necessary)
but if you click on default (shortcut – D)
then you can apply your style on any object
(doesn’t matter which type of shape that is any shape)
you can apply this style
by simply clicking on this
alright
Good yes this is very helpful thing in Graphic Designing
Alright we had learn till here now
if you see here you can get one more
option that is fill which means
you can also add multiples fills here
So from here I am adding one more fill here
or see here
it came at the top most part of the appearance panel
If you want then drag it to the below part
And I am selecting the color of this
( I mean gradient)
So see here one grey fill was already present there
and I put one grayish gradient fill on the
above of the grey fill, alright
And if you click on the arrow (small)
then you will get one more options
and yes these options are available on every part of this panel (like stroke and fills)
from here you can click and if you want to down it’s opacity then you can do this from here
Or if you want to change the color of gradient
then open your gradient panel and change it
For example I spread this gradient more
like this way and
like this way
So very easily you can adjust
your gradient like this
i mean you can adjust your gradient
easily
Now it’s opacity is 63 % and
if you want to decrease it then decrease it or increase it ,
it is up to you.
but see this is one object but I am adding multiple strokes here
Let me add one fill here
but for that let me do one more thing
that I have my swatches libraries
(if you want to know about swatches
and you don’t know about swatches library – then go and check class 14)
See upper part of the screen (right side)
click on that I there you will get the link of the swatches’s class (class- 14)
so first of all watch that
if you don’t know about swatches then
here i am selecting my patterns pannel
Here I am selecting patterns and inside it,
I am selecting basic structures and then graphic textures
Let say I want to add one more fill here,
from here and I added like this
See this it is coming in the top and it's property are showing
(same that we used earlier which was our last one)
Ok I am dragging this here to make it inside again
See here my first fill is grey second fill is gradient
and third fill is also gradient
but I want some texture here like this
Like this one or like this one select it any one and
let say I am selecting
this diagonal line texture
And see here you can see gradient here and
if you want to make this gradient on the top
then yes you can by dragging this below to make that gradient in the top position
This fill which have texture if you want to change opacity
open your opacity panel then do it from here and
if you want then
you can down it’s opacity from here also
Or even you can select multiply or overlay from here
What is overlay etc?
These are blending modes and I am not teaching blending modes today
I will definitely teach about this
that “what is blending modes” in some particular class
Let’s do one more thing
let me change this grey color in to some other color
Yes I selected this color from here
And I am also changing the blending mode
and I am selecting
color burn from here
so that it will give us reddish tone
See here this are only objects
having lots of multiple fill and stroke and i do not need to make any objects for this
And if I will select new from here
then again I will get a new style
Let say i am making a default object (first press D button to make it default)
Let say I am making a star like this that’s it ok
and
this
I made a star and
make it larger little bit
And if you want
then apply this or you can apply this also
That’s it you have a ready made
style present here
And you can apply this style on any object at any time
And I hope this will be very helpful for you
Alright let’s move one more step further
to see what we can do more with this appearance panel
right
In appearance panel
we have third icon that is add new effects
If it is not coming
then from fly out button there is no option of it
but as such you can do one thing that
But go to effect menu bar and apply any effect from here
let say I want to add drop shadow here
And I clicked to the drop shadow and
I just turn on the preview
This is showing your drop shadow
I want to pick this shadow and want to place it on the center
I am making this x offset zero
right
and please turn on your preview so that you will understand what is going with that object
You can change color also and
I am selecting something brown like this
Or ok I am changing it into orange from here
I want warm shadow alright
That’s it this is added here
in the appearance panel also
As you object was selected
that’s why it is applied on that object which was selected
If you want to remove this effect then yes you can
I want to apply my drop shadow on this blue line
then just select this and then apply drop shadow on it
Go to the effect menu and
see the last we used are showing
on the tops so just click here
When I will on my preview from here
see this
shadow is applied on the blue strokes
due to this shadow is showing inside of this star
So always select that thing
in which you are going to apply that effects, this is very important
Make sure you have to use the effects very carefully
So one more style is ready here
and you can see this and
let me show you it’s benefit
I made this rounded rectangle and
you can apply this style or this one or this one
(as your wish) and that's it
And that’s it, it is so easy and it is very easy
You can make very interesting thing with this
But remember one thing
Think very carefully before using colors strokes and fills (effects)
and don’t over use it
because sometimes over use of this may leads to worst designs
One more thing the no of effects you will use it will make your system little bit slow
Make sure you will use these strokes very lightly
Let’s make one more
useful thing with this
This is very simple work and
I am making a very simple line here
And we are going to make that multiple strokes here
And we are going to make that multiple strokes here
I want to make things which are used in old types of games such as in road maps
and many game we use these types of roads
I want to make that type of style.
How to make that ?
let’s see first of all I had take a stroke here
which is my simple line
And I am changing its color
that is grey
And I am changing the value of stroke (thick)
let say 40 points
Inside this
I want white lines which you had
saw in the roads
I am adding one more stroke from here
that is add new stroke
This time I am selecting my stroke color that is white
And I am decreasing
its weight (stroke value)
to 6 point ok let decrease it more
I am selecting 4 point
Let me zoom in so
that you will understand what I am making here
This is now 4 point plus
we need dash lines from here
And I am increasing dash lines from here like this
and If you want to
decrease the gap
then you can also do this from here
Here now we have
30 points dash and 8 point gap
Yes this is completed and
i want a borders in side parts
and I am adding a new stroke again from here
and I am dragging the new stroke in the below and
before changing color
just remove this dashes
I want solid and I am selecting
its weight 60 points
So remember one thing that our last stroke
that stroke was 40 points
and let me decrease it to
50
alright
Alright or you can decrease it more
let say
44
and I wanted to make this part little bit outside from both ends
I am selecting dark grey from here
Alright let me add one more stroke
This time I am
dragging this below
(because both are similar here)
So i am changing this to light grey
and I am changing it’s weight to
60
I am changing this light grey also to this color
And that’s it let me zoom out to see how it is looking?
This is looking like a road now
So remember that this is nothing but just a stroke
But one thing is that it will create fractional problem while dragging
but interesting thing is that you can select any stroke
By anything you can make stroke
let say I am making stroke through a pencil
or anything else , so let say
And I am making a line like this
Opps sorry sorry
sorry I made a mistake
First of all select this and add new style from here
otherwise it will not there for you
Now I selected my pencil and made my strokes like this
This is looking very bad
alright let me make it again
I made a line
like this and I clicked here
see this We have a beautiful interesting road here
I know it is cartoonish yes i know but
yes it is very helpful and yes you can use this
Yes you can use it but yes if you will make anything with respect then it will be most beautiful design
Let see we can do
one thing that I taken a rounded rectangle here
and
And let say I deleted this
and
I am making this part smaller
And I am taking a copy of it
(pressing alt key) while dragging with my selection tool
And just rotate it
And
I am dragging this to the center
make sure you smart guides are on while doing this
because at that time my guides was off and it's benefit is that
When you will drag this near to that it will guide you to connect both the paths
and then finally
you can do average
then and join and i said about this average and join in past classes
(class – 3 and 4)
Yes if you make this with respect
dam sure it will be good
otheriwise there will be no enjoyment while making them. Alright yes it is completed
I believe till here you people understand everything
Yes use your appearance panel
and this is very useful panel
Make sure you will design your graphic
with some proper plan, If you make anything without any planning
then it will not enjoyable and interesting
Again I will say that this class is very small but the things we learned are very important and useful
You can do many thing with this so please practice it very well
And please share it with your friends, loved ones and share this with everyone 
THANK YOU SO MUCH