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Jan 23, 2013 00:00 am

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ILLUSTRATOR HOW TO

Lee Barnes shows you how to create and edit colour groupswith the Live Color tool.As enjoyable as it might be, choosing a colour palette(http://www.creativebloq.com/colour/tools-colour-schemes-12121430) for a new brand or design can prove time-consuming.Help is at hand with Illustrators Live Color tool, which

Create a colour group withIllustrators Live Color tool

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streamlines the design process by enabling designers to choosegroups of colours that work well together.

In this tutorial, Ill demonstrate how you can use the Live Colortool to create a colour group for a logo(http://www.creativebloq.com/graphic-design/pro-guide-logo-design-21221) or brand mark. One of the many benefits of workingwith this tool is that its able to suggest colours that complement orcontrast your selections based on colour harmony rules(http://www.creativebloq.com/colour/colour-theory-11121290),enabling you to achieve strong colour palettes quickly and easily.

Step 01

Create a simple logo or vector graphic using shapes of differentcolours. Decide on a key colour to be featured in the logo forexample, if you want to achieve an industrial feel, pick a cold greyor blue. Select your logo and bring up the Live Color panel bygoing to Edit>Edit Colours> Recolour Artwork.

Step 02

With the Live Color panel open, click on the Edit tab to bring upthe colour wheel. Here you can see the colours in your group,highlighted with circular anchors. The largest of the anchorsindicates your key colour. Make sure your base colour is assignedby Ctrl/right-clicking it and selecting Set as Base Colour. Note thatyou can manually change the colours with the CMYK sliders at thebottom of the panel, and limit colour selections to Pantoneswatches or web-safe colours.

With your base colour set, click on the drop-down arrow to thetop-left of the panel. This brings up a number of colour groupsbased on the harmony rules of your base colour. At this point youcan select a group of your choice (with the option to tweak it later)or create your own group. In my example, Im usingcomplementary colours at the opposite side of the colour wheel.Once you make a selection you can alter it by clicking the Add orRemove Colour command at the bottom-right of the wheel.

Step 03

Step 04

There are several ways to edit the colours within your group. Youcan click and drag the key colour anchor to alter the groups hueand saturation as one, or select anchors individually and drag tochange them. Note that the other colours will change inaccordance with your new selection unless you select the UnlinkHarmony Colours box at the bottom right of the wheel.

Step 05

Tweak the colours according to your preference, using the colourharmonies as a guide. Once youre happy with the group, click theNew Colour Group button and hit OK to apply the colours to yourartwork. Note that the colour group appears in the Swatches panelnext to a folder icon. If you double-click the folder icon, youll findthat youre able to edit the colour group.

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Tags: Illustrator (/tag/illustrator), Computer Arts (/tag/computer-arts), Tutorial (/tag/tutorial), How to (/tag/how-to)

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Clipping Solutions2 months ago

Wow, So amazing tutorial. Thanks for share :)

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nikibluea year ago

Thank you so much for this piece of information!This will increase my workflow a lot!

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