Nú er árið 2012 alveg að fara að skella á. Margir eru að leita að íslensku dagatali eða almanaki til þess að geta notað á iCloud, mökkum, iPad, Google Calendar og fleira.

Hérna er í það minnsta dagatal sem hægt er að tengja inn makka– og iPad / iPhone megin. Og eins er krækja fyrir vikunúmerin hér.

Þeir sem nú þegar eru tengdir þessu í áskrift þurfa að tengja aftur því iCloud notar aðra slóð að áskriftum.

Þetta kemur yfirleitt ekki rétt með íslenskum stöfum inn í Google Calendar, en fyrir þá sem nota það er hægt að hala niður skránni fyrir 2012 hér og fyrir vikunúmerin hér. Þegar skráin er komin niður er farið inn í Google Calendar og í Add Calendar>Import

Ég uppfæri þessar skrár árlega þannig að þeir sem nota ics skrárnar þurfa að sækja nýjar árlega, en þeir sem nota iCal áskriftina þurfa ekki að hugsa neitt meira um það. Meiri upplýsingar um þetta er að finna í öðrum færslum (leita bara að Dagatal).

Ég læt að gamni fylgja með umsögn ánægðs notanda sem birtist á Twitter:

Vona að þetta gagnist mörgum öðrum.

At the minimalismo.com site, I came across an article showing re-issued line of Braun watches from the seventies, designed by Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs. At the same time I was trying to solve a long time issue I have been dealing with in Illustrator, where I was trying to find a formula to use with Illustrators Transform Effect. I used a portion of this drawing to explain that issue solving. So I when I was showing this problem to others I kept getting questions about the drawing itself and in the end I decided to make a tutorial for everyone to play with.

There are several ways one could make a vector drawing of this watch but the way I am showing here aims at making some major elements of the drawing reusable. This may seem to make it more complicated but I am hoping that this will open someones eyes for methods they might not have been using until now.

This tutorial is loaded with tips and tricks and is a bit advanced. Don’t let this scare you off. This means you will learn a lot, but I hope I have managed to make everything easy to understand. I use millimeters for measuring but those who use other units should simply type in like: 22 mm in the input fields and Illustrator will convert for you instantly. Every input field in Illustrator is a little calculator and we will use this great feature later in this tutorial. Now, that was a new trick for someone wasn’t it?

Two more things: First, I am doing this on a mac but those using a PC please remember to use the Control key where I say Cmd. Secondly, I am using many layers and if you are not used to that, please try it out this time. You will see as we go along how useful it can be.

Here is the final image we are going to make.

Start the job by making a New Document with one Artboard. Make the width 480 mm and height 565 mm. This is more than we need but we can always adjust the size later. Set Raster Effects to High (300 ppi) instead of the default 72. This is important later on.

Let’s make it an RGB document because I am going to use RGB color values in this tutorial.

We start with some preparation work. Hit Cmd + 0 to make the artboard fit the screen. Put Illustrator Rulers on, Cmd + R. Drag a horizontal guide line from the top ruler to about the center of the artboard. Then another one, again from the top ruler but this time holding the Alt key to shift this guide line to a vertical guide. For some, like me, panels are sometimes in the way over the vertical ruler so it’s nice to have this option. Drag this guide to about the center of the artboard too. We now have these two guides in a cross on the artboard and we use the intersection as a center for the drawing.

Open the Layers panel, double click on the Layer 1 and rename it to Guides. Hold down the Alt key, click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the layers panel. This does two things. It makes a new layer on top of the selected one and it opens a dialog box to name it right away. Name the new layer Face.

The Face

Select the Ellipse tool by hitting the L key. Holding the Alt key, click on the center. Put 230 mm into both fields, hit OK and fill this circle with black fill and no stroke.

Make a new layer above the Face layer and name it 12 hours. Zoom far in. Select the Rectangle tool (M), hold down the Alt key and click on the vertical guide. Type 2 mm in the Width field and 25,4 mm into the Height field. Drag this box holding down the Shift key, until the top of the box snaps to the edge of the circle. Fill with white, no stroke.

We need 11 copies distributed around the circle. There are several ways to do this but the far best way is to do it like this:

Click this link to get to the Illustrator Circle Calculator. Type in the diameter of the Face which we know is 230 mm. Put in the total number of items we need to use, 12. (The calculator is set to these values the first time you load this page anyway because I made this calculator when I was preparing this drawing). This shows Horizontal and Vertical which we need to use in the next step.

With this 12 o’clock mark selected, go to Effects > Distort & Transform > Transform. We need to fill in values from the calculator.

First, put on the Preview.

Copies: 11

Angle: Fill in: 360/12 and this field will calculated it to be 30°

Horizontal value: –57,5 mm

Vertical value: 15,407 mm

Horizontal and Vertical values from the calculator into the Move section. Change the Horizontal value to negative value by adding a minus in the field. (FYI: If you want to use a positive value you have to change the Angle to: 360 — (360/12)= 330°)

Note that the Reference Point Locator (in the red) has to be on top because the top of the box aligns with the edge of the circle. The calculation is based on the diameter of the circle. Also beware that if you need to edit Effects like this one you have to access it through the Appearance panel.

Next we need the 60 minutes. Make a new layer above the 12 hours layer and name it 60 minutes. At the 12 o’clock position draw a box the same way as before using Alt + Click to make it draw from the center of the guide and call up the dialog box. Make it 0,64 mm wide and 14,75 mm heigh.

We need to get new values from the Circle Calculator. Since we are using the same diameter we only have to change the Number of items in circle input to 60. Then go again to Effects > Distort & Transform > Transform and set Copies to 59, Angle to 6°, Horizontal movement to –12,021 mm and Vertical movement to 0,630 mm.

The main advantage of using the Transform Effect for this is that if you need to edit the marks, like changing its shape you only need to edit the original box and all the others will change according to it.

Make a new layer on top of the 60 minutes layer. Name it Numbers. Select the Ellipse tool (L). Alt+Click in the center to make a circle of 137 mm in diameter. Then make another circle of 163 mm in diameter. Select both circles and turn them into guides by: View > Guides > Make Guides, or simply hit Cmd + 5.

Type the number 12 at the top position between these guides and Alt+Drag copies to all the other positions and edit the numbers. I am using 52 pt Helvetica Neue Roman which is included on the macs but if you don’t have that font try to find a similar sans serif type. Just make sure it fills the height of the guide lines.

This is already beginning to look like a clock but maybe not like a watch. But let’s continue and make the clock pointers.

Make yet another layer on top of all others. Name it Pointers. The minutes and hour pointers are made in the same manner as we did the marks. The only difference is that we let the bottom of the boxes stay exactly on the center of our drawing. Alt+Click on the vertical guide using the Rectangle tool and use these measurements:

The hours pointer: W: 4,92 mm, H: 62 mm

The minutes pointer: W: 3,28 mm, H: 93,72 mm

Time is now 12 o’clock… We want to change that. Of course we can use the Rotate tool, Bounding box to name a few options to move the pointers. Let’s use the Transform Effect again and start with the longer one.

While it’s selected go to the Transform Effects. This time we don’t need any copies or calculating but we use only the Angle field. First set the Reference Point Locator to be at the bottom center, check the Preview box and then go to the angle field (why not just click on the word Angle). Now, tap on the down arrow key on your keyboard to see how cool this is. The pointer starts moving like a real clock! Add the Shift key to the combo to get increments of 10. When you have had enough, finish off by setting the angle to –58°.

It’s no later than now that you have to open the Appearance panel if you haven’t already. Click with your mouse on the FX icon at the bottom of the panel and select Stylize > Drop Shadow. Set the offsets to –2 mm for x axis and 2 mm for the y axis and keep the Blur at 1,76 mm (default setting).

Do exactly the same for the hours pointer except the angle should be 54°

The seconds pointer needs a different treatment. Still working on the Pointers layer, select the Ellipse tool (L). Alt+Click on the center and give make a circle of 15 mm by 15 mm.

While the circle is still selected, open the Color panel and mix a color of R 248, G 195, B 46 and make sure it’s a Fill color. Hold down the Cmd and Shift key and drag this color to the Swatch panel. This not only adds the color to the Swatches but at the same time makes it a Global color. Global color is a color that is linked to the objects and means that you can edit it any time and everything that has been colored with it will change too. So, click on this new swatch and you have linked it to the seconds pointer. So, why not use the opportunity and change the black color we used for the Face to a Global Color since we are at it?

Make a new circle the same way. Make it 7 mm by 7 mm. Double click the Selection tool, the black arrow, to get the Move dialog box and insert –15 mm in the vertical field. Click OK.

Using the Rectangle tool (M), Alt+Click on the vertical guideline and make a box 7 mm wide and 15 mm high. Move it down so it sits on the horizontal guideline.

Make yet another box in the same way. This one should be 2,5 mm wide and 92,5 mm high. Move it holding down the Shift key until the top side aligns with the horizontal guide. Deselect the box (Cmd + Shift + A). Select the Direct Selection tool (A), (the white arrow) and use it to select only the two bottom anchor points of the box. Zoom close in, 300% or so. Select the Scale tool (S). Alt+Click on the vertical guide and in the dialog box insert 50% horizontal scaling in the Non-uniform section.

Open the Pathfinder panel and choose Unite to join all four parts together.

To turn this pointer we have to use the Rotate tool because our reference point is not on any of the 9-point reference location. Select the Rotate tool, Alt+Click on the Center, put the Preview on and type in –29° (you can of course use the up and down arrows to rotate the seconds pointer).

Add a Drop Shadow to this pointer with the same values as the others. Finish off by adding a small black dot, 1,5 mm by 1,5 mm over the center.

The watch should look like this at this stage.

The body of the watch is next. Make a new layer beneath the Face layer. A little trick here is to select the Face layer and click on the New Layer icon holding down the Alt and Command keys. Call this new layer Body.

Draw three circles out from the center. Make them in these diameters: 251 mm, 240 mm and 230 mm. The last 230 mm circle is right under the Face shape path, so we have to lock the Face layer. You might as well hide some other layers while you work on this but it’s up to you. You see that using multiple layers has already started to pay off.

[When you need to hide or show many layers in a row you can click + hold on one eye and drag over the others.]

Select the outmost circle. Open the Gradient panel and select the Gradient tool. Stretch the Gradient Annotator a little bit out of the circle, about 5 mm, because we need to move it slightly in a bit. Make a gradient with three color stops, gray to white, using these values:

R 255, G 255, B 255

R 172, G 172, B 172

R 83, G 83, B 83.

Grab the center of the Gradient Annotator and move it 2 mm to right and 2 mm up. You will now see why this darkest gray is outside of the circle. It because by dragging the gradient this way more gray will enter the left side of the circle while the right side goes whiter to make kind of a metal look.

Lock this path Cmd + 2. Select the two other circles we made. Make a Compound Path, Cmd + 8 or Object > Compound Path > Make.

While selected, make a new gradient. This time make the color stops:

R 198, G 198, B 198

R 97, G 97, B 97

R 58, G 58, B 58.

The glass edges we make this way: Make a new layer above the Pointers layer. Call in Glass. Draw two circles from the center, first one of 230 mm and the second of 218 mm. Make a Compound Path, Cmd + 8 or Object > Compound Path > Make.

Lock all other layers. Make one more circle, this time 235 mm and fill it with black.

Select the Gradient Mesh tool (U) and click on point 1. In the Color panel change this color to white. Click on point 2. It should also be white. Then use the Direct Selection tool to change point 3 to 70% black.

Select the whole circle and Send to back. Select the compounded circles and the gradient mesh circle and make a Clipping Mask, Cmd + 7.

Change the Transparency to 50%

Make a new layer beneath the Body layer. Call it Winder. Make shapes like these. The big shape is 13,2 mm wide and 25 mm tall. The little boxes are 7 mm wide and 1,7 mm high. The lower one is a copy of the top one.

Fill with gradients. For the big shape use 30, 30, 30 for the ends and 55, 55, 55, for the middle gray. Two white color stops 255, 255, 255.

The small box is just black to white but the annotator is stretched little bit out of the shape to so it’s not fully white or black. Copy the top box down and use the blend tool to add 12 steps in between.

Move the blend over the winder and change the transparency to 60%.

Add the Braun logo on a separate layer over the Glass layer. I found the logo on brandsoftheworld.com. You will have to sign up to be allowed to download.

This makes up the watch itself. But we would like to add a leather strap to the drawing.

Make a layer called Strap beneath the Winder layer. With the Rectangle tool, Alt + Click on the center and make a black filled rectangle of 140 mm wide and 478 mm tall. Use the Gradient Mesh tool to add a few mesh lines on the rectangle.

Use the Direct Selection (A) tool to round the corners. Start by moving the corner anchor points inwards and then straighten the control handles so they appear like a smooth point.

Also move the nearest anchor points slightly inwards. When we have finished all corners we leave it as it is for a moment. Hide this layer by clicking the eye in the layer panel.

Make a new rectangle filled with black color from the center in a new layer called Mezzo. Make it be above the Strap layer. Make the box 160 x 500 mm.

While selected go to Effects > Pixelate > Mezzotint and apply Coarse Dots to the rectangle.

To make a mask for the Mezzotint which is exactly like the strap we do this:

Turn visibility of the Strap layer back on. Select the strap gradient mesh. Go to Object > Path > Offset Path… and type in 0 (zero) in the input field. Select this new path and drag the colored dot in the Strap layer up to the Mezzo layer. While selected add the mezzotint texture to the selection and Make Clipping mask Cmd + 7. In the Transparency panel set blending to Multiply and 50% transparency.

Lock the Mezzo layer and unlock the Strap layer. Use the Direct Selection tool (A) to select three of the anchor points in the middle. Reduce the black color to let the grain show through. Also move individual points to shape the light.

The Braun watch drawing is now finished. I hope you have enjoyed this and learned something new along the way.

Using layers this extensively makes it possible to export to a .psd file with everything intact if you want to add some extra flavor to any parts of the drawing. Any part where Transform Effect was used can be edited. You can change the shape of the pointers, markers, shadows and more. Using Global Color makes changing colors a snap and so on.

When you are drawing or designing in Illustrator you probably at one time or another need to put multiple objects in a circle. This is basically very easy by using the rotated tool, click somewhere you want the center of rotation to be and drag the object while you hold the mouse. Repeat this process over and over or simply do Object > Transform > Transform Again or even Command + D.

This method is fine when no precision is needed. But lets say you want to make a drawing of a clock or a watch or similar. There you might want to put one object twelve times in a circle to mark every five minutes and even have another object to indicate every minute sixty times in a circle. And to make this a bit more complicated, maybe you want to be able to edit those objects after you have placed them in a circle without having to do everything over again if you need to change.

This is all very doable in Illustrator. I am going to walk you through three different methods and point out some advantages and disadvantages in every one of them. In the end I am going to show you a calculator I made to help you make this very precise.

The first method is very similar to the one I mentioned in the beginning but we can be much more precise with very little extra effort.

First, drag one horizontal and one vertical guide lines into the artboard. Where they cross will be our center of rotation. Draw your object at the top and keep the object centered on the vertical guideline.

While the object is selected, choose the Rotate tool by hitting the R button on the keyboard. Hold down the Alt/Option key and click once where the guidelines cross. This will bring up a dialog box where you can type in the degree you want the object to be copied by. You might know that twelve objects need to be 30° apart but if not, type in 360/12 and hit the Tab key once to confirm. Illustrator will instantly calculate the degree for you. Having the Preview on shows you the movement and when you hit the Copy button the first copy is made. Hold down Command + D until the circle is filled. Great isn’t it?

The disadvantages here are that holding down Command + Z will not undo in the same way or speed as Command + D made the copies. You have to click for every object made if you change your mind or have made some mistakes. Which is fine for 12 objects maybe but not 360. And secondly, if you want to change the shape of the objects you have to do this all over again which can be a pain. It is therefor nice to make the 12 objects on a separate layer and the 60 objects on another to easily remove any parts you like in one go. But this is the nice and easy way to go when you only need to do this once in a while.

The second method is exactly like the first one, except that when you have placed the object at the top you drag it to the Symbols panel and then do the rest. This means that what you rotated are instances of that symbol in the Symbols panel and thus can be edited. You can select the ones you want to change and choose a different symbol or you can make a new object and Alt-Drag it over the symbol you just used and all will be replaced.

This is a clever and useful way to use Symbols but still it’s not the perfect way if lets say you are a professional watch designer.

The third method and in my opinion the best is to use the Transform Effect. Still it is missing some vital controls but I have solved it and made an online calculator to overcome its shortcomings.

Select your top object and go to Effects > Distort & Transform > Transform… Start by checking the Preview box The big dialog box allows us type in how many copies we need, in our case we need 11 copies. Then down left we can let Illustrator calculate 360/12 to get 30° (or 360/60 for the minutes etc…) By now we can see all our instances in one bundle centered together.

Then we need to move the Horizontal and Vertical Move sliders to add the spacing between the objects and this is where the problem begins. Problem one is that there is no obvious way to determine the overall width of our circle nor the radius. I have asked some of the folks who specialize in Illustrator and how to set this the way that the 9 and 3 objects and 12 and 6 objects align (I am referring to the positions of the objects). The answer has always been: Put the same numbers into the Horizontal and Vertical values.

This is true, yes, but playing with positive and negative numbers always turns out that the original object is in one of these positions: 2, 5, 8 and 11.

In this example setting four objects with the values to 20 and 20, positive and negative, the instances go from position 8 and we would have to rotate the object itself also afterwards by 120° to straighten things up. Besides, as you see the objects here are placed where I planned to have as the position 12 and finding the correct position would be a pain again. And it stretches out of my artboard.

Not totally unusable but it could be far better. The way Transform Effect works, you can edit the original object and the instances will change according. But it is not so easy to work with even sides at 30 degrees when the object is always tilted. Besides that, making the objects fill a circle of a certain size can only be found by trial and error as far as I can see.

I still want my main object to be placed at the top for easy editing and I want to be able to set the exact size of the circle. This is where the IllustratorCircleCalculator comes in. The calculator uses the same parameters as you use in the Transform Effect dialog box but adds the diameter of the circle you want to use as a main element in the calculation. And everything fits perfectly and you can freely edit your one top object and all the instances update on the fly.

All you have to do is to fill in the diameter of the circle and the number of objects that you want on the circle and you get the Horizontal and Vertical values you need to fill in to make everything fit.

I am not sure if anyone cares to know the math behind this calculator but here is a picture which I used when I was figuring this out.

The V and H on the red triangle are the measurements we are after. Knowing length of the longest side, L, and the degree of the sharpest corner, V is the COS x L and H is SIN x L.

The length of L is two times the shortest side of the brighter green triangle which has half of the degrees to the first instant.

Making a pattern in Illustrator can be as simple as dragging any object or objects to the Swatch panel and you have got a pattern so to speak. But that is not what is called a seamless pattern where the pattern repeats itself in all directions.

To make a seamless pattern in Illustrator one needs to make the base pattern with in a square of any size. It’s convenient to start from the corners. An object placed on a corner has to be in every corner so that one-fourth of the object is inside the square. Objects on the side edges have to have a copy placed on the opposite edge. Objects that don’t touch the edges can be positioned anywhere. If you have an object on the

This may sound a bit complicated when you read this but this diagram explains this visually. On the right side the final pattern is shown.

To define this simple pattern as an Illustrator pattern we have to have a square at the same size as the guidelines. This square has to be behind the pattern and it must NOT have any fill or stroke applied. It’s of the same size as the guidelines shown. It will make the boundaries of the seamless pattern. When this is ready, drag the whole thing into the Swatch panel and you got your pattern. Illustrator only uses what is inside this colorless square.

Instead of dragging into the Swatch panel you can go to Edit > Define Pattern… and it will add the pattern as a new swatch.

This pattern we just created is these gray crosses with transparent background and any background will show through. If we want a specific color fill we have to have an additional color square inside the pattern in the first place. This color square has to be below the crosses but above the colorless definition square. Make it a little bit bigger than the invisible square like this:

Note that the fine white lines you may see in the pattern will not print. If you find it is irritating, you can get rid of them by turning off the Anti-Alias in the Illustrator Preference.

Now we got a very basic pattern done fairly easily and you should know by now what makes this tick. But there are a few things I would like to add to this process which will in the long run make it easier to do more complex work.

Move with precision.

To start with, make the square of a certain and even measurement. In this case I used a square of 60 by 60 millimeters. You can use any size you like. But what you gain by this is that when you place the first cross you can send a copy using the Move command and using the exact measurement.

You can access Move dialog box in at least three ways. While the object is selected, double click either the Selection tool or the Direct Selection tool (the black or the white arrows).

Shift + Cmd + M on the mac (Shift + Ctrl + M on a pc) will also present you with the dialog box.

Object > Transform > Move… is the third method.

Global Colors.

Use Global colors when you are making a pattern. This will give you a far greater control over your patterns because you can adjust the pattern colors after you have made it without having to redefine the pattern.

First select or define the colors you want you use in your pattern and drag them into the Swatch panel. Then make them Global by double clicking each color and check the Global checkmark in the dialog box that opens.

You can also start by making a few boxes to match your colors and when you are satisfied you can make a Color Group by clicking the Color Group icon at the bottom of the Swatch panel. In the dialog box that opens be sure that Convert Process to Global is checked.

Use Transform Effect.

Sending the objects of the pattern to a precise position using the Move command is great. If you are making patterns on a regular basis you would definitely benefit from using the Transform Effect. That way you only have to use one object as a basis and the effect will make copies in all directions you need. Let’s try this out.

Put one object over the upper left corner. In this case you don’t have to put the center of the object on precisely over the corner. We need to put the effect on the object three times, one for each copy direction. It sounds like more work and it is for the first time, but I will show you that this is worth it because we will get greater control and this is reusable for further pattern making.

So, with the cross or your own object selected we go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform.

You may notice that I have put a keyboard shortcut for this because I use this effect a lot.

Put Preview on and for the first effect fill in like this:

1 Copy

Horizontal: 60 mm

Vertical: 0 mm

Have the Appearance panel open. It’s the gateway to all effects and if you need to edit the effect you do it through the Appearance panel.

Select the object again and apply a second Transform effect. Illustrator will give you a warning, telling you that you are applying the same effect again. Ignore this and keep on going. The warning is however useful and you should not turn it off. Some effects, like the 3D effect can be really CPU intensive if used more than once on the sam object and it is only good to get the warning.

For this second effect use the setting:

Horizontal: 0 mm

Vertical: 60 mm

This will put a copy in the lower left corner and also copy the upper right object down to the lower right corner.

For the third effect, the center object we use:

Horizontal: 30 mm

Vertical: 30 mm

This puts a copy of the object in the center but will also copy everything else too outside of the square area. But that is just fine although it’s not doing anything with our design.

Define the pattern by dragging to the Swatch panel or Edit > Define Pattern… (ignore the big cross overlapping the pattern)

This setup allows you to edit just the object in the upper left corner and everything you do with it will be reflected to the other objects instantly. Try to scale the object, rotate it or what ever and make a new version of the pattern. Try also to change the number of copies just to get the hang of this method. Then apply the pattern to some box or circle and edit the colors that are already defined by double clicking them in the Swatch panel. Powerful? Yes, it is. But wait, there is more.

Graphic style.

To make all our effort reusable for later patterns we can save the setting as a Graphic Style. First select the object in the upper left corner and drag the Appearance icon of the object to the Graphic Style panel.

Now, placing any object over a 60 by 60 mm square and applying the Graphic style it will add the same effect to that object. You will however have to edit the color. Use the Fill sector in the Appearance panel to do that. That is the obvious place to do this editing.

Scale and rotate.

Having made a patterns or series of patterns it’s now time check out a few ways to edit a pattern after it has been made.

I already mentioned that by using Global Colors you can change the colors inside the pattern This can save you a great amount of time.

We made the pattern in one size and that size may have nothing to do with the size you need to use in your artwork. There are few ways that a patterns works. To start with, a pattern is like an endless wallpaper inside the object you apply it to. There are a few ways Illustrator treats the pattern and there are settings you can use to change it.

To start with there is a setting in Illustrator Preferences > General that says: Transform Pattern Tiles. With it turned on any changes you make to an object using the Bounding Box will affect the pattern too. Scaling will distort the pattern and if you move the object the whole pattern move with it too. However, if you have this setting turned off, the pattern will stay in it’s place like a wallpaper while the object is moved or scaled.

If you want to scale or rotate the pattern or even move it slightly within the object the best tools are the Scale tool, the Rotate tool and the Move command. You can actually use anything in the Object > Transform menu.

Using the Scale and Rotate tools (and the other related transform tools) requires you to hold down the Alt/Option key and click to get the dialog box. At the bottom of these dialog box you can uncheck the Objects check box but check the Patterns check box and that way only transform the pattern. Remember that you can put your cursor in the percentage or degree fields and use the up and down arrows to modify the numbers and that the Shift key will multiply the number movement.

Yet another trick, that will most likely knock your socks off, is that you can directly transform the pattern only, within an object, bypassing the dialog boxes, by selecting the object, selecting the Scale tool as an example (hit the S key) and then hold down the Tilde key. Now drag with the mouse to transform. This is a blasting performance first time you see.

Redefine a pattern.

One way to learn about how fancy patterns are made is to see how others have made them. Illustrator has a great selection of patterns which you can open by going to the Swatch panels fly out menu down to the Open Swatch Library… and go to Patterns.

If you want to learn more about a pattern you can drag its icon to your artboard and check out how it’s built. The invisible square comes with it and you will see that many of the patterns extend the square. Taking a pattern like that to the artboard also gives you the opportunity to make changes to it and make a version of the original. Not only that, but you can Alt/Option-drag the changed pattern over the original one and by doing so, redefine the original one. Everything in your artwork that had already been colored with the pattern will instantly get the updated pattern applied to it.

Bridge CS3 has a very nice feature that makes it easy to make contact sheets of pictures directly to InDesign. This feature was removed as of Bridge CS4 and is sorely missed by many.

If you are still getting pissed trying to find this feature under Tools in Bridge, you should know that there are at least two great options you have.

The first one is found by changing to the Output Workspace in Bridge at the upper right corner of the application window. Cmd + F4, or Window > Output Panel are also ways to reach it.

This will reveal a workspace which will make making contact sheets a breeze. The options available will suit most of your needs and then some more. For those who have been using different workspaces and even making their own customized workspaces in other CS applications will note that this Output workspace of Bridge brings features that are not available in the other workspaces. At least I cannot find any other way to show that Output panel and one is only allowed to move the different panels with in Bridge application window.

Secondly, if you still want to use your own InDesign templates to make contact sheets you can buy a script for $30 from Creadtive Scripting I have not tried it myself but I have seen great reviews online from the InDesign dudes and dudettes.

So, no more Kleenex and start making contact sheets like a pro.

One of the very best ways to make working on a computer efficient is to use keyboard shortcuts. You know, Cmd + C to copy and Cmd + V to paste. I am seeing people who have used computers for over fifteen years still using the mouse to do these commands from the menus. That is not very professional at all. I can forgive the users of Illustrator if people are using the contextual menus instead but that is not nearly as fast as the keyboard shortcuts.

Most major applications come with many built in keyboard shortcuts and it is hard learn it all. There is no reason either to memorize them all. Very few people need to use every aspect of any given application anyway. The best way is to learn the shortcuts one by one as you need them and get to know those who you use most often. In this article I want to mention a few things concerning the shortcuts for Illustrator when one is not using the US keyboard.

Illustrator 15 (CS5) comes with a load of ready made shortcuts which can save you a lot of time. There is a problem however that the default shortcuts are made for the US keyboard and if one is using a different “foreign” keyboard layout some very important shortcuts will not work unless you change them. This has in fact been a problem forever in previous versions, not only in Illustrator but in all the Creative Suite. I have spent some (er… huge rather) time through the years to correct this. But I am a shortcut junkie. I just want to make that clear. And I might be able to save you some time.

It’s very easy to change a keyboard shortcut. Just go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts… and start typing in shortcuts you want to add or change. But hold your horses a sec. You are not allowed to change the Default set. As soon as you have made the first change you will have to save your changed set under a new name. I recommend to use naming like:

Your name, the application, version number and the date in reversed order YYMMDD. The main reason for this date order is for the sets to be sorted in alphabetical order if we make many. One good thing to remember is that this settings file can be found on the mac in ~/User/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings/en_GB/ (The en_GB part may be different between countries).

My own sets are named like this: sigurarm_IllustratorCS5_KeyboardShortcuts_110329.kys Keep a copy of this file in another place where you can access it from anywhere and you won’t loose it. For a limited time you can DOWNLOAD my settings file from my Dropbox (Link to a free 2.25 GB free Dropbox account) if you think you can use it. It is at least a good starting point if you want to get all the shortcuts I added and then you can change the ones you need.

The hard part of making and changing shortcuts however is to find out which key combinations are free to use and to avoid changing important shortcuts that are already working fine. Here is a warning: If you chose to use some combination which is already in use you will get a warning soon as you hammer it in but you have already lost the old one. If you want to keep the old one which you could not possibly have known was in use without some help, you have to cancel out of the window and start from your last saved point. So, please save frequently. This can be a tedious job to do.

The default keyboard shortcut setting in Illustrator uses some keys that are not available on my keyboard. For instance Cmd + ; to Hide/Show Guides is not available on my Icelandic keyboard. To type a semicolon on the Icelandic keyboard I need to hold down the Shift key and hit the comma. This breaks this shortcut because it would give me Shift + Cmd + , which is a totally different thing and is a shortcut taken for something else.

If I change this shortcut to Cmd + Æ for Hide/Show Guides, Æ being in the same spot as the semicolon on the US keyboard, it works as expected. In this case where I am using a key that is different from the US keyboard I have to type Æ into right field and then the whole shortcut into the left field. The left field will not change and continues to show the US/UK setting. Usually one only has to type in the new shortcut into the left field. This how I correct the majority of the shortcuts that are using the keys marked in red in the picture.

There is though some problem with the square-bracket buttons for me at least. It could be related to the fact that one of the keys is used for the Icelandic character Ð (Eth) but it is possible that it is working for you on a non-Icelandic keyboard. I can use these buttons to change the diameter of the Symbol Spreyer Tool and the Blob Brush when I use the buttons without modifier keys. But when I want to correct the Send to Back and Bring to Front I cannot get it to behave with the modifier keys. I bypass these important shortcuts to the numeric part of the keyboard, making it Alt + Cmd + +/–

Of the shortcuts I added the most notable are Cmd + E for the Place… and the numbers on the numeric keypad can be used to set transparency in steps of 10%.

I have made a pdf file that shows majority of Illustrators menu items and their keyboard shortcut if there is one. This file could save you a lot of time when changing your keyboard shortcuts. I highlighted the shortcuts I always change or add. You are welcomed to download this pdf here.

Mér fannst réttast að skjóta inn hérna smá pistli um dagatal eða almanak fyrir 2011 því það eru svo margir sem lenda inni á font.is þegar þeir slá þessu inn í leit.

Í stuttu máli þá er almanökin, sem eru gerð með iCal í huga uppfærð fyrir 2011 og ein fjögur ár fram í tímann. Munið bara að stilla á að Refresh All sé vikulega svo uppfærslur og hugsanlegar breytingar skili sér inn. Þeir sem eru nú þegar áskrifendur að þessu þurfa ekki að ná sér í þetta aftur.

Almanökin eru þessi:

Íslenskt almanak með hátíðisdögum, frídögum, jólasveinatali og ýmsu öðru sem ég hef tínt saman.

Vikutal viðskiptalífsins. Fyrsti mánudagur hverrar viku er merktur með vikunúmeri samkvæmt ISO staðli.

Tónleikar. Fyrst og fremst er þetta dagskrá Sinfóníuhljómsveitar Íslands en eitthvað gæti slæðst inn ef ég hef áhuga á því sjálfur.

Þeir sem vilja nota Google Calendar eða annað svipað sem getur gerst áskrifandi á iCal skjölum lenda einhverjir í því að íslenskir stafir skila sér ekki inn. Þeir geta þá náð sér í skjölin með þessum slóðum og hlaðið inn hjá sér.

http://font.is/Calendars/Iceland_cal.ics

http://font.is/Calendars/Iceland_biz.ics

http://font.is/Calendars/Tonleikar.ics

One of the tools I have used while calculating a grid for a layout was an Excel file I had used to experiment with different kinds of calculation methods. A collection of over a dozen different calculators for finding out different elements of the grid. I finally glued the different parts together and placed online as the Easy Grid Calculator, free for everyone to use (donations welcomed of course). The Easy Grid Calculator should save you a lot of time consuming calculations and allow more time experimenting. Now it is time to dive into what this calculator is all about.

Usually I prefer to base my layout grids on equal sided squares, each square being a grid unit to calculate the layout from. The height of the squares is the same as the leading of the main text in the document. The width is as close to the height as possible. It’s rare to get 100% square but the calculator gets you really close. More about that later on.

Let me guide you through the elements of the calculator one by one to explain what they do.

Page Size

Start by putting in the size of your page, poster, business card or what ever you are designing in millimeters into the Paper Height and Paper Width.

Then you put in the leading you want to use into the Original Leading field. In the example here the page height is 297 mm. Dividing into this with 12 pt leading you would get 70.15 lines for the grid lines. What the calculator does is to round this number to 70 and then use it to divide into the page hight again. This gives us 12.027 pt as a new leading. This Correct Leading (see next section) is very important. It is the key to the whole calculation. It is used to calculate the grid and also to set the Document Grid and Baseline Grid in InDesign.

Grid Settings

In this section we get all the starter results which were calculated from the page size and leading.

First we have the Correct Leading as explained above. The Horizontal Leading 11.905 pt is the result of the same kind of calculation as the Correct Leading but for the width. This is the width of the Grid Units and a number we will this number in the Horizontal > Gridline Every in InDesign.

As you see in this example the height and the width of the Grid Unit is not a perfect square. But it’s very close, in this case 0.12th of a point. You will have to zoom very deep to see a difference. Ratio H:W is simply to see how far we are from a one by one proportion.

Baselines is the number of lines from top to bottom of the page when Correct Leading is used. This and Horizontal Lines are mainly useful to those who are making grids in Illustrator. In InDesign you don’t need to know.

Imagelines are always one less than the Baselines and are an aid to adjust the height of pictures to the type. The start of the first Imageline is calculated in the Imageline section.

Margins, Columns and Rows

You have to play with the Margins, Columns and Rows all at the same time. It’s a good idea to start experiment with your layout by deciding on the Margins. You will undoubtably have to change it few times before you complete your calculations.

Start by putting in numbers in the Left and Right input fields of the Margins. These are Grid Units and you can see in millimeters how wide your margins will be. Put 2 in Left and Bottom fields. These play with the Columns section. Lets say you want to divide your layout into 3 columns. You see immediately that Line in Columns gives us 14.666 lines. This does not add up and we need to make some adjustments. In the Total Column Units we have 44 grid units at the moment. Closest match is 45 grid units. This means we can need one unit from the Margins to make it fit. But that would make the Margins too narrow. So instead we’ll go the other direction and add more units to the margins. Set Left to 3 units and you will see from the Closest match that now we only need only to add one more unit to the Margins. Set Right to 3 and everything fits.

Gutter units are for the gutter as the name implies. This field is good to have if we want wider gutters and when we are using very small leading. Then we might want to have more than one units for the gutter

We use the same method for the Rows as for the columns. Try 3 units for both Top and Bottom fields. Let’s say you want to divide your layout into 6 rows. You see immediately that Line in rows gives us 9.83 lines. In the Total Row Units we have 59 grid units at the moment. Nearest match is 60 grid units. We only need to move one unit from the Margins to make things fit. Let’s change Bottom to 2 units and we are ready to go. Try various unit numbers to get a better feeling of how this works.

In the case when you want to use greater leading, smaller page size or even more columns and rows you will find it harder to make things fit. There are a number things you can do to make it easier.

Consider to use smaller grid units that at the same time can be divided into the original leading you had in mind. For 12 pt you could use 6 pt leading in the Original Leading or even 3 or 4 pt. The Easy Grid Calculator takes care of the math and when you start to put your numbers into InDesign you can multiply inside the fields. As you probably already know all input fields inside InDesign and Illustrator are little calculators. You can for instance type for 6 pt leading: 6.013*2 and get 12.027 pt and so on. Using smaller grid units gives you much more flexibility.

You can also try to adjust the Original leading. Let us say that 15 pt leading is giving you problems calculating. Try to use 14.75 or 15.25. It’s all a matter of experimenting.

Size of textbox

This is the result of the page size minus the margins. Aligning the top of images to the imagelines. You may never have to use this information, but this can be handy to have in special cases, like when you want make use of scripts like the included Make Grid.jsx or Add Guides.jsx.

Imagelines

Imagelines are an optional guidelines you can add to your layout to align the top of images to. They are based on the height of the f or the l (lower case L). Some even prefer to use the x height of the font.

To find out the height of the f, type it into InDesign in the font size you are going to use. Select the f and go to Type > Create Outline. Select the outlined f and the height should be displayed in the Control Panel. For example 9 pt Helvetica Neue turns out to be 2.292 mm and this number is put into the field. The output number tells where the first line should be put. Then it’s just the matter of using Edit > Step and Repeat to add the rest of the guides. Take the Imageline number from the Grid Settings section (69) and use the Original Leading (12.027 pt) for offset. It’s a good idea to have the imagelines on a separate layer to avoid clutter.

This is all you need to calculate your layout grid for either InDesign or Illustrator. I hope I managed to explain the use of the Easy Grid Calculator and that this will save you some time.

In the article Using Illustrator to draw fonts for importing into FontLab, which I wrote several years ago, I describe how nice it is to use Illustrator and FontLab together. This is especially nice for those who have made sketches for a font in Illustrator and need to move it into FontLab. For others it’s helpful to be able to move one or more glyphs from FontLab for easy fixing and then paste it back to the exact position.

This beautiful relationship has come to an end in Illustrator CS5. What is broken now, is that when copying a glyph from FontLab and using Paste in Front in Illustrator the pasting no longer fits the exact position in Illustrator. Rather, the glyph is positioned on the center of the Artboard.

I have no idea why this had to change or if this will be fixed later. I rather doubt it.

The only workaround I can think of so far is to make little box (let’s say 10x10 pt) within the glyph slot along with the glyph, position it on the 0.0 point corner and copy it over to Illustrator along with the glyph. Then you drag the box (moving the glyph too) to the 0.0 point on the baseline to position.

To copy back from Illustrator CS5 to FontLab 5 you will have to do this:

Select your glyph or the layers content.

Use Move (by double-clicking on the black arrow or Shift+Command+M) and type 1000 pt in the vertical field.

The glyph has now moved so the baseline is sitting on the top edge of the artboard.

While it’s still selected, copy and paste into FontLab Studio.

If you happen to have Illustrator CS4 or older keep it on your computer just for the purpose of using it with FontLab. It’s a way faster to continue using it with FontLab.

QuickLook, the ability to see a quick preview of files and folders simply by selecting and then pressing the Space bar has been available for some time now.

This is a great time saver and gives access to information that in many cases you would otherwise have to install specific software to get. QuickLook can view was number of formats but it is possible to extent its use by adding plug-ins to it. Most of them are free. Some software developers offer plug-ins for QuickLook for their software if QuickLook does not preview files made by their software.

One of QuickLook greatest features in my opinion is that it can preview fonts. Not only to see if it’s the font I am looking for, but also to see if the six glyphs specific for the Icelandic language, are in the font (which is a common problem) or, if they are, to see if they are drawn in a proper way and usable.

The problem however is that QuickLook does not have a character table for Icelandic, but the English one is used, leaving out those glyphs I am after. I have not thoroughly investigated this problem for other non-English languages, but it seems that some other languages are dealing with a similar problem. So how can we get around this?

I asked around and finally got a great help on the macosxhints.com forum from Hal Itosis, who by the way is not into fonts at all as he says. The discussion between me and Hal can be read in the link. But here is a shorter version – and less nerdy, on how to customize QuickLook for fonts based on what Hal told me.

First of all you have to have admin rights to your computer. I assume that everyone who is willing to try this out has full rights.

The various character sets that QuickLook presents are based on the language which is the primary language you are using. The character sets are are kept in a file called SampleSupport.plist which is found at:
/System
/Library
/Frameworks
/ApplicationServices.framework
/Versions
/A
/Frameworks
/CoreText.framework
/Versions
/A
/Resources
/SampleSupport.plist

Copy this path and in Finder go: Command + Shift + G and paste the path into the field and you will instantly brought to the right place.

Drag a copy of this file to a different place in your computer. I recommend that you make a folder for it called QuiclLookFonts_IS (IS, CZ..etc. being your language) The reason is that it’s good to keep a copy of this file for later because it will be overwritten in major system upgrades.

Open this file in TextEdit or another favorite text editor (not Word or any word processor).

Now you have to find your language. If you are into this anyway you probably know already what fits. Many of the European languages like Italian are using the en table because Italians don’t need to see any funny diacritics, but countries like Hungary (hu) and Poland (pl) are using the cs table. However the cs table does not fully cover each and every language in East Europe.

Characters shown in the cs table: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ąbčdėfghijklmnopqřstůvwxyž

In the case of Icelandic the en table is used and this the one I want to change. I simply type in the characters I want to add. I preferred not to have it in its alphabetical order simply because their existence in the font is what I want quickly to get information on. In the case where the cs table is used a Czech mac user would look into that table for changes.

I marked my changes in yellow. I could go further and add all of the diacritics but as they are present in other languages they are more likely to be included. I might though do it in next run.

Save the file as text file. Drag a copy over the original file to replace it. You will be asked for authentication. Restart is recommended but not vital.