When the Shape Builder tool came out in CS5, it wasn’t really on my radar. I have a set of actions and keyboard shortcuts setup for the different Shape Modes from the Pathfinders panel. I didn’t really need a new tool to replace my workflow. After using it more and more, I’m coming around to thinking it’s a pretty powerful tool and I really like to use it as a Paint Bucket.

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I like scanning a bunch of different brush strokes to create custom Illustrator Art Brushes. When I create these brushes from the outlined scanned artwork I sometimes get this weird overlapping effect that’s really annoying. I’ve been hunting around for a solution and finally found one. To be honest, I’m not really sure I understand why it works, but it does, so I guess that’s fine.

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One of my favorite art brush options is Stretch Between Guides. I like using this option to keep the ends of the brush unchanged and just stretch the middle. For me it works similarly to a simple pattern brush, but it’s a lot easier to create. You can set this option in the Art Brush Options by selecting Stretch Between Guides and then setting the guides at the desired position.

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The Gradient Annotator is an essential part of Illustrator’s Gradient tool (G). That’s why it’s such a pain when it seemingly disappears! I get emails about this all the time so I think it justifies a quick post. If you don’t see your annotator when using the Gradient tool (G) then choose View > Show Gradient Annotator (Command-Option-G/Ctrl-Alt-G). I tend to sometimes turn it off and on by accident when I’m using the keyboard shortcuts for grouping and ungrouping objects.

John Wundes has created another awesome script called Organize. With Organize, you can quickly sort selected items by a given attribute. Items can be sorted on height, width, area, x-axis, y-axis, opacity, and order. The sort direction are small-to-large, large-to-small, and random. It’s a pretty handy script for organizing icon sets, logo comps, and a bunch more. What would you use it for? Go download it now!

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Astute Graphics is about to launch their new DrawScribe Illustrator plugin. You’ll probably know Astute from their other plugins Phantasm CS and VectorScribe. If you have used any of these plugins, you’ll probably be pretty excited for DrawScribe. It’s slated to be released early March and packed with a couple tools to really speed up your drawing and sketching in Illustrator!

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I love the the Appearance panel and one setting I use a bunch is New Art Has Basic Appearance (Appearance panel pop-up menu).  If selected, you’ll draw with only the current Stroke, Fill, Opacity and other attributes from the last object you drew will be ignored. If this option is not selected (which is how I use it the most), the new art will have the exact same Appearance as your last object. Pretty handy when creating a bunch of object that use the same Appearance attributes.

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