Amazing Free Seamless Pattern Generator Templates for Illustrator
Inspiration, Tutorials | June 17th, 2010
After I posted the latest tutorial, Create a Trendy Type Pattern Treatment, I received an email from Matt from Mad Pattern pointing out his free seamless pattern generator templates for Illustrator. After I download and played around with the templates, I was amazed! These template are pretty slick and easily let you create seamless patterns.
About Mad Pattern
Mad Pattern is a free tool for rapidly prototyping patterns. More specifically, Mad Pattern is a set of 19 Illustrator templates that automatically create seamless patterns from Illustrator artwork based on 17 wallpaper groups (I’m not extremely knowledgeable about wallpaper groups and patterns, so this Wikipedia article was an interesting read).
Some of the Features
- One template for each type of pattern
- Automatic symmetric replication
- Automatic clipping of elements drawn “out of bounds”
- Easy to save/export repeating tile (for web page backgrounds)
Using The Mad Pattern Templates
When you first open on of the template in Illustrator it might seem a little confusing at first, but it really isn’t complicated. In the template, there are step-by-step instructions to create the pattern. There is also a video tutorial of the Mad Pattern site.
Downloading the Mad Pattern Templates
Simply visit the Mad Pattern site and download!
Creating a Illustrator Pattern Swatch
The instructions in the file explain how to export as a raster image for web use, but there is a way to create a pattern swatch so you can use it in other Illustrator Documents. This is what I did:
Step 1
After you have the pattern created, select all the objects in the current layer (Command + A) and go Object > Expand Appearance.
Step 2
Use the Rectangle tool (M) and create a rectangle the size of the smaller Artboard in the middle of the document.
Step 3
Select all the expanded pattern artwork and the new rectangle and create a clipping mask by going Object > Clipping Mask > Make (Command +7).
Step 4
Create another rectangle the same size as the smaller artboard, like before, and take off any stroke and fill. Go Object > Arrange > Send to Back.
Step 5
Select the clipped artwork and no stroke /no fill rectangle and drag it into the Swatches panel. There you go! A simple pattern swatch created with the Mad Pattern Templates!
Final Image
Below is the final pattern swatch in action.
Thanks for posting! I will make sure to share!
Could not have been timed better.
Thanks for sharing!
Coool. It looks really easy and the result is nice. Finally some easier way, how to create seamless pattern.
Thanks!
wow this is awesome
I was looking for something like this
thanks so much for sharing
I came across these templates last week and I share the same enthusiasm as you! These templates are so cool.
This is awesome. I’m looking forward to playing around with this.
These are really amazing! Thanks so much for sharing this awesome design tool! (Now if I can just stop playing with them long enough to actually DO something with the patterns!! LOL!)
How neat is this! This is really resourceful and makes creating patterns a lot easier. Thanks
Wow. I’ve been looking for an easier way to create more complex, interesting patterns and these templates are going to be wonderful for me! Thank you!
Yes really great templates.
I just have question for the tutorial, since I’ve never used the clipping mask thing before. When I create the swatch how do I go about selecting both the clipped artwork and the no fil box?
great tutorial, if you want to do a screencast of it, i can put it up on the site.
if anyone needs any help with the templates, feel free to post your questions to the google group and i’ll try my best to help: http://groups.google.com/group/madpattern
also, i’m really excited to see what people create, post your patterns to the flickr group and they’ll show up in the gallery section of the site: http://www.flickr.com/groups/thewallpapergroup/pool/
-matt
Thanks a lot!
But I don’t know why Step 4 is nessisary.
———————-
Step 4 :
“Create another rectangle the same size as the smaller artboard, like before, and take off any stroke and fill. Go Object > Arrange > Send to Back.”
———————–
Why must I create another rectangle and then send it to back?
Can you tell me?
Creating the empty rectangle tells Illustrator were the bounds of the pattern are. If you just dragged the artwork without the bounding box, you won’t get the desired result. Hope that helps!
Thank you, I got it!
thanks a lot for this great tutorial.
I’m trying it now.
Thanks again.
Your template seems to be based on a triangle tessellation. You can expand your options by using other shapes that tessellate – see Seth Bareiss’ website. Although his site is not specific to Illustrator, these principles for creating repeating patterns apply!
http://www.tessellations.org/index.htm