Design Tutorials

For this tutorial we are going to explore the handy "Bend" tool. Using it you can quickly make shapes that will have people asking "How did you do that?"

I usually use "inches" as my measurement in this program, however at times I will change to "pixels" for more precise measurment.

Lets get started.


Create a 2" by 2" square with the rectangle box tool. [Command+U] (control+U -windows) to "ungroup" the square, and make it a path with 4 editable "nodes" or "anchor points".


Now to create a clover shape really quickly, Select the square then, simply go to:
> Window >Xtras >Xtra Tools or [Command+option+X] (control+alt+X -windows) to bring up the "Xtra tools pallet" the very bottom button is the "Bend" tool. Click on the "Bend" tool and then click in the center of your square and drag down and to the right while holding the mouse button down. (down and to the left will also work) The further you can drag "down and to the right", the more the the corners of the original square will travel inward toward where you started your drag.


There is my clover, in just seconds. Now if I were going to actually use it as a clover I would rotate it about 20 degrees and fill it with a gradient or two. Then off to photoshop to airbrush a little detail into it.


If you go "up and to the left" while dragging you will create a star type shape. Try the "Bend" tool on differnet path shapes and see what you come up with. Add a bunch of random nodes to the square path and and try this method.