Appearance Panel

Blending Options

We're going to talk about how blending modes work in Adobe Illustrator and how they change the look of objects. You can tweak blending modes and opacity for individual objects or groups using either the appearance or transparency panels. There are 17 different blending modes, each with its own effect.

I highly recommend checking out the first part in Section 5 – Chapter 4 in the Adobe Photoshop course to understand more blending modes.

• What you need to know is that the Darken group makes the white color invisible, and the Lighten group makes the color black invisible;
• The Overlay group blends colors of two images;
• The Difference group creates stylized effects;
• The last Color group affects the hue, saturation, and overall color.

Multiple Fills and Strokes

• You can add multiple strokes or fills to an object and adjust their size, color, and position relative to each other;
• Strokes can be reordered, resized, and aligned differently (e.g., inside or outside the path);
• Multiple fills are less commonly used, but you can adjust their opacity and blending modes;
• You can clear, duplicate, or remove strokes and fills through the Appearance panel, or through the hamburger menu.

Live Effects and Graphic Styles

• There are two types of effects in Illustrator:

  • Illustrator effects (vector-based): scalable and resolution-independent, suitable for vector shapes;
  • Photoshop effects (raster-based): dependent on document resolution and can become pixelated if scaled too much.

• You can apply effects through the "Effect" menu or via the FX button.

• Illustrator offers a wide range of effects, including:

  • 3D Materials: add depth and dimension (e.g., extrude and bevel to create 3D shapes);
  • Drop Shadow: adjust opacity, offset, and blur for shadow effects;
  • Stylize Effects: includes Drop Shadow, Feather (blurring the edges), Inner and Outer Glow, Round Corners, and Scribble for a hand-drawn effect.

• The Scribble Effect adds a pencil-like drawing effect to objects. You can customize the stroke width, curvature, and spacing for more variation. It's great for child-like or sketchy styles.

• The Graphic Styles are found under the "Window" menu. Graphic Styles allow you to save and apply appearance settings (stroke, fill, effects) across different shapes.

• You can create new styles and reuse them on other shapes easily. They can also be shared or imported from libraries.

• Once you're satisfied with effects, you can expand the appearance to make the changes permanent. This converts strokes and fills into final vector shapes, allowing for further customization.

• Raster effects are less scalable and may introduce unwanted lines or pixelation. Examples include Gaussian blur for soft halo effects around objects.

• Illustrator also has an effect gallery, similar to Photoshop's filter gallery, for additional raster effects.