- [Voiceover] In this movie I want to show you
one of my favorite tools I use in Illustrator.
I don't use it every day,
but when I need it I'm glad it's there.
It's part of this Astute Graphics VectorScribe plugin,
called the extend path tool.
Let me show you how it works.
Now I know this isn't part of the features that come with
Adobe out of the box and the reason why this plugin exists
is because there is no way to do this in Adobe.
And it's something that I don't run into all the time,
but I've had to use it enough that it makes it
well worth having this plugin and this feature.
So when I started working on this design,
this was for a manufacturer that creates products
for the automobile industry,
and they wanted their motif to look like an automobile
medallion that you might see on a car,
I started working out this concept,
but I got to this point and I realized there was one part
about this that wasn't working well.
And it was the gap in between the shield and the wing.
I didn't like the gap there,
and if I go back to my base artwork,
I drew it with the gap in there, so I wanted a gap,
but this is obviously a very crude drawing.
I didn't draw it precisely,
I just draw it enough to guide my building,
but it wasn't what I call a refined sketch,
it's a rough sketch.
Now, when I built my vector art, I knew most of this
would be basic shapes, so I could probably get away with it,
and I kept that gap in there because I intended
to want a gap in there.
But then, when I started building out the final
black and white artwork, and specifically,
when I started adding these outlines to it,
I noticed that because I added these outlines to it,
it created a larger gap there than what I intended.
And I didn't like that, so I wanted to fix that.
Well, I'm gonna show you how I fixed that,
because how do you adjust this curve
now that it's established and it's trimmed off?
Well, you would have to just eyeball it,
you would have to go in there, and try to edit it,
to retain the look and feel,
in which case I'd probably have to go back
and rebuild the outline because it wouldn't match
the exact curve and flow of the original shape
that I created it from, which is all of these pieces
that make up the wing here.
So I'm gonna show you how I used this tool, this feature,
to make edits like this, and make it go really quickly.
So we're gonna switch to a layer here,
and I'm gonna zoom in just on this layer of this piece
of this wing and I'm gonna go to the scissors tool,
and I'm gonna just cut at this anchor point
and cut at this anchor point,
and then I'm gonna select the piece we don't need
and delete it, so you can see it still has a fill,
it still has the stroke, but now it has an open end.
And that's what you want, because we're gonna extend
this path and extend this path,
and here's the beauty of this tool.
If I go to the PathScribe Tool, hold it,
I'm gonna click on the Extend Path Tool,
I'll select this one,
and it magically knows the radius that it's established
and it's continuing it.
You know I could go all the way up here if I wanted to,
but that's what the math is saying where the path would go
if it continued that arch.
I only need to go this far,
so I'm gonna go that far and stop,
and then on this one I'm gonna do the same,
go about that far and stop.
And now, once I've done that, I can just select the shape,
go back to my pin tool,
and I can just click on the end of one, end of other,
and close it to fix it.
Now what I'm gonna do, because I do want this gap in there,
I just don't want that gap so huge,
so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to select this shape.
So we're gonna clone this, Cmd + C, Cmd + F,
and just make sure it's on top, select this shape,
and I'm gonna trim it off, and you can see now,
it's improved the readability of this mark.
The visual continuity is retained in terms of the spacing
between this and everything else, I think that looks great,
so we can toss the one on the left,
and I'm gonna clone this, Cmd + C, Cmd + F,
and then I'm gonna use the unite tool,
and we'll find the center spot here,
and I'll just reflect it over.
And that's how quickly I can fix a mark like this
using the Extend Path Tool, it's really helpful.
Once again, it's usually when I realize
something isn't working or I've made a mistake,
it's not something I use all the time,
but when I have need for it, it really saves a lot of time,
because I'd have to rebuild a lot of stuff to fix this
if I didn't have access to this tool.
So it's really important.
The final brand mark in this context, color-wise,
came out like this, it was a lot of fun.
So Illustrator is great, but having secondary party
plugins makes it even better,
and allows me to customize my work flow
so I can create with more precision
and make the process easier.