How to use Stroke Palette to customize strokes

Illustrations are often composed of crisp lines and strokes. You might have seen the artistic arrow in the “Amazon” brand logo. Broadly speaking, graphic arts deals with varying patterns of strokes and fills. We use colors and gradients to make our artwork visually appealing. However, with the help of proper strokes, be it a border or an art segment, your artwork comes to life. The stroke palette in Adobe Illustrator helps you to customize stroke, control stroke weight, and choose an appropriate stroke profile. These functions are achieved using the Stroke Palette or the Stroke Panel menu in the Adobe Illustrator. We will further explore how to use stroke palette to customize strokes in Adobe Illustrator.

Understanding stroke weight and stroke profile

At times, trying to sketch the 2-D object to add colors, gradients, and textures can be cumbersome and it demands professional sketching skills. However, by altering stroke properties you can achieve the same without requiring a detailed sketch. Consider a curved line like the tilde(~) symbol, by altering the width or the stroke weight, you can turn it into a waving flag. That is the power that the Stroke Palette in Adobe Illustrator provides you. You can also decide how the endpoints of your strokes meet or end, with the help of Stroke Palette.

Stroke Palette in Adobe Illustrator

Weight

On clicking the icon for Stroke Panel, at first only the function to control stroke weight appears. Other features can be accessed by clicking on the Show Options menu.

Weight defines the thickness of the stroke. Weight points can be placed around the stroke to control the appearance of the stroke. Stacking weight points over others is useful to create a sharp increase or decrease of line width, almost similar to an arrowhead. You can also numerically specify the width in the Weight menu.

Cap

Next in the Stroke Palette is the Cap option which lets you control the appearance of stroke ends.

• The butt cap is the default cap option and it gives a straight and sharp end to the stroke.
• The round cap makes the endpoints soft and roundish.
• The projecting cap is useful to extend the stroke past the ends when the ends are square.

Corner

You can also alter the appearance of the intersection point of strokes. The types of joins, namely Miter, Round, and Bevel Joins, are the same as the ones you see in wood or metal works. If you are not already aware of it, the following descriptions will help you to understand them better.

• Miter Join connects the strokes in such a way that the endpoints form a pointed edge. The smaller the angles between the lines, the pointed the Join appears.
• Round Join causes the meeting points of the stroke to form a smooth or rounded curve.
• Bevel Join cuts the stroke intersection such that the stroke width appears uniform throughout.

Align Stroke

Align the stroke option lets you align the stroke outline concerning the sketch. For objects which form a closed path, the stroke outline can be arranged with center(default), inside or outside alignments. The icons are self-explanatory when it comes to selecting the desired alignment.

Dashed Line

Next in the list is the Dashed line checkbox useful to convert strokes into dashed lines. Just beneath this checkbox, you can observe two alignment icons. The first option retains the appearance of the dashed line and preserves the exact dash and gap length. The second icon aligns the dashes to corners and path ends forming a consistent and predictable pattern.

You can also define a sequence by entering the lengths of dashes and gaps. Cap options can be used for each dash to create a variety of patterns.

Arrowheads

You can create beautiful arrows with the help of the Arrowheads option in the Stroke Palette. Predefined arrowheads, of different types, can be accessed using the drop-down list.

Use the Scaler options to adjust the size of the arrowhead. You can also align the arrowhead to begin or terminate at the stroke endpoints.

Profile

The Profiles drop-down menu provides various preset forms for your stroke. You can choose one of them and see what goes best with your sketch or design.

Final steps

Save the newly created stroke profile, delete it or reset it using the Stroke Palette. The saved profile will appear in the Profile dropdown. When you hover over the width of the sketch using the Width tool, you can see some points that appear like hollow diamonds. Therefore, you can adjust these points manually to modify the profile of the stroke. Hope this article has provided an insight on how to create customized strokes in Adobe Illustrator.

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