Illustratorworld.com

[Husker]

Last night I felt I like I found the Rosetta stone for complex guilloche patterns in Illustrator. I like creating currency designs and in the past I've used a wonderful plugin called SecuriDesign. It works like advertised and once you get over the myriad of settings you can create some awesome looking patterns. My only problem is that it is for CorelDraw and I've been trying to figure out how to do the same thing In Illustrator.

After much experimentation I hit on the right formula. I basically start out with a blend of 3 paths of varying colors (whatever looks good for your application. I then use the zig-zag effect of varying sizes and frequencies on each path of the blend.

Now here's where it gets fun. Now select one path and duplicate it in the appearance pallet and play with offsets and different frequencies, colors and sizes. The possibilities are endless. You can make a mess real fast if you aren't careful but I've gotten results that rival very expensive 3rd party apps.

When I get the time I might write a tutorial. In the meantime here is a shot of one of the templates I made:


Here are a couple examples of simple designs using this effect.

Here and Here
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"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a mile from them, and you'll have their shoes."

[JoeParis]

Sounds like a "must try that" to me. Thanks for the info, it looks wonderful. BTW, I think your currencies are spectacularly good. Are they made in Illustrator or with the plug-in/CorelDraw?

[Husker]

Thanks! The gillouche pattern on my counterfiet president bill was done with the Corel plugin but the later BSG bills I did with Illustrator.
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"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a mile from them, and you'll have their shoes."

[isa]

We meet again!

I was looking to download a certificate for the same not-for-profit organisation they will be handing out to people completing their courses, that I have been doing my recent spate of work I ask for advice off here from. (What did I just say )

I found many certificates, but already used.

So, either I just grab the guilloche border, and forsake the inner part, or painstakingly copy and paste the inner parts pattern...

The second option is not viable at all, as many a time the guilloche alternates in opacity, causing unwanted headaches.

Option one sounded better.

Then I realised I could search for guilloche patterns, and past that smack bang in the centre!

Then when searching, I again thought, "Hang on! I am sure there must be a way to do this with one of Adobe's CS4 Master Collection's many programs!

After a Google search, I came across this thread

Husker and JoeParis, you have both saved my neck once before, and I don't know if I am over-asking (it feels weird when one just takes, and doesn't give back ).

I'll don my thick skin, and kindly ask if any help could be parted with this way again please?

Husker, you mentioned that you would possibly write a tutorial if you had the time... Seeing that this post was written nearing a year ago, I was wondering if you had started the tutorial, did you finished it yet?

I tried looking at the links you provided in your first post and could not view the contents...

Again, thanking everybody that would offer their expertise/help in response to this query...


Warm Regards,

isa
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Love for your Brother, what you love for yourself.

[Husker]

Hi isa,

Since I wrote that I've learned a lot of new tricks. There many ways to get intricate patterns like this in Illustrator. The above example is one way that works pretty good because it lets you make adjustments to the pattern. Since my last few freelance jobs have consisted of making complex currency I'm finding even more and more ways to get cool looking gillouche patterns.

For simple certificates I'd stick to using a few blends of wavy lines as the background and try making a pattern brush with a wavy blend in it.

I just haven't had time to sit down and do a tutorial yet. Last night I was up creating a collection of gillouche brushes I made. I'd try to post a link here for you when I get home. You can use them how ever you want but I'd hope you'll take the time and look at how they are made. You can pull each one out of the brushes pallet and look at how they are put together.

I also use a cool plugin for Corel X4 called Securidesign. It plots different loops and wave patterns and blends them between two paths you have selected. The only down side to Securidesign patterns is they are a bunch a straight line plots and to compensate you can increase the curve quality. All this does is make the distance between the points shorter to cover up the fact that they are straight lines. To get a high quality pattern it creates a ton of points and increases the file size.

I use Corel with the Securidesign plugin only to generate the pattern I want. After that I save it out to an Ai file and expand the paths and cut them up for use as a pattern brush in Illustrator.

I hope this explanation helps a little. This reminds me that Deke McClelland has a wonderful work around for scanning currency in Photoshop CS4 (since it's not supposed to let you ). You can listen to it in his Martini Hour podcast.

P.S. I updated those links in the original post.
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"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a mile from them, and you'll have their shoes."

[ScottW]

FYI....

http://www.excourse.com/excentro/index.html


Killer app.. fyi.. the "demo" still allows export to .ai you jsut can't save any files as native files.
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» Scott
Adobe Certified Expert, Illustrator

[Husker]

That is cool. Funny it's almost the same price as Corel X4 with Securidesign. I'd like to see an Ai example and compare the outputs.
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"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a mile from them, and you'll have their shoes."

[isa]

LoL, I just read my post again, and realised the embarrassing mistakes contained therein

My justification was that it was late at night

[isa]

[ScottW]

As I posted.. the Excentro demo still allows export to .ai... I've used it for a couple years and never paid a dime. It's not illegal that they don't restrict export or have a time limit in their demo.
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» Scott
Adobe Certified Expert, Illustrator

[isa]

[Husker]

I think you'll have to have a Mac for Excentro to work. Another option is you could buy an older version of Corel Draw and buy Securidesign for $39.95. It works with Corel Draw ver 10 and up.

FYI, I just posted some of the guillouche brushes I made here:
http://jerrydmills.deviantart.com/art/Guilloche-Pattern-Brushes-121706004
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"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a mile from them, and you'll have their shoes."

[isa]

[Husker]

The nice thing about a brush is that it is you can adjust the size to fit your design by using the brush options panel. You can also experiment with adding multiple brushes to the same path with varying offsets and scaling.
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"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a mile from them, and you'll have their shoes."

[Reggae Rob]

I've done a few "spirograph" type of patterns. Make 3 loops like a propeller and group them together, then rotate and copy the group around the center point.
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Reggae Rob
Rob's e-Alternative Enterprises
Spokane, WA