How To Create Pattern Swatch In Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator gives us a feature to make custom pattern swatches very easily and in very few steps. These swatches are very useful in some places where we want a print type of feel.

So this blog, we will create our own custom pattern swatch in Adobe Illustrator.

First of all, we start by selecting the desired artboard for the default presets on the home screen.

Create Shape in Adobe Illustrator

We will now create a shape that we want to make a pattern and make it a custom swatch.

I have made here a simple circle, which we can easily make with the help of the circle tool.

After making the shape, we will now have to group it in order to make a pattern out of it.

To group our shape we have to select our whole shape by Direct Selection tool (V) and then we can go to Object -> Group.

Or we can also select the group option in the properties panel or use the shortcut Ctrl+G.

Now we can make a pattern of our shape.

Create Custom Pattern Swatch in Adobe Illustrator

To make a pattern, we have to go to Window -> Pattern Options.

After we select pattern options a floating window pops up.

This window will have currently every option disabled.

But we have to click on the more options button on the top right corner.

After clicking it we have to select the Make Pattern option.

After we click on make a pattern, a window appears saying “A new pattern has been added to the swatch panel“, which means our pattern has been added to our swatch panel, but we are now in the editor mode, and we can change or modify our pattern.

Click on OK on the window.

Now we can play around with the pattern options and try different settings.

We can also edit our shape, move it duplicate it and resize it, and the changes are also applied to all the other copies.

We can change the Tile type, Overlap settings, and other options also and create a pattern of our desire.

After we are happy with our seamless pattern we can now click on done on the top right corner of the screen, so that we can come out of edit mode.

Apply Pattern Swatch to Shapes/Artboard

We can see now that our pattern has been disappeared and we are left with the shape that we had started with.

But when we look in our color swatches panel, we can see our customized swatch in it.

Now we can apply our personal pattern swatch, to any shape as color.

We can apply it to our whole artboard simply by making a square covering our entire artboard.

Now we can simply apply our swatch to fill the whole artboard.

We also export these patterns for different purposes like fabric printing, making wallpaper, making gift wrap, and many more.

Stay tuned for more Adobe Illustrator blogs.