Adobe Creative Cloud All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3

Creating Basic Shapes

IN THIS CHAPTER

Creating rectangles, ellipses, stars, and polygons

Resizing shapes

Using the Pathfinder panel

Using the Shape Builder tool

Basic shapes, such as squares, circles, polygons, and stars, are used in all types of illustrations. With the right know-how and use of the right tools, you can easily create any shape that you want for your artwork. In this chapter, you find out how to use the shape tools to create shapes based on precise measurements, and combine shapes to create custom shapes. You also learn how to edit and resize your shapes.

The Basic Shape Tools

As a default, the only visible shape tool in the Tools panel is the Rectangle tool. If you click and hold down that tool, you can access hidden tools such as the Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, and Star tools, shown in Figure 3-1. (Although you see the Flare tool, it isn’t a basic shape.)

FIGURE 3-1: Basic shape tools.

You can tear off this tool set so that you don’t have ...