At the end of last year, I made a few video tutorials for my Pattern Kick customers, explaining some useful tips & tricks to help them make the most of their pattern files. Today I’m sharing one of them with you: How to recolour patterns automatically in Illustrator.

This video tutorial will show you how to change the colours of your Illustrator’s patterns and/or artwork with Illustrator’s own ‘Recolor Artwork’ feature. It’s so fast and easy, it makes tedious work a breeze! If you haven’t used it yet, you’ll soon be wondering how you ever managed without it…

As promised in my last post, I have created a video tutorial on how to add texture to your vector designs in Illustrator by using bitmap images. This technique is very useful and can produce some gorgeous and interesting results.

If you downloaded the free texture images from last post you can use those to follow along. If you haven’t downloaded them but want to, here is the link: 17 free textures that can help your designs kick ass. You can also, of course, use your own images!

I believe that one of the most important things as a designer is to keep honing your skills for as long as you’re at it. No way around it. If you want to stay in the race and have a chance against competitors you have to constantly get better at what you do, otherwise you’re going to be left behind, and that’s not where we want to be, is it?