How to Create Seamless Patterns in Illustrator

In this tutorial, we create a seamless, vector repeat pattern entirely in Adobe Illustrator. I also share how to change the background color for any pattern, too!

Thanks for watching!

[graciewilson]

I know this is an old video but just wanted to say I watched it before a design interview test to refresh myself and it made it so simple and easy, I cranked out that part of the test! Thanks!

[OhElvira]

Thank you so much! Best tutorial I've seen on this! I'm a complete beginner so it was really helpful that you included what the shortcuts were and where you could find them on the option panel.

[ruthdacre]

This is amazing, thank you so much, took me a little while to grasp as I was having issues with illustrator saying the file was too big to do the clipping mask but I got there in the end. This was my first attempt at making my own pattern on illustrator and this tutorial was incredibly helpful so thank you!!!!

[werpires]

This video is already 5 years old but thank you so, so much! I studied textile design where we had to make tons to seamless patterns...however, no one taught us how to properly work with Illustrator so we spent hours making simple seamless patterns because we matched the seams by hand till it fit....in Photoshop nonetheless! The hours I could have saved on projects if Ihad known this method before!

I'm actually starting my first job as a designer in a week so tutorials like these are a real life safer! Once again, thank you so so much!

[NaupakaNeoWeo]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This was great, its hard to think at 12 am in the morning, but you made my seamless pattern making easy!! woohoo.

[dejavu__]

So glad I found your Youtube channel, have just subscribed to it. I'm studying media communicions, currently working on my bachelor degree and on a project including graphic design in the matter of a corporate visual identity, so all these videos of yours are sooo helpful! Thank you, will definitely return very often to your channel. Have a nice day!

[torimootube]

Thank you! That was awesome. I've been a graphic designer for soooo many years but love how you can always learn something new – we can never know everything and that is the exciting thing about it. I'm inspired!

[johntv]

This is really helpful esp. for people working in the apparel industry... so many patterns being used on garments these days. Very trendy, popular stuff!! Thank you for the awesome tutorial!

[Hamiltron]

You can just use the align tools and make sure you have "align to artboard" selected when you want to make that background fit perfectly to the artboard. Two clicks and you're done.

[ZaffaMan]

Awesome tutorial! Straightforward, concise, well explained and complete. Great work!

[sqribblings]

I have had SO many cute pattern ideas sitting around in my head, specifically to print on some apparel. I just didn't have the technical know-how. Over the years, I wrote them down in a notebook for when I had the time and means to learn. This just opened up a world of possibilities for me, I cannot express how happy I am right now!!

[emrydaniels]

I love this tutorial. Still holds up today in 2020. I was doing stylised backgrounds and saved variations of the same pattern. Great save. Thanks!

[gzusrock]

This was a great tutorial and really helpful, especially the trick of moving the edge elements by the size of the art board to make them line up perfectly. One other technique regarding creating the pattern swatch: If you want to make it non-destructive (still editable) without saving a copy or duplicate of the original, instead of cropping it out, what you can do is copy the rectangle you used for the mask and background, then paste it behind everything and give it a stroke and fill of none. Then, select everything and drag it to the swatches palette. Illustrator treats the bottom rectangle with no fill or stroke as the pattern boundaries and will "crop" the tiles to that rectangle. Using this technique you don't even need to make the mask if you don't want to. Then, if you want to edit the pattern, you can just drag it's swatch back out onto the art board and make your changes, then drag it back into the swatches palette as a new pattern, or hold down the alt key and drag it on top of the original pattern swatch to overwrite it.

[tedspens]

I was looking for how to crop vectors, and found it here plus a whole lot more. Thanks for sharing the know-how!

[milanstanojevic]

Amazing explanation! I love how you went thru all the small details and steps on how to make a pattern. Great job!

[mollylofton]

I've been avoiding learning how to make patterns for possibly... years... and I'm so glad I chose your tutorial to finally learn this super valuable technique. Thank you for posting this (5 years Helped me out a ton. :)

[alisalembree]

This is awesome and thank you for doing this. Quick question: I followed through and expanded my objects before cropping, but there's so many points that Illustrator just lags and crashes. I've tried doing this in outline view, I only have one layer so it's not a matter of turning things off...I've tried simplifying (though this changes the look too much), and I've killed other applications but to no avail. Do you have any suggestions for how to help it crop without crashing?

[cenobre]

Parabéns pelo seu excelente trabalho. Sou iniciante no AI e seus vídeos tem colaborado muito para meu aprendizado.

[maryamkamal]

I'm literally obsessed with your tutorials! recently discovered you and subbed!!

[thewanderingsaint]

Great tutorial the x y axis thing was new to me it really help me making pattern now. Thanks for this lesson very very helpful !!!!