(no subject)

[mountain_laurel]

I've been asked to replicate the style of some existing graphics, and I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly how they were done. My Illustrator skills are pretty rudimentary, so I'm wondering if anyone out there can tell me how it works.




What I need to know is how to get that 3-D effect. I i think "extrude and bevel" is the trick I'm looking for, but no matter what I do, I can't get it to look exactly like this. Worse yet, when I use the extrude/bevel effect, I lose my fill, and if I try to add fill, I lose the extrude/bevel effect.

Can anyone out there give me a simple tutorial on how to do this?

Comments

[mskala.livejournal.com]

I don't know Illustrator, but I think those frames look like drop shadows rather than extrusions. I think each frame is simply one lighter-coloured one displayed on top of, and a little to the northwest of, one darker-coloured one. Maybe you can create something similar either by applying a "shadow" effect if there is one, or by just drawing two round-cornered rectangles separately.

[merde.livejournal.com]

well, it's not a drop shadow. I did try assembling the individual pieces by and and was successful, so if all else fails i guess i can do that.

the person i talked to said the original graphic artist mentioned using the 'extrude' function, but maybe he was talking out of his ass.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

The simple way to deal with it is to create a rounded corner object with the desired fill and a border with a dark shade. Then duplicate the object, use no fill and a border with a lighter shade. Align both objects and offset the light-bordered object up and to the left a little with the arrow keys.

It's not the way Illustrator's elite users would do it, but it's how I would.

[merde.livejournal.com]

that's just a little quicker than the way i'd come up with to fake it. you are a SUPER GENIUS.

[(Anonymous)]

Just tell them that their diagram's style sucks, because it draws your eye to the huge heavy borders so much that you can't actually focus on the actual content, and change it to something with nice pale borderless backgrounds.