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Design Illustrator Foundations Creating an Icon Pen Tools

Ines Rosas
Ines Rosas
4,476 Points
Posted by Ines Rosas
Ines Rosas
4,476 Points

Hi! It seems to me like outline strokes is "destructive". Is there a way to keep an un-outlined version as well?

I tried to duplicate the icon layer pre-outline strokes in order to outline only the duplicate layer, but seems to me like Ai applied the outline to both the original icon layer as well as the duplicate...

2 Answers

Atanas Sqnkov
Atanas Sqnkov
14,981 Points
Atanas Sqnkov
Atanas Sqnkov
14,981 Points

Hi Ines!

You must select the sole layer you want to change by clicking the small sun-like icon in the right side of the layer. A circular icon on the oposite side of the layer thumbnail. This selects just and only that layer.

Cheers!

Ines Rosas
Ines Rosas
4,476 Points
Ines Rosas
Ines Rosas
4,476 Points

Hi Atanas! When I did this by itself, I still had the problem that the outline stroke was applied to both layers, but, then I tried this plus locking out (with the padlock) the layer(s) I wanted to keep un-outlined, and that did it! Now I have both un-oulined icon and outlined icon in one file.Thanks!!

sarahbruchman
sarahbruchman
6,347 Points
sarahbruchman
sarahbruchman
6,347 Points

Hi Ines, The best part about Illustrator is all the room that is provided. I often save an extra copy of what I am working on off of the workspace in the sides just for issues with outlining stroke. Also in professional practice I save two files in an asset folder. One with outlines and one without. Generally the outline version is what I would submit to a printer or as a final version to a client. This is useful if you use a special font face that may not be installed on a clients computer, but the un-outlined version is still available if changes are needed. Hope that helps,

Ines Rosas
Ines Rosas
4,476 Points
Ines Rosas
Ines Rosas
4,476 Points

Thanks Sarah! This is what I ended up doing before I asked the question, but it felt unnecessarily cluttered to have to have 2 files... I ended up trying out Atanas' suggestion, and that enabled me to have 2 icon versions in the same file in different layers. However, your answer made me think that I don't know how, from this one file, I will be able to create "printable" files for sharing... I guess we'll cover that later on in another video. Thanks for taking the time to answer my question!

sarahbruchman
sarahbruchman
6,347 Points

Yea no problem, I actually have yet to get to this section, its just how I learned. Looking forward to trying out something new though!