Using Graphic Styles

You probably already have a sense of how powerful appearances and Live Effects are. However, if you have several objects in your file to which you need to apply the same appearance, it can be inefficient to do this manually using Live Effects. Additionally, if you ever need to update the appearance you applied, you would need to do so for each object individually. Graphic Styles can help.

A graphic style is a saved set of attributes, much like a swatch. When you apply a style to an object, that object takes on the attributes that are defined in the style. At any time, you can redefine the attributes of a particular style, and when you do, any objects in your file that already have that style applied are updated as well. The best part about Graphic Styles is how easy they are to use. And you'll never guess which palette plays an integral part in creating graphic stylesthat's right, the Appearance palette.

Defining a Graphic Style

As we mentioned earlier, a graphic style is a saved set of attributes. You know that the Appearance palette lists all attributes, so you already understand the first step in creating a graphic stylespecifying the attributes you want defined in the style. Once you've specified stroke and fill settings and added Live Effects, click the New Graphic Style button in the Graphic Styles palette (Figure 3.16). Alternatively, you can drag the target thumbnail from the Appearance palette and drop it into the Graphic Styles palette. Double-click a style in the Graphic Styles palette to give it a name (which is always helpful). If you Option-click (Alt-click) the New Graphic Style button, you can define a new style and give it a unique name in a single step.

Figure 3.16. Once you've specified your attributes in the Appearance palette, you can use the Graphic Styles palette to create a new graphic style.

Notice that when you apply a graphic style to an object in your file, the Appearance palette identifies the target and the style that is applied. This makes it easy to quickly see which style is applied to an object (Figure 3.17).

Figure 3.17. When a graphic style is applied, the Appearance palette helps you easily identify the target and the applied style.

Sometimes designers need to combine two inks to create a certain effect. For example, package designers often want to mix black ink with a spot color ink. Although you can't create a swatch that contains two inks, you can create a graphic style that contains two fills. The lower fill is the spot color, the other fill is a percentage of black, set to Overprint (Figure 3.18). You can then apply the style to any object with a single click.

Figure 3.18. To simulate a multi-ink color, combine two fills and use the Overprint command. The result is a single editable path that contains two colors.

Editing a Graphic Style

Editing a graphic style is an exercise that involves both the Appearance palette and the Graphic Styles palette, so it makes sense to position them side by side. You don't need to have an object selected in order to modify an existing graphic style, but if you do have an object selected, you'll be able to preview the changes you're making to the style.

In the Graphic Styles palette, click the style that you want to edit. The Appearance palette lists all of the attributes for the selected style. You can modify the style by either adding additional attributes, deleting existing ones, or by changing the paint order by dragging attributes in the Appearance palette. Once you're happy with the modifications, choose Redefine Graphic Style from the Appearance palette menu to update the style (Figure 3.19).

Figure 3.19. Once you've modified the attributes, you can update the style, which updates all other objects that have the style applied.

Any objects in your file that have that particular style applied then immediately update to reflect the modifications. Alternatively, you can Option-drag (Alt-drag) the target thumbnail on top of the existing style in the Graphic Styles palette. A heavy black outline appears around the style in the palette to indicate that the style will be updated (Figure 3.20).

Figure 3.20. Dragging the thumbnail from the Appearance palette on top of an existing graphic style while holding the Option (Alt) key redefines the style.

As we mentioned back in Chapter 1, Illustrator ships with many libraries, including a variety of graphic styles. It's a good idea to load some of these and use the Appearance palette to see how they were created. Not only does this give you some ideas on the kinds of styles you can create, it allows you to better understand how powerful both appearances and Graphic Styles can be.

Loading Attributes with the Eyedropper Tool

You can use Illustrator's Eyedropper tool to load the attributes of existing objects quickly. This can be useful in two ways. First, if you already have an object selected when you click another object with the Eyedropper tool, your selected object changes to match the object you clicked. Second, you can click once with the Eyedropper to sample the attributes of an object, and you can then Option-click (Alt-click) to apply those attributes to other objects in your file without actually having to select them.

You can configure the Eyedropper tool to sample just the basic appearance of an object (the topmost fill and stroke) or complete complex appearances. To control what the Eye-dropper tool can sample, double-click the tool in the Toolbox (Figure 3.21).

Figure 3.21. Double-click the Eyedropper tool in the Toolbox to control what specific attributes the tool uses for sampling.

Shift-click with the Eyedropper tool to sample colors from the pixels of raster images. In this way, the Eyedropper tool works much like the one found in Photoshop.