How to Draw with Illustrator: SHAPES and ARROWS

© Ugur Akinci

TOOL 3: Shapes and Arrows

Click on the Shape Tool to display the various shape-drawing tools available:

In the tool bar, the last-used tool is displayed.

Tip: After selecting the tool, if you click on your canvas WITHOUT drawing anything, you’ll display the measurement dialog box. For example, here is the one for rectangle:

That way you can draw a precise rectangle with exact measurements. Same is true with all other shapes as well.

For example, you can click the star tool once and then use the below values to draw a star with 5 corners and with these inner and outer diameter measurements:

Arrows is important to point at things and to indicate component dimensions.

Drawing arrows is easy.

1)Draw a line, either straight (with straight line or pen tool) or curved (pen tool).

2)Select either Filter > Stylize > Add Arrowheads… or Effect > Stylize > Add Arrowheads… (the difference is academic) to display the Add Arrowhead dialog box:

As you can see, you add an arrow both to the START and END of a line. Click through the options to select a proper arrow style. My default preference for technical documentation is the end style shown in above screenshot.

And you’re done.