Adobe Illustrator Tutorial – The Align and Distribution Tools

On your journey as a Graphic Designer, you will all of a sudden become very meticulous. This i promise you.

Making sure your elements are lined up neatly and spaced evenly are a few of the little things that make a big impact. The align tools in Adobe Illustrator can help with this.
 

 


Aligning Elements

It’s very simple, you can align elements to the left, right or center. Selecting multiple numbers of elements and clicking the center align will align all elements with their center points. In some cases as in the video tutorial above, there was extra tracking space after the typography with caused the actual center point to be off a bit. I will show you how to correct that.

Distributing Elements

The best way to describe these options would be to picture a bullet list of services your company offers. Say you have ten lines or type all in separate text boxes and you want to space them evenly vertically. You can do that with the vertical distribution tool in the Align palette.

The align tool to a Graphic Designer is the same as a bubble level to a contractor. When used correctly, your elements will be mathematically in order.

Align As You Go

Aligning objects and elements in your Graphic Design Layout as you go can help you get a better understanding of your layout from the beginning to the end. What I mean by that, is it’s easier to design on an organized canvas.

So once you start to create text boxes and import images, make sure you are visually aligning or using the tools in the video above.

The Alignment tools can be opened by going up to: Window > Align

Experiment and have fun doing it! 🙂