Since the notes and pins are popular on fuzzimo, here’s a vector cork texture with a wood frame in case anyone needs an all vector bulletin board artwork.

This is not a live trace from an image – it’s made from scratch in Illustrator and it was fun playing around to get something that resembles the real thing (view the close-up below). I’ll have to write a tutorial on this, as it can have many other uses.

In case you need an actual cork image texture, you can find one here. Drop me a comment or share the post if you find it useful. Thanks!

Here’s a basic Illustrator tutorial on how to crop an area from a group of multiple shapes or just hide unwanted parts by using opacity masks or clipping masks. I used these numerous times on things like Vector Rulers or Vector Guitars.

First set up a group of shapes on your artboard. Grab various shape tools and fill an area with different kinds; give them a fill color and no stroke.

Select all by dragging over with the Selection Tool (V) and press Ctrl + G to group them.

To make it more interesting, grab some of the liquify tools (Wrinkle, Crystallize, Wrap etc.) and play around until you get something that you like.

Now let’s say that you needed to hide or crop the group according to a circular shape. Grab the Ellipse Tool (L) and while holding Shift drag a circle over the group. Keep in mind that this will be the starting point for all 3 examples that follow – opacity masks, clipping masks and cropping.

Before using the cropping method, it’s best to use opacity masks or clipping masks while your vector art is a work in progress. This way you can still go back and adjust something if you need to.

Opacity Masks – Set the circle fill color to white and then select both the group and the circle with the Move Tool (V). In the Transparency Window (if it’s not open, go to top menu Window > Transparency ) click on that little arrow on the upper right corner and from the drop down options select Make Opacity Mask.

Now deselect by clicking on an empty area and you should have something like this:

Working with opacity masks allows you to do cool things like gradient fades. For instance go back (undo Ctrl+Z) to the previous step of having the circle over the group. This time instead of a solid white fill color, give it a black and white gradient and set the Type to Radial.

Select all and in the Transparency window go again and click on Make Opacity Mask just as before. You will get something like below.

If you look closely at the above image you will notice that the outer edge is still slightly visible. To fix this, first select your artwork and then in the Transparency Window click on the Opacity Mask to edit it.

Now go to the Gradient Tab and double click the black color on the gradient slider. In the pop up window, click on the upper right corner arrow and select CMYK.

In the CMYK options drag all sliders to 100%.

Go back to the Transparency window and click to stop editing the opacity mask. Now the outer edge is completely transparent.

Clipping Masks – Go back to the starting point artboard (press Ctrl+Z to undo).

Select both the group and the circle with the Move Tool (V) and from the top menu Object > Clipping Mask > Make.

Cropping – When you have a complex group of shapes and you want to get a cleaner artboard for your final work you can also use cropping.

So once again go back to the starting point – a circle over the group.

Select them both and then in the Pathfinder Window (if it’s not open, go to top menu Window > Pathfinder) click on the Crop icon.

Visually you will get the same result as applying the opacity mask or clipping mask but this time the areas extending outside the circle are cropped out instead of just being hidden.

One thing to note is that the empty areas also become shapes. You can see that if for instance you decide to change the fill color. It fills the empty spaces as well and you get a full circle.

So to get rid of those extra shapes and also be able to easily change the fill colors deselect the group and with the Eyedropper Tool (I) click on a filled area to pick out the fill color. (Note: if you have a lot of other elements on your artboard make sure you don’t have the same fill color anywhere else – if you do, then go back before the cropping and change the fill color to something unique).

Form the top menu Select > Same > Fill Color to select only the green shapes.

Now that you have only the green areas selected, go to top menu Edit > Cut (Ctrl+X) and before you paste click somewhere in the area to select the remaining colorless shapes. Usually just delete them, but for now drag them to the side.

Go to top menu Edit > Paste in Front (Ctrl+F) and while they are still selected press Ctrl+G to group them. Now you can easily change their fill color from green to something else.

Go back to the “invisible” group that you moved out of the way and if you give it a fill color it would be a sort of negative image of your original art.

Working with Text – To crop the shapes according to some text, similar to my main post image above, start the same way as before by making some sort of shapes pattern group and then with the Type Tool (T) enter your text.

With the text selected, go to the top menu Object > Expand and click OK and then go to Object > Compound Path > Make. Select both the text and group, and click on crop icon in the Pathfinder window.

Then give it a black stroke and a shadow (top menu Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow).

And it should look something like this:

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial! If you have questions or comments drop me a line below. Thanks!

A while ago I thought about playing the guitar, but after some tries I realized it was the guitar’s fault… I’ll just stick to vectors :). So here are two detailed classical / acoustic guitar vector graphics.

It was interesting making these, but I have to say that once most of the work was completed the most fun was making the center rosettes and the outline art. Check out the images below and I hope you find them useful for your musical design projects!

Since everyone likes sticky notes, here’s another way of placing them in designs – Safety Pins! So just like with the paper clips, I’ve put together some safety pin images and vectors. The scans are high resolution (the big pins are around 2400px in width)

As you can see in the screens below, there’s a variety of safety pins, both closed and open. Some of them are bent, some have some rust and some of the smaller ones are made of brass. Drop me a note or share the post if you find them useful. Thanks!

Time for another tutorial – how to make a 3d pencil using the Revolve tool in Illustrator. So just like any other project make a new document and save it. So the idea is to make a group of paths that resemble a dissected pencil and then give it a 3d volume by using the Revolve tool.

1. You will need 6 diferent shapes for the pencil parts, just as in the image below.

To start grab the Rectangle Tool (M) and drag out a thin rectangle.

2. With the new path still selected go to top menu Object > Path >Split Into Grid. In the options window under Rows choose Number: 6 and Gutter: 0px and click OK to divide the rectangle into 6 parts.

Give each rectangle a corresponding pencil part color. (I used #666666, #f0bd84, #fdf1df, #fdb044, #e6e6e6 and #ca5e5c)

Now with the Direct Selection Tool (A) drag over intersecting points of adjacent paths to select them and then while holding Shift move the points up and down to get the right proportions.

3. Now part 1,2 and 3 need to form a triangle that will be the pencil tip. Turn on the Smart Guides top menu View > Smart Guides (Ctrl+U). Now drag a rectangle exactly over those shapes. Make sure that all margins intersect.

Now delete the upper right anchor point with the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) and you can turn off the Smart Guides (Ctrl+U).

With the Selection Tool (V) select paths 1,2,3 and the overlaying triangular path and click Crop in the Pathfinder Window (top menu Window > Pathfinder)

4. Now on to the metallic part (path 5) Scale the width of this rectangle by dragging the right margin just a touch. Now add two anchor points like in the image below. Select them both with the Direct Selection Tool(A) and while holding down Shift move them a touch to the left.

Grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool and drag a small path. Hold down the Alt key and drag it with the Selection Tool (V) to duplicate it and make six paths just like in the image below.

Now select the metal part and the six newly created paths and click unite in the Path Window.

5.Now for the eraser grab the Convert Anchor Point Tool and drag on the lower right anchor point to give it a rounded edge. Move the point a bit in so it looks like in the image below.

6.Now it’s time for the revolve stuff. First select all paths and group them (right-click > Group or Ctrl+G) and then go to top menu Effect > 3D > Revolve. In the options window you can choose any position you want, but for now choose Front so you can easily adjust the look of the pencil. The Surface should have Diffuse Shading since the Plastic Shading is too glossy; and check that the revolve is set from: Left Edge.

After clicking OK you should have your pencil. Now if you feel it’s a bit too thick you can easily scale it down and it will automatically reapply the 3D effect.

7. You can leave the pencil the way it is or you can go further and add some grooves to the metal part of the pencil using Map Art. First step is to create a Symbol. Grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool and drag a small thin rectangle and give it a slightly darker fill color than the metal part; then hold down the Alt key and drag it with the Selection Tool (V) to duplicate it once. Now press Ctrl+D many times to duplicate the last action a couple of times. (make sure the second rectangle is still selected when you press Ctrl+D or it won’t work).

Now select all small rectangles with the Selection Tool (V) and drag them to the Symbols window (if it’s not visible – top menu Window > Symbols)

In the Symbol Options window choose Graphic and also give it a name like Pencil 01. Select the pencil and go into the 3D Revolve Options Window by clicking on 3D Revolve in the Appearance Window (top menu Window > Appearance).

Here make sure the preview is checked and click on Map Art. In the new window click on Next Surface until you get to the one you want to overlay the symbol to. Keep an eye at the pencil to see which one is the right one. Now choose Pencil 01 symbol from the drop down list and you should see it in the preview. Drag it to the right so it covers the visible area. (Light gray area is visible). Also check shade artwork to give the symbol the same lighting effect as the pencil.

You can also wrap some text on the pencil using the Map Art feature. So type your text and drag it to the Symbols window. Go back into the 3D Revolve Options Window > Map Art, select the surface and place your new symbol. Rotate and align the text to get your desired result.

8. Another thing to point out is that if you export it as a higher resolution image and the surface doesn’t look smooth enough then go to the 3D Revolve Options Window and click More Options. There increase the Blend Steps until the surface looks smooth.