Illustrator How-To: Using Pathfinder Effects to Design Woodcut Logos with Doug Panton

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Illustrator How-To: Using Pathfinder Effects to Design Woodcut Logos with Doug Panton

Adobe Illustrator's Pathfinder effects give you control over the interaction of compound shapes. See how Illustrator expert Doug Panton uses Pathfinder techniques to create a complex woodcut-style logo that can be adapted to multiple uses.

Written by Barbara Obermeier Ted Padova on June 13, 2003

Categories: Graphics, Illustration, How-Tos

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This story is taken from "Adobe Master Class: Illustrator Illuminated."

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Doug Panton uses Illustrator to design corporate identities that can be used for advertising, packaging, and branding, among other uses. The corporate logos he creates are often extracted from larger illustrations, which mean all elements must not only work together as a whole but must be easily dissembled into discrete parts as well.

Illustrator's Pathfinder techniques are an indispensable part of Panton's toolbox. With Pathfinder effects he can add, subtract, intersect, crop, and otherwise work with multiple paths so that each element retains its integrity yet merges seamlessly into the larger picture. This approach affords him great flexibility. See how in this excerpt.

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