Textures are commonly used in graphic design and web design. Although you can find free textures online, it takes time and sometimes you can’t find one that fits your need. Often, you can find the perfect texture but you have to pay premium prices to buy it from a major stock image website. So, what do you do when you need a texture but can’t get it? Make it! Adobe Illustrator is a very powerful tool and provides a way to create realistic textures, such as a corkboard texture, from scratch.
- Open Adobe Illustrator and create a new document. Set the art board (canvas) size to “800×600″ and make sure the color mode is in RGB. Set the fill color to a light brown color. For best results, choose something such as “#BF8F56.” Grab your shape tool and make a rectangle that fills the entire art board. Your rectangle will probably have an automatic 1-point black stroke, but you don’t want that. Go back to your mouse pointer tool and select the rectangle. Change the stroke color to transparent.
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Step 2
Click on the “Effects” drop-down menu in the menu bar and find “Texture > Texturizer.” In the dialog box that appears, choose “Texture: Sandstone.” Set the “Scaling” slider to 170 percent and the “Relief” slider to 7. Then hit “OK.”
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Step 3
Keep the rectangle selected and open the “Effects” drop-down menu again. This time, select “Pixellate > Crystallize.” Set the “Cell Size” slider to 10, and hit “OK.” Make sure the rectangle is still selected, and in the “Edit” menu, select “Copy.” Then open the “Edit” menu again and select “Paste in Front.”
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Step 4
Select the rectangle you just pasted and go to the “Effects” menu once again. Find “Texturizer > Craquelure.” Set the “Crack Spacing” at 60, the “Crack Depth” at 2 and the “Crack Brightness” at 8. Hit “OK” to apply the effect. Then set the object’s “Opacity” slider to 55 percent. Export your file as a JPG or similar format for use in graphic design projects.