bRINGING HOME THE BACON
A creative resource for designers, makers, and growing brands.
How to Create a Vintage Sunburst Pattern Brush in Adobe Illustrator
Learn how to design a hand-drawn sunburst brush in Adobe Illustrator—perfect for logos, badge designs, and illustration accents with a vintage feel.
How to Create a Bevelled Inline Text Effect in Adobe Illustrator
Learn how to create a layered, bevelled inline text effect in Adobe Illustrator—plus tips for shading, colouring, and adding depth using shape tools and texture.
How to Create Pixel Art in Adobe Illustrator
Turn your vector art into pixel art using this fun Illustrator trick with the Mosaic effect. Perfect for retro-inspired designs and simplified illustrations.
How to Draw Lightning Bolts in Adobe Illustrator (the Easy Way)
Don’t overthink your lightning bolts—these two Illustrator tips will help you create clean, dynamic shapes in minutes using geometric forms and warp effects.
Illustrator Bounding Box Won’t Go Away? Here’s the Quick Fix
Stuck with a bounding box that won’t disappear in Illustrator—even after ungrouping? Here’s the weirdly easy trick that fixes it.
How to Create Hand-Drawn Dot Patterns in Adobe Illustrator
Learn how to make organic dot patterns using the Blob Brush and Pattern Maker in Illustrator, with a bonus trick to keep things clean and readable in your designs.
How to Create an Overprint Effect in Adobe Illustrator
Learn how to create a halftone overprint effect using Illustrator's pattern libraries, rasterise + trace workflow, and the multiply blend mode.
The Easiest Way to Make Rainbows in Adobe Illustrator (That Actually Scale)
Ditch the repeated circles—this warp method makes scalable, editable rainbows in seconds using grouped rectangles and the arc effect.
Stop Struggling with the Rotate Tool—Try This Radial Repeat Trick in Illustrator
Learn why the radial repeat feature is a smarter, faster alternative to the rotate tool in Adobe Illustrator—no more skewed shapes or manual math.
I Tried Customising My Vans with Illustrator & a Cricut (Here’s What Happened)
From Illustrator to Cricut to chaos—here’s how I created a custom chain design and checkerboard print on my Vans, and what I’d do differently next time.
How I Invert a Logo Fast in Adobe Illustrator
Learn a faster way to invert your logo in Illustrator using Shape Builder, without manually adding internal shapes. A great tip for clean, contrast-driven branding.
How I Give My Vector Illustrations a Hand-Drawn Look in Adobe Illustrator
In partnership with Adobe Design, I’m sharing how I add ink-like texture and a hand-drawn feel to my vector artwork using stroke, rounding, and roughen effects.
How to Create Art Brushes in Adobe Illustrator (Using a Hot Dog Brush!)
Learn how to create Illustrator brushes that don’t distort when stretched. I’ll show you how to segment your artwork using both art and pattern brushes for clean, repeatable strokes.
How I Designed a Flag Mockup Using Adobe Illustrator
In collaboration with Adobe Design, I created a custom flag design using Illustrator’s warp effect, then mocked it up and cut it into an iron-on transfer. Here’s how I did it.
Designing DIY Band Merch for My Kids Using Adobe Illustrator
I used Adobe Illustrator and some screen printing supplies to create custom patches for my kids' fictional band—The Banana Milkshakes. Here’s how I did it.
2 Easy Ways to Create Warped Backgrounds in Adobe Illustrator
Learn two quick methods to make warped vector backgrounds using Illustrator's Envelope Distort tools—perfect for posters, layouts, and brand visuals.
How I Made a Screen-Printed Pennant with Illustrator and a Cricut
Learn how to create your own screen-printed pendant using Adobe Illustrator and a Cricut Explore Air 2—great for small-batch merch or DIY design projects.
How to Add 3D Perspective to an Illustration in Adobe Illustrator
Learn how to add depth and dimension to a flat heart gem illustration using anchor point cleanup, zig zag lines, and the 3D & Materials panel in Illustrator.
How to Create Clean, Editable Halftones in Adobe Illustrator
Say goodbye to crunchy halftone dots. Learn how to build smooth halftones and replace the dots with any vector shape using a free script—perfect for designers and illustrators.
How to Create Custom Textures in Adobe Illustrator (Without Using Stamps)
Learn how to build your own vector texture effect in Illustrator using inner glow, rasterise, and image trace—perfect for bold, print-style logos and titles.