- Hello, and welcome to the Layers panel.
Now, some of you might figure this conversation is
coming a little late in the game.
After all, the Layers panel seems pretty straightforward.
It's been around forever,
and we've seen it,
I believe, in approximately every movie so far.
Okay, granted, at first glance the Layers panel might
seem I guess, like a very small dresser,
filled with an infinite number of impossibly deep drawers
that can hold literally anything and everything you like,
which if Ikea sold it,
you'd eat the meatballs,
build it yourself,
and tweet about how great it was,
but the Layers panel is more than just a magical cabinet
of Scandinavian curiosities,
it is in fact,
a completely different way of looking at your document.
Think of it this way,
the Document window displays your artwork in two dimensions,
horizontal and vertical.
The Layers panel shows you a third dimension,
not depth exactly,
but rather how the document is built,
starting at the bottom,
and working its way, eventually,
to the top.
This bottom to top thing,
it's called the stacking order.
Brick by brick, mortar by mortar,
only in the Layers panel,
you see one container stacked upon another.
Paths inside compound shapes,
inside groups, inside layers.
Rooms inside floors,
upon which more floors rise to make a tower.
In other words,
the Layers panel is a virtual skyscraper that when captured
from a bird's eye perspective becomes the artwork
that you see in the Document window below,
and that's just the beginning.
The Layers panel lets you move things up and down,
from one layer to another,
even in and out of groups.
Plus, you can name objects,
and establish hierarchical relationships,
thus permitting you to tell the story behind
the creation of your document.
Now, Illustrator doesn't make you organize a darn thing.
You can plop everything in the default layer one,
and forget about it,
which is very, probably how most people work,
but if you take a little extra time to establish
a few layers, and name a few key objects,
the designers who follow you will know what you were up to,
and my guess is one of those designers will be you.
Mark my words,
six months after you create a complex document,
you'll have no memory of how you put it together.
Right now, you're watching this chapter,
but little do you know,
your future self is just now kissing you with gratitude.