- For working designers, one of the most labor-intensive,
and, frankly, thankless things you can do
is establish a color scheme for your artwork.
I mean, sure, the Color Guide panel is amazing
in that it helps you establish a base color palette
so that your document exhibits
a certain amount of artistic cohesion.
But while the Color Guide does a terrific job
of getting you started, it does little to respond to change.
Imagine these two very common scenarios:
You have this awesome document,
and then somebody comes along with some new artwork
and your job is to recolor the new stuff
to match your awesomeness, or, perhaps worse,
you're sitting on a document from six months ago,
maybe you didn't even create the thing,
the Swatches panel is a complete disaster,
and now you're called upon to re-color everything,
and I mean everything, to match the whims
of the latest spring colors, fall fashions,
or brand new corporate color book
that's really energizing the marketing department,
but all it means for you is mindless tedium.
I mean, your bosses, your clients, they don't understand
the inner-workings of digital design.
All they know is "You're using a computer program, right?"
"If so, there must be button somewhere, just click on it!"
I mean, does anything in these people's world work that way?
Only in this particular case,
they're right, there is a button.
It's called "Recolor Artwork"
and you seriously do just click on it.
Check this out: start by selecting a bunch of path outlines,
text objects or anything else you can create in Illustrator.
Then click this button in the Control panel,
like your colors here, and then drag them around
inside the, by now, familiar color wheel.
Just like that, your entire color scheme
changes in one operation.
The interface is a bit elaborate,
and we'll talk about how that secretly benefits you,
but it isn't hard to use,
and once you know that Recolor Artwork exists,
you'll be using it all the time.
"Recolor Artwork"
It's a button.
Your job is to click on it.