25 Clean Shapes

A vector drawing tool depends on paths in creating shapes and elements in the design. Paths are outlines created by joining anchor points together to create smooth or shape outlines. These paths are resolution independent.

The benefits of optimizing paths

There are two main reasons to optimize the paths in Illustrator through reducing the number of the anchor points:

  • The first reason is the total file size, the anchor points add more size to the Illustrator file so it is a good practice to optimize these points and remove the unwanted points to reduce the file size.
  • The second reason to optimize paths is to have simple paths that you can edit easily by modifying its anchor points. The excessive number of anchors make it difficult to edit the path or modify it. In the simplify or optimization process, it aims to remove the unwanted anchor points that may increase the size of the Illustrator file or make the path editing process much harder.

The Delete Anchor Points Tool and the Remove Selected Anchor Points button on the Control panel are designed to delete points; however, after removing points in these ways the trajectory of the path changes significantly, which means that it will not retain its original form. But what we need is to delete extra points and retain the form of the path with minor changes only.

When you work to simplify the paths, you remove the unwanted anchor points with the concern on how the final shape outline looks after the process.

Bibliography:

 

 

Sooner or later, every graphic designer faces with the problem of path simplification. The illustrations should be clean and have no excess vector points.

All the extra (not needed) anchor points must be deleted.

Examples

Matrix

OpenCity

Perspective

3Dimensions

iCon

 

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License

Designer's guide Copyright © by illustraStock. All Rights Reserved.

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