There are quite a few Illustrator tools that many of us have never used, which is understandable. We often have a workflow that we have found efficient and stick with it. Occasionally though, it’s a good idea to crack open Illustrator and take a look at some of its underused features. Scribble effects are worth taking a look at because they’re a quick way to add texture to your designs and a bit of personality.

The texture added is similar to the name of the effect (scribbles), but there is a great deal of variance you can control, and you can add a random feel as well. Let’s take a close look at how to use this effect and how you can get creative with it!

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Julian Dorado is a talented illustrator and graphic designer from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He started a character design project that merges typefaces into unique monsters, cute animals, and various other font inspired character creations. Let’s learn more about Julian and the Typefaces project in this interview!

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We have a new set of seamless vector patterns available exclusively for Vector Plus members. These are great for using in your work, adding to your blog background design, or twitter page. There are numerous plants, flowers, and pop elements making up each design of this set. You can use them in your next project to add a bit of happy, organic, vector goodness! Learn more at the jump!

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“In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a customizable vector sketchbook. This intermediate tutorial uses some basic shapes, Shear transforms, and Effects to create a leather texture. Let’s get started!” - Rype

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Alright vector lovers, let’s turn on multiple-pages ‘eh! Adobe Illustrator is great, it’s my favorite program actually, but even with the new Artboards feature in CS4 it just doesn’t compare to InDesign for creating multi-page documents. If you’ve been meaning to get started with InDesign, but have put it off for whatever reason, well now is the time to get stared!

This article rounds up a bunch of great resources on learning Adobe InDesign, which will get users started and keep intermediate users growing. And for any of you advanced InDesign users out there, or professional InDesign craftsmen, drop us a line because we’re looking to add more InDesign resources to Vectortuts+. Now let’s review these InDesign resources!

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“In this tutorial, I’ll explain how to make custom spirals (apart from the default spiral tool), and use them creatively in making rolls of paper. So far, I came to know that the spiral tool does not allow a uniform decay (equal spacing) between each wind of a spiral. In this tutorial, I will expose some basic tricks to do so. Hope you find it interesting.” - Saurabh Sharma

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“With simple shapes, gradients, and vector textures, this simple tutorial will show beginning illustrators how to create an hourglass icon. There is a whole lot you can do without the Pen Tool. We’ll be using Illustrator CS4 for this tutorial, but those of you with older version should be able to follow along as well. Let’s get started!” - Sean Hodge

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With simple shapes, gradients, and vector textures, this simple tutorial will show beginning illustrators how to create an hourglass icon. There is a whole lot you can do without the Pen Tool. We’ll be using Illustrator CS4 for this tutorial, but those of you with older version should be able to follow along as well. Let’s get started!

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“In this tutorial, we will explain how to create an awesome card deck design. You’ll create our own brushes and design elements to achieve a cool looking card. Let’s get started!” - Simona Pfreundner

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“With simple shapes and gradients, this easy tutorial will show you how to create an alarm clock icon. We’ll be using Illustrator CS4 for this tutorial, but those of you with older version should be able to follow along as well. Let’s jump into this tutorial, which beginning illustrators will find especially useful!” - Rype

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