[Tutorial & Competiton] Your own gift wrap paper

Christmas and suddenly Santa’s knocking on your door

November 11th, 2010, 4:30 pm

It’s the same routine every year. You think it’s oh so long until Christmas and suddenly Santa’s knocking on your door. Feel free to admit it: You again promised yourself to prepare some creative and personalized presents for the loved ones but still have no idea whatsoever. Well, we wouldn’t be our usual selves if we wouldn’t gladly help you in this precarious situation.

Why not try some gift wrap paper with a design of your own? In the following tutorial we show you how to create your own gift wrap paper design. To give you some incentive to get your backside up we make it a contest to win free printing of your gift wrap paper. See the end of this article for details.

sternmuster-Geschenkpapier
There probably are thousands of different ways to create beautiful gift wrap patterns. Today we want to show you a way how you can do it with Adobe Illustrator. We use CS5 but most options are also available in earlier versions.
Step 1 – File Setup

After starting Adobe Illustrator you create a new file under File > New and enter the millimetre size for A1: 841 x 594 mm. To switch to portrait orientation just click the left button besides orientation. Colour mode should be the default CMYK.

Illustrator-create-new-document

Step 2 – Creating a pattern base

The easiest and most effective way to design gift wrap paper is to use a self designed or preset pattern. This could be a text (“Merry Christmas my Dear!”) or a graphic design. For the latter you have the choice between drawing it yourself with the Pen tool or using preset shapes. In our example we use a preset shape. To do so simply click and hold the rectangle tool for a moment until the dropdown menu pops open. As this is going to be a Christmas design we choose the star.

Illustrator-select-star-shape
Illustrator-set-star-options

To increase or decrease the number of spikes click on the workspace and enter the desired value in the popup menu. We use the default star with 5 spikes, copy it three times by selecting the shape and dragging it with Alt pressed. To give same different sizes we scale them with Shift pressed to keep them in original proportion. You can now move around and rotate these stars however you wish. To change or apply colours use the selectors for stroke and fill. These are the same as the ones we highlighted for the rectangle settings below.

Illustrator-star-pattern

To give the shapes some “space to breathe” on the gift wrap you create a no-fill, unstroked, rectangle which you put in the background (right click > Arrange > Send to back). Select your stars and place them in the middle of this frame or arrange them in it however you wish. For precise work you can use the Alignment dialog under Window > Alignment. The resulting arrangement will become the repeating pattern of your design.

Illustrator-frame-settings-and-alignment

The Illustrator help function also includes some useful tips on pattern creation.

Step 3 – Making it a pattern

After completing formatting and colouring you select the pattern frame and the stars in it. Go to Edit > Define Pattern to create a swatch (a colour/fill preset) you can use. Give it a name and your OK. Your custom pattern can now be found in the color swatches.

Illustrator-define-pattern
Illustrator-name-pattern

Step 4 – Using the pattern

Once again open a frame without contour across the complete A1 format (including bleed area) and keep it selected. From the colour swatches select your custom pattern and see what happens.

Illustrator-apply-pattern

In case you don’t like the result you can edit the pattern by dragging the swatch from the swatches panel to the grey workspace area. Edit it (ungroup to edit single elements) and drag it back to the panel. If that doesn’t work just apply step 3 again.

Illustrator-edit-swatches

Step 5 – Print PDF Setup

When you are happy with your design you need to prepare it for print. Under File > Save as you select “PDF” and click save. You now get a dialog with various pdf options. As pdf preset you should select [PDF/X-3:2002]. Under „Marks and Bleeds“ you check the box for „Use document bleed settings“.

Illustrator-pdf-settings
That’s it!

Once you went through the steps the process is really easy to understand and new patterns can be created swiftly. Of course you can create far more complex work and even stunning pieces of art – your creativity is the only limit. To inspire you, we uploaded some designs of our own, which you can print or edit to your liking: Eva’s gift wrap design collection

Competition: Your most creative gift wrap design!

We want to see what you make of it. The 3 best gift wrap designs are awarded with a free print of 50 DIN A1 posters with your gift wrap design. With your kind permission we also plan to present the best works here in our blog.

How to enter the competition:

  1. Create your own gift wrap design in A1 format
  2. Upload it to your blog or place on an image sharing platform like Flickr or Picasa. Please make sure they are set for public visibility
  3. Inform us about your creative effort with a comment on this post, including a link to your work.
  4. Wait and win!


Please only link your own work! Deadline for entries to the competition is December 9, 2010.

Have fun!

4 Responses to “[Tutorial & Competiton] Your own gift wrap paper”

  1. Gaertner grafisch werk says November 29th, 2010 um 12:27 pm

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/56519227@N08/5217107965/

    This is a low res version since you can’t upload a Pdf to flicker or picasaweb.

    The low res is based on a high res cPdf.

  2. print24 Redaktion says November 30th, 2010 um 4:49 pm

    Great job! Would love to know what’s behind the QR-Code. ;)

  3. Kristin says Dezember 10th, 2010 um 10:42 am

    http://www.bilder-hochladen.net/files/gor6-1-jpg.html

  4. Nigel Williams says Dezember 10th, 2010 um 11:51 am

    an amateur attempt….

    something different: http://www.refinetrade.com/thatsawrap.jpg

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