This is a Illustrator tutorial for beginner level users of Illustrator. I am using Illustrator CS2.

Symbols are a very handy tool in Illustrator and can make the life of a designer quite a bit easier. This introductory tutorial will go over Symbol basics and show you where to find the menus and commands you will need to start using symbols in your artwork.

1. What is a symbol?

A SYMBOL is basically a prepackaged art object that is stored in the Symbols Palette. Symbols can be used multiple times throughout your artwork without having to recreate or duplicate the object. Each time a symbol appears in a document is considered an “instance”. Each instance is linked to the same object in the Symbols Palette. Similar to style sheets, this allows you to edit the symbol within the palette and all instances of that symbol will be updated. This can save loads of time and reduces file size greatly.

2. Locate the Symbols Palette

In the default workspace, the Symbols palette appears bundled alongside the Color Swatches and Brushes palette. To open the Symbols palette, go to Window > Symbols. While the palette shown below does not contain any symbols, the default palette will usually contain a few standard symbols.

3. Finding Symbols in Illustrator

Illustrator comes with pre-loaded Symbol Libraries containing a wide variety of art objects that you may find useful. To access the Symbol Libraries go to Window > Symbol Libraries > Pick a Library. For the purpose of this tutorial I have chosen the Flowers library.

4. Adding Symbols to your Symbols Palette

Clicking on a symbol in the Flower Library will automatically add it to my Symbols Palette. You can also select mulitple flowers and select Add to Symbols from the drop down menu at the top of the library window.

5. Placing Symbols onto the Artboard

There are a few ways to add a symbol to your document. The easiest way is to select the symbol in the Symbols Palette and drag it to where you want it to appear on the artboard.

You can also place the symbol by selecting it in the palette and click on the Place Symbol Instance button at the bottom of the Symbols Palette.

The last way is to select the symbol and choose Place Symbol Instance from the Symbols Palette menu.

6. Using Symbols in your Artwork

There are lots of benefits to using symbols in Illustrator. For instance, by using symbols and the symbol tools you can:

The subsequent parts of my “Simply Symbols” tutorial series will go over each of these benefits and how to effectively use symbols. Some of the most important reasons to use symbols are listed above, but as you become more familiar with these powerful tools and how to use them you will likely find you own reasons to dig symbols!

Look for part of “Simply Symbols”  2 coming next week!