Xara Designer Pro 7 Tutorials – Created by Gary W. Priester – 1 SEPTEMBER 2011
A 33 step, Super-sized Tutorial. Some experience with Xara or a vector drawing program is recommended, though diligent and tenacious new users should get through without any significant weight gain.
Before you start the tutorial:
- Right click on the page and select Page Options
- In the General section set the Nudge Size to 1px. (one pixel)
- In the Units section, set the Page Units to Pixels and the Color Units to 0-255
- In the Grid and Ruler section, set the Major Spacing to 100px and the Number of Subdivisions to 10.
Click Apply then OK to close the dialog.
- Keyboard shortcuts are indicated in parentheses for example (Ctrl L)
Select the Rectangle Tool, hold down the Ctrl key to constrain the rectangle to a square, and create a 25 pixel square. Clone the square (Ctrl k) and move the clone to the right a few inches. Select both squares and reduce the height only to 60%. (Click the padlock icon on the Infobar so that it is in the raised position, then enter 60 in the H % text entry box and press Enter to apply the change).
Select the Blend Tool (w). Click on one square and drag across to the other square to create a blend. Change the number of Blend Steps on the Infobar to 30 and press Enter (or Return) to apply the change.
With the blend selected, from the Arrange menu, click Convert to Editable Shapes (Shift Ctrl s) and then Arrange > Ungroup (Ctrl u).
Draw a wide rectangle with the Rectangle Tool. Select the Fill Tool (g). Click on end of the rectangle and drag to the other end to apply an interactive gradient fill. Open the Color Editor (Ctrl e), click on the small square on either end of the fill path arrow, then select RGB Color Model and edit the color values as shown. Then edit the opposite color. We will use this as the range of dark to light French fry colors.
Select the Shape Tool (F4). Click on the page, release the mouse button then click and drag upwards to create a diagonal line. Drag the center of the line to create a gentle curve as shown above. Resize the height of the lines as shown. Repeat this step and create another curved line. Space the two lines apart about the distance shown.
