How to Easily Make a Cubic Pattern in Illustrator

Illustrator Patterns

Patterns are a great resource that designers often use to fill large areas of a design, either on a background or as a texture over any object. But sometimes the simplest pattern seems to be a bit difficult to make. Today, I will show you how easily you can make a cubic pattern in Illustrator in less than 5 minutes and using only the default Illustrator tools.

Step 1

Open Illustrator and make a new file at any size you want. I will make mine at 1000 x 1000 px.

Step 2

Set any Foreground color you wish (we will change the colors later) and be sure to set the Stroke to "none" in the Toolbar.

Step 3

Select the Rectangle Tool (M). Click once over the artboard, set the Width and Height to 300 px and click OK.

Step 4

Go to Effect > 3D > Extrude and Bevel. Apply the following values for the X Y Z rotations, set the Extrude Depth to the same value of your original square, which in this case is 300, and click OK.

Step 5

Go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 6

Go to Object > Ungroup.

Step 7

Set any color you want for each of the 3 sides. I will set mine to #ff3345 #e1ebcb and #00b3bd.

Step 8

Select all the cube parts and go to Object > Pattern > Make.

Step 9

In the Patterns Options Panel, set the Tile Type to "Brick by Row" and be sure to have the "Brick Offset" set to 1/2.

Step 10

Click the "Pattern Tile Tool" icon and drag the top right corner of the pattern tile until it reach the right anchor point of the top part of the cube as shown.

Step 11

Click "Done" in the top toolbar of the Pattern Edit Window to add the new pattern to the Swatches Panel.

Step 12

To test the new pattern, draw a rectangle covering your whole canvas.

Step 13

Go to Window > Swatches to show the Swatches Panel.

Step 14

Lastly, with the rectangle selected, click on the recently created pattern to apply it.

Some Final Notes

If you want to change the cube colors, simply double click on the pattern thumbnail in the Swatches Panel, edit the colors as you normally do in Illustrator, and then click "Done" in the top toolbar of the Pattern Edit Window. 

And if you want to make the pattern bigger or smaller, go to Object > Transform > Scale, set any scale you want, and click OK in the Scale window.