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Creating elements for a custom floor plan

Creating elements for a custom floor plan

Now that we have a document we lay out a floor plan in, we can start creating elements to add to it.

Before we start, let’s take a quick look at this example floor plan from the book Visual Merchandising and Display by Martin M. Pegler and Anne Kong:

Example floor plan from the textbook Visual Merchandising and Display.

If we look at this floor plan and focus on the shapes that make it up, rather than what each element represents, we’ll see a lot of shapes and design elements that we can easily make in Illustrator. In fact, everything we see here can be made using the Shape tools and the Pen tool. We can modify the appearance of shapes and lines in order to represent specific types of elements, too.

Let’s practice making a couple of commonly used floor plan elements: a table cluster, quad rack, round rack, and a doorway, as shown in the following graphic:

Example floor plan elements from the file Floor plan practice.ai.

As you can see, the graphic lists what tools we'll be using to create each element. All of the tools we'll use today are ones we've already used in the previous session.

If desired, you can open the file Floor plan practice.ai to follow along with the demonstration, so you can see what the floor plan elements should look like when they're finished. Additionally, it may also help to turn on the Snap to Grid feature of Illustrator, to help ensure the floor plan elements are precisely the size we need them to be.

NOTE: The following steps assume you have downloaded and extracted the exercise files to your computer’s desktop. If this isn’t the case, navigate to the location where you extracted the exercise files instead of the desktop.

To start opening the file Floor plan practice.ai, in the Menu bar,
Click File, Click Open
To navigate to the Desktop, if necessary, in the left-hand side of the Open dialog box,
Click
To open the appropriate folder, if necessary,
Double-Click the Illustrator Basics folder
To open the file,
Double-Click Floor plan practice.ai

To turn on Snap to Grid, in the Menu bar,
Click View, Click Snap to Grid

Creating a table cluster

We'll start out with the simplest element, a table cluster – the one we'll create is composed of three tables that are 2 x 4 feet in size, and we'll use the Rectangle tool to create the table cluster. As mentioned in the previous section, our scale is 1/4 inch = 1 foot; since our grid is set to 1/4 inch squares, we can use the grid to easily help us make our elements.

Zoom in on an empty part of the artboard.
To activate the rectangle tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
To draw the first table in the cluster, with the Rectangle tool active,
Press & Drag a rectangle that is 2 grid squares wide and 4 grid squares high
To draw the second table in the cluster,
Press & Drag a rectangle that is 4 grid squares wide and 2 grid squares high
Activate the Selection tool.
To create the third table in the cluster, with the Selection tool active,
press and hold Alt key, Press & Drag the second rectangle a short distance away
Use the Selection tool to reposition the two horizontal rectangles to the right of the vertical rectangle, similar to what's shown in the following image:
To select all the shapes in the finished table cluster, with the Selection tool active,
Press & Drag a selection over all three rectangles
To group the shapes into one object, with the rectangles still selected, in the Menu bar,
Click Object, Click Group

Now that we’ve created a table cluster, let’s create a quad rack.

Creating a quad rack

Now, let's practice making a quad rack. The base of the rack will be 24 x 24 inches (or 2 feet square), and the outer boundary will extend out another two feet from the edge of the base. We’ll use the Rectangle tool and Line tool to make this rack, and we’ll also see how to make a shape’s stroke into a dashed line using the Stroke panel.

Activate the Rectangle tool, and set the fill color to None.
To start creating a square, with the Rectangle tool active,
Click the artboard
To make a 1.5 inch square, in the Square dialog box, type:
1.5 Tab key 1.5
To finish creating the square,
Click OK
To view the Stroke panel, in the Menu bar,
Click Window, Click Stroke
To change the stroke for the square to a dashed line, in the Stroke panel,
Click the checkbox next to Dashed Line
To adjust the size of the dashes, in the dash field underneath the Dashed Line checkbox, type:
12 Enter key
To deselect everything on the artboard, on the keyboard, press:
Control key + Shift key + A

Activate the Line tool.
To make the lines we're about to draw solid lines, in the Stroke panel,
Click the checkbox next to Dashed Line to uncheck it
To draw the first line, two grid squares in from the left side of the outer boundary,
Press & Drag a vertical line 4 grid squares long, from the top edge of the square towards the center
To draw the second line, two grid squares down from the top of the outer boundary,
Press & Drag a horizontal line from the right edge of the square to line 1
To draw the third line, two squares in from the right side of the outer boundary,
Press & Drag a vertical line from the bottom edge of the square to line 2
To draw the last line, two grid squares up from the bottom of the outer boundary,
Press & Drag a horizontal line from the left side of the square to line 3
Activate the Selection tool and press and drag a selection over all of the pieces of the quad rack.
To group the selected pieces together, on the keyboard, press:
Control key + G

The finished quad rack should look like the following:

Finished quad rack element.

Next, we’ll create a round rack.

Creating a round rack

The round rack is similar in construction to the quad rack — the rack itself is 48 inches (four feet) in diameter, and the outer boundary is 64 inches (6 feet). While we'll still use the Stroke panel to make the rack's outer boundary a dashed line, we'll use the Ellipse tool instead of the Rectangle tool to make this rack. We’ll also use the Rotate tool to help make it easier to create the inner crossbars of the rack.

To activate the Ellipse tool, in the Tools panel,
Press & Hold , Click
Ensure that the fill is still set to None.
To start creating a circle, with the Ellipse tool active,
Click the artboard
To make a 1.5 inch circle, in the Ellipse dialog box, type:
1.5 Tab key 1.5
To finish creating the circle,
Click OK
To change the stroke for the circle to a dashed line, in the Stroke panel,
Click the checkbox next to Dashed Line

The size of the dashes should still be set to 12 points from when we turned the stroke for the outer boundary of the quad rack.

To start creating the circle for the rack inside the boundary, with the Ellipse tool active,
Click the artboard
To make a 1 inch circle, in the Ellipse dialog box, type:
1 Tab key 1 Enter key
To make the smaller circle’s stroke solid instead of dashed, in the Stroke panel,
Click the checkbox next to Dashed Line to remove the checkmark
Using the Selection tool, move the circle you just created so it is centered inside the outer boundary circle. (Remember, since this shape has no fill, you'll want to click on the circle's stroke when pressing and dragging to move it.)
To activate the Line tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
To deselect any selected objects, on the keyboard, press:
Control key + Shift key + A
To draw the first crossbar, starting from the center of the 1-inch circle we just created,
Press & Drag a line from the circle’s center to the outside edge of the circle

The round rack should look like the following at this point:

Round rack with one center rail.

To open the Rotate dialog box, in the Tools panel,
Double-Click
To rotate the selected line, in the Angle field of the Rotate dialog box,
Press & Drag value, type: 300
To make a copy of the line, in the bottom left corner of the dialog box,
Click
Activate the Selection tool.
To move the line into place, with the Selection tool active,
Press & Drag line to lower left side of circle

The rack should now look like the following:

Round rack with two cross bars.

With the Selection tool still active, select the first line again.
Repeat step g to open the Rotate dialog box.
To rotate the line a second time, in the Angle field of the Rotate dialog box,
Press & Drag value, type: -300
To make a second copy of the line,
Click
To move the third line into place, with the Selection tool active,
Press & Drag line to lower right side of circle

The finished rack should look like the following:

Finished round rack with three cross bars.

Select all the shapes that make up the round rack and group them together.

Let’s practice making a doorway using the Pen tool next.

Creating a doorway

For the doorway, all we need is the Pen tool. The doorway element we'll create will have an opening of 48 inches (4 feet), and when constructing it, we'll use a combination of corner points and smooth points. In the process of making the doorway, we’ll also learn how to quickly convert anchor points from corner to smooth.

To activate the Pen tool, in the Tools panel,
Click
To remove the fill color from the shape we’re about to create, in the Swatches panel, if necessary,
Click
To position the cursor properly, on the artboard,
Point to where two major gridlines meet
To create the first point,
Click the artboard
To create the second point, two small grid squares to the right of the first point,
Click the artboard
To create the third point, four grid squares up from the second point,
Click the artboard
To position the cursor correctly for the next step, on the artboard,
Point to where two minor gridlines meet, four squares to the right of the second anchor point

The following image shows where you’ll need to point your cursor:

Doorway image with mouse cursor positioned four squares to the right of the bottom right corner of the line currently drawn.

To create the curved line to represent the area where the door will swing open,
Press & Drag downward four grid squares
To prepare to turn the last point we created into a corner point,
Point to the last anchor point created

The Pen cursor will change to look like the following image:

Doorway with fourth anchor point drawn and the Pen cursor hovering over the point we just drew. The Pen cursor has an icon next to it that indicates it's ready to convert an anchor point to a corner point.

To convert the anchor point to a corner point,
Click the anchor point
To create the last anchor point, one grid square to the right of the last point we created,
Click the artboard
To stop creating lines with the pen tool, on the keyboard, press:
Escape key
To save the work we’ve done up to this point, on the keyboard, press:
Control key + S

The completed doorway element should look like the following:

Finished doorway element.

For less complex elements, like interior and exterior walls, we can use the Pen tool or Line tool to create lines to represent the walls, and use the Stroke panel to adjust the thickness of those lines by changing the line’s weight.

At this point, we know what tools we can use to create elements of a floor plan. Now, let’s see how we can keep some of these floor plan elements somewhere that makes them easy to reuse over and over again.

Creating elements for a custom floor plan

Step 1. If desired, open the file Floor plan practice.ai.

Step 2. If desired, turn on the Snap to Grid feature.

Creating a table cluster

Step 1. Using the Rectangle tool, create a table cluster.

Creating a quad rack

Step 1. Using the Rectangle tool, create the outer boundary square that surrounds the quad rack.

Step 2. Using the Line tool, create the rack located in the center of the outer boundary of the quad rack.

Creating a round rack

Step 1. Using the Ellipse tool, create the outer boundary circle surrounding the round rack.

Step 2. Create the round rack that goes inside the boundary.

Creating a doorway

Step 1. Use the Pen tool to create a doorway element.