Here I’m going to show you how to convert an Illustrator file/document to one color. This is mainly used (from my experience) for screen printing purposes but has many other applications. I’ve had may clients ask me to put 30 different logos of varying colors and design, to all be one color to send to the printer.
This can be achieved very simply with just a few clicks in Illustrator.
The video below is a quick tutorial on just how to do this.
STEPS:
Open you artwork in Illustrator and select all the artwork. You can click and drag to select everything or use Ctrl ‘A’ keyboard shortcut.
Once all of your artwork is selected chose: Edit > Edit Colors > Recolor Artwork.
From the dialog box that pops up you can start the magic.
If the artwork contains black which you want to alter as well….. Click the little pref icon next to the “Preset” drop down menu. This will bring up the Color Reduction Options dialog.
- choose 1 from the colors drop down
- uncheck the “Black” item under “preserve”
- if “Grays” is checked, you’ll want to uncheck that as well.
If the artwork does NOT contain any black, simply choose 1 under the color drop down in the middle of the dialog window.
You can now double click “NEW” to edit the color or drag current colors to the new pane and adjust accordingly.
Be sure the “check” Recolor Art so that you may see you edits live.
Click “OK” and you are set.
I hope this helps.