How to Color in Illustrator

There are so many ways to add color to your digital art! Here’s how to color in Illustrator using three different methods.

Looking to bring a pop of color into your vector artwork? Adobe Illustrator gives you tons of options for incorporating color — all you have to do is choose the method that’s best for your logo, illustration, or other graphic design. 

Below, we’ve shared how to color in Illustrator using a variety of built-in tools and techniques. Start with these three methods to turn your artwork into a colorful masterpiece.

---

Looking for a simple place to start? Create has you covered with over 400,000 assets, 1,500 templates, 500 fonts, and countless free tools to help you design like a pro.

---

Method 1: Fill or Stroke Color

Once you’ve drawn an object on the artboard, it’s easy to apply colorful fills and strokes to that shape. Objects are made from a single path, so they can only be filled with a single color. This is the most basic way to add color in Illustrator, but it’s useful when creating solid-colored shapes.

To adjust an object’s stroke and/or fill color:

1. Click on an object with the Selection or Direct Selection tool. 
2. Double-click the Fill box from the Tools panel (located above the Stroke box) to bring up the Color Picker.
3. Inside the Color Picker window, choose your fill color. If you prefer to use a gradient or swatch color, drag it onto the object from its respective panel. 

Note: Not sure about the difference between fill vs. stroke color? The fill color applies to anything inside an object, while the stroke color refers to an object’s visible outline. 

Multiple Fills and Strokes 

Did you know? Through the Appearance panel, you can add more than one fill or stroke to the same object, which can create a variety of colorful effects.

To add multiple strokes and/or fills, follow these instructions:

1. Go to Window > Appearance to bring up the Appearance panel.
2. Select the object(s) that you wish to edit.
3. Choose Add New Fill or Add New Stroke from the Appearance panel. 
4. Select the color for your new fill or stroke.

---

Method 2: Live Paint Group

Unlike normal Illustrator objects, a live paint group is more like a coloring book, allowing you to fill any enclosed section (called a “face”) with a unique color. These sections can be part of the same path or part of two different paths that cross over each other. Path sections can have a distinct stroke color as well (called an “edge”). This allows for more flexibility and variety in the coloring process. 

To color a live paint group in Illustrator:

1. On your artboard, select the object(s) in question.
2. Go to Object > Live Paint > Make. (Note that you may lose some effects such as transparency in the conversion process.)
3. Click and hold the Shape Builder tool until you see a submenu. Then choose Live Paint Bucket.
4. Hover over your objects to fill each face and/or edge with color.

Pro tip: With the Live Paint Bucket tool, you can easily cycle through your preset color swatches with the arrow keys. Speed up your coloring by saving all your desired color swatches first.

---

Method 3: The Eyedropper Tool

Another easy way to color in Illustrator is to take colors from an existing source (such as a vector object or an image) and apply it to your desired objects. To do so, you’ll use the Eyedropper tool:

1. Select the object you’d like to color.
2. Select the Eyedropper tool from the left menu.
3. Click on the object or image whose color you’d like to copy.

Pro tip: The Eyedropper tool can be used to copy more than just color alone! Customize the tool within the Eyedropper Options dialog box to copy transparency, text styles, and more.

---

Cover image via SeventyFour.

Recently viewed