Illustrator in 60 Seconds: How to Use Drop Shadows

Creating a Drop Shadow Effect in Adobe Illustrator

Welcome to our Illustrator in 60 Seconds series, in which you can learn an Illustrator skill, feature, or technique in just a minute!

Illustrator in 60 Seconds: The Drop Shadow Effect

Ever wondered how you can add more depth to your designs? Well, wonder no more, since in the following moments you'll see how you can do just that using Adobe Illustrator's Drop Shadow effect.

You will learn how easy it is to create interesting shadows that you can use and apply on any future designs with just a couple of clicks.

So without wasting any more time, let's get to it!

How to Use Drop Shadows in Adobe Illustrator

Start by selecting the object that you want to add a shadow to, then you go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow.

Accessing the Drop Shadow Effect in Adobe Illustrator

A window will appear with a bunch of options, the first one is to set a custom Blend Mode.

Changing the Drop Shadow Blend Mode in Adobe Illustrator

Then we have the Horizontal and Vertical Offsets which allow us to put the shadow in any direction we want but by offsetting it.

Changing the Offsets for Drop Shadow in Adobe Illustrator

Finally, we have Blur, which controls the level of dispersion that we can apply to our shadow and Darkness, which allows us to control the percentage of black that Illustrator adds to the drop shadow itself.

Changing the Blur and Darkness of a Drop Shadow

Want to see this in action? Check out the video above to see this lesson at work!

A Bit More Detail

Want to learn more about Adobe Illustrator's vast tools and settings? Check out these tutorials below:

60 Seconds?!

This is part of a series of quick video tutorials on Envato Tuts+ in which we introduce a range of subjects, all in 60 seconds—just enough to whet your appetite. Let us know in the comments what you thought of this video and what else you'd like to see explained in 60 seconds!