Reversing the Direction of Your Optical Illusion

In this week’s free Deke’s Techniques movie, Deke further dekeConstructs his cafe wall illusion by twirling the checker board gizmos to “change” the apparent direction of the purple lines below.

So when the checkerboard, or in this case dot-pattern, starts with white on top, the purple bars appear to slant one way:

white checker square or dot on top

And when they start with black on top, the purple bars appear to slant the other way:

A checkerboard pattern at each intersection makes the purple bars slant in one direction

Of course, they’re not slanting at all, which is why Deke is obsessed with this project. This process is painlessly performed by using Illustrator’s Old School Transform Each command, which allows you to rotate each item rather than turning the entire grid.

Speaking of Deke’s obsession, if you’re a member of Lynda.com or LinkedIn Learning, Deke’s got not one, but three bonus movies in which he reveals how to add his electric gizmo icons to this piece, first adding “laptops” and “cell phones” And then adding Bluetooth and wireless symbols.

Adding wifi and Bluetooth symbols to your design in Adobe Illustrator

Deke’s Techniques, shattering the illusions of the electronic age.

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