Pie Chart – Visual Analogy

In this tutorial, we will create a pie chart and then crop it to the shape of a coffee cup, By using this shape it will reinforce to your viewers what the chart is describing.

1. Create a new document 1920 pts, by 1080 pts (standard HD monitor size). Download the Coffee Cup2 Illustrator file as well (use Chrome or Firefox, Safari doesn’t seem to like Illustrator files)

2. Select the Pie Chart tool from the toolbar and draw a large square on the screen. In the data area, type 15, 30, 45, 10. Click the checkmark to apply the data to the chart. We won’t be making a separate legend for this, the descriptions and the percentages will sit on top of the chart. Close the Data Window.

3. Before we move on to modifying the color fo the chart slices, we’ll download a color palette that was previously saved and uploaded to the Creative Cloud. First, go online and log into your account if you haven’t so already. Next, click this link to get to the shared color palette on the Creative Cloud website. Then click on the COPY TO YOUR WORK button at the top, this will add it to your Adobe Library and you will be able to retrieve it in any of the Creative Cloud applications on your computer.

4. Back in Illustrator, go to the WINDOW menu > LIBRARIES and the swatches you copied to your work will appear as DSMR210 Tutorials. To add them to your Swatch panel, right-click (if you are on a PC) or CTRL-click (if you are on a MAC) and select Add Theme to Swatches.

5. Change the colors as pictured below. Change the stroke for all shapes to None.

6. Open the Coffee Cup.ai file and select the shape with the Black Arrow, go to the EDIT menu > COPY and then come back into the Pie Chart file and go to the EDIT menu > PASTE. Scale the cup up while holding down SHIFT (to keep it in proportion) so that it fits inside the pie chart.

7. Select the Cup and the Pie Chart and go to the OBJECT menu > CLIPPING MASK > MAKE to clip the pie chart to the shape of the cup.

8. To adjust the location of the chart within the cup (I want the diagonal on the upper right to intersect with the upper right corner of the cup shape and the diagonal on the bottom right to intersect with the bottom right corner) go back to the OBJECT menu > CLIPPING MASK > EDIT CONTENTS. Use your arrow keys on your keyboard to adjust the position of the chart.

9. Using the Type Tool, create a text frame on the right-hand side of the cup. Type DRIP 45%

Change the font size to 18pts, the style to Bold, change the tracking to 200 and change the color to white.

10. Select the text with the Black Arrow and ALT/OPT drag a copy to the right. Edit the text to read LATTE 30%. ALT/OPT Drag another copy to the upper right slice and rename it CAPPUCCINO 15% (you may need to stack the text to make it fit)

11. Drag the original DRIP text to above the upper left slice, Change the color of the text to Black and type ESPRESSO 10%

12. With the Line Segment Tool, draw a line from the end of the ESPRESSO text to inside the upper left slice. In the STROKE panel change the stroke Weight to 1pt.

13. If the Stroke panel isn’t expanded, go to the menu and click on Show Options.

With the line still selected, go down to the Arrowheads section and for the right-hand drop-down, select Arrow 21.

14. Give the chart a descriptive title. Copy the ESPRESSO text block by ALT/DRAG copying it down below the cup. Type, AVERAGE COFFEE CHOICES PER MONTH (you may need to stretch out the text frame to make it fit in one line.)

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