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I've created this logo draft:

enter image description here

It looks fine when it's small but when I zoom in, the edges look like this:

enter image description here

So I started the drawing process all over again. First I created the 4 rectangles which I aligned perfectly in every possible way:

enter image description here

Then I put 2 diagonal shapes on 2 edges and used the Shape Builder Tool in order to remove the parts I don't need:

enter image description here

So here's the result of that shape:

enter image description here

Now I want to add a shape to the left side of the object but I can't align it correctly and I'm afraid that that's is what caused the problem on the draft logo. It looks aligned when zoomed out:

enter image description here

But when I zoom in and use the outline view, this is what I see:

enter image description here

I have tried to align these shapes with nudging them with arrow keys, I've used the align options, I've set the keyboard increment to 0,1 px. Nothing works.

There must be an easy way to fix this but since I'm fairly new to Illustrator, I don't know how to achieve this.

EDIT: Here's a GIF which shows the alignment problem. I applied the matching edge method which @joojaa suggests. Sorry for the low quality:

enter image description here

Thank you for your help.

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  • 2
    Someone should be able to help you with this, by going about this in a different way. But, as an aside, Illustrator does suck at alignment and snapping in ways that no other vector app does. This I say to alleviate the stresses (to some extent) and frustrations of using it. You are not alone in dealing with its antiquated foibles.
    – Confused
    Jan 7, 2017 at 12:21
  • I could have a crack, too. But would do it in a totally different way. Are there any rules to the relative angles and widths relationships in your draft I should know about?
    – Confused
    Jan 7, 2017 at 12:22
  • No specific rules. I just made the rectangle 10 px height and improvised in order to learn Illustrator.
    – bijoume
    Jan 7, 2017 at 14:09
  • Oh, the angle for the diagonal shape is 60 °.
    – bijoume
    Jan 7, 2017 at 14:24
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    Do you have "Align to Pixel Grid" activated ? That might cause the problem.
    – SitiSchu
    Jan 7, 2017 at 17:29

2 Answers 2

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Make sure you have smart guides enabled, snap to point enabled. (also while your at it make sure you never ever enable the pixel snapping in illustrator nothing good comes form it).

Matching edge.

Select your shape from the edge of your path, while a smart guides says path. start dragging and after starting drag but before you release hit control down. Drag until smart guides says path again, If you want to constrain your movement to one of the 45 degree directions also hold shift.

enter image description here

Trick is to know that you need to hold control down. The lines are now perfectly aligned. You can adjust the sensitivity of snap in prefs, If you have very accurate monitor its hard to do this if you do not raise the snapping distance.

Matching anchor.

Same method works for anchor snapping. Just be sure to select the object from the anchor instead of edge.

Aligning anything to anything.

Ok so eventually you want to align something more exotic than a point or a edge. In that case draw a supporting line on target and on target. Then drag from intersection to intersection.

The other quirk to know.

if you hold alt down with any of the transform tools it allows you to place to pivot point. This way you dont need to align anything.

PS: This is a bit quirky, admittedly. But works fine once you know its there freeing you to think about other things. But yes tthe GUI gives you no indication that its there.

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  • Thank you for your help. So I made sure the smart guides and snap to point are enabled and tried the matching edge method you suggested. It worked fine with 2 simple lines I made for the purpose of trying it out. Then I tried to apply the same method on my objects and I don't get the same result. I edited my original post with a screen recording where you can see what I mean. I just don't understand why it's not working. :) I'll try the anchor method as well.
    – bijoume
    Jan 7, 2017 at 20:27
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    Its not a complex shape. @bijoume most likely you have pixel snapping on, its has to be disabled in 3 places (view menu, transform palette and transform palette hamburger menu). Its on by default for RGBdocuments. Do not enable it for any reason whatsoever unless you want to have problems like this.
    – joojaa
    Jan 7, 2017 at 20:51
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    @bijoume lesson should be learned, never enable it in the future. If you want to snap to pixels make a grid that's 1 pixel wide and is split once. That way you can place objects with half a pixel accuracy which is much more useful than the pixel snap they have and has no side effects.
    – joojaa
    Jan 7, 2017 at 20:55
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I have tried the shape rotation

see the attached GIF.

Image Rotation

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  • I dont think using the align panel does you any good. its MUCH better to use anchor to anchor snapping in this case.
    – joojaa
    Jan 7, 2017 at 15:11

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