PowerPoint facets that led to these set of characters!

It goes without saying that PowerPoint can be a great graphic design tool.

PowerPoint has been a big savior for me to sneak in for icon emergencies. Starting out early with PowerPoint did the trick! Here are few hacks that I’ve used to create these set of characters:

• EDIT POINTS: An Illustrator would be well-acquainted with this feature. You can use this option to create a shape that is not inherent. Look for the shape that resembles the nearest to what you are looking for and add it. Go to Edit Points feature and play a bit with the points to get the desired shape.

Example: Here, I wanted to create a shape like the one on left. So, I added a Circle and using edit points molded it into the desired shape.

 You also have other options in this feature like add point, delete point, open path etc. Sometimes, it’s better to play with them first to get a fair idea of their respective traits.

• MERGE SHAPES: Well, This one is my favorite! You have five options in this section: Union, Combine, Fragment, Intersect and Subtract.

In this example, I wanted the right hand side shape so I added one trapezoid and five circles to subtract the area from trapezoid. Did some tweaking here and there with the shapes and after applying SUBTRACT option got the desired shape. Make sure the shape from which you are subtracting the area is backward. You can similarly use other options.

• HAND DRAWN SHAPES: PowerPoint doesn’t have a paintbrush tool but free-form, curve and scribble options are close to it. These tools come in handy when you want to draw a shape manually.

Here, I’ve created the hair combining free-form and edit points feature.

Hope this article helps. Grab this character set freebie: Here!