How to Create Clipping Mask Shapes in Illustrator

We recently kicked off a brand-new teaching series on Instagram – 5-Minute Mastery – which will help creatives learn new skills in small amounts of time. To support the series, we’ll also be sharing these helpful design tutorials on the blog each week!

By popular demand, our first lesson covers one of our most frequently-asked questions: how do you create unique clipping mask shapes in Illustrator?

Follow our quick and easy videos below for the full rundown on how to create clipping mask shapes in Illustrator, along with a few real-life applications to additional shapes and text as well. Happy designing!

Step 1

Open a new artboard in Illustrator and pull in your desired image and shape. Edit your shape as-needed until it’s shape you’d like to apply the clipping mask to.

Step 2

Once your shape is ready, layer your image behind the shape. Drag and select both objects, and select Object > Clipping Mask > Make (hotkey Command + 7). Your image should now fill the shape.

Step 3

Any image can now be popped into your layers panel and swapped into the clipping mask. Use the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) to adjust image positioning as-needed.

Example 1

These same principles can be used to apply clipping masks to more abstract shapes.

Example 2

Clipping masks can also be applied to text to add fun, unexpected dimension to designs.

How will you start creating clipping masks in Illustrator to add to your design projects? Share with us below in the comments!