Combining and lining up shapes in Paint by Zaweba

Most logos, icons and badges start life as a handful of simple shapes. A circle, a rectangle and a rounded square can become almost anything once you can add them together, cut one out of another and keep the pieces in line. In Paint by Zaweba those jobs live in the Vector menu, and they work on shape layers that stay sharp and editable at any size.

This article covers the four boolean operations, Merge Shape Components, and the Align and Distribute commands that sit beside them.

The four ways to combine shapes

Vector > Unite joins the shapes into one outline, so two overlapping circles become a single figure of eight. Subtract Front uses the shape on top as a cutter and removes it from the shape below, which is how you punch a hole in a badge or bite a notch out of a letter. Intersect keeps only the area where the shapes overlap, handy for lens shapes, leaf forms and the corner of a card. Exclude Overlapping Shapes does the opposite and keeps everything except the overlap, giving you the chequered look of interlocking rings.

Each command acts on whatever you have picked. That can be path components inside one shape layer, two or more selected shape layers, or the current shape layer and the shape below it. The last case is quick when you are building a mark from the bottom up: draw a shape, draw the next one above it, and combine as you go.

Merging the result

A combined shape can still hold its parts as separate components, which is useful while you are experimenting because you can nudge one piece and see the outline update. When you are happy, Merge Shape Components turns those parts into a single clean path. Do this once the design is settled rather than straight away, because after merging there is no single circle left to move.

A sensible habit is to duplicate the layer before merging and hide the copy. If a client asks for the hole to be a little bigger next week, you still have the loose pieces.

Align and distribute

Shapes that look roughly lined up rarely are. Align lines up edges or centres, so a row of icons can share a top edge or a stack of buttons can share a centre line. Distribute spaces items evenly by their edges, by their centres or by the gaps between them. Spacing by gaps is usually what the eye wants when the items are different widths, since equal centre spacing would leave uneven gaps.

You choose what to align against. Aligning to the selection uses the outer bounds of the items you have picked. Aligning to the artboard puts things in the middle or at the edges of the page, which is the fastest way to centre a logo on a social post. Aligning to a key object keeps one item fixed and moves the rest to it, so a heading that is already placed correctly can act as the anchor for everything below it.

A short worked example

Say you want a simple speech bubble. Draw a rounded rectangle, then a small triangle overlapping its lower edge. Pick both and choose Unite, and you have one bubble outline. Draw a smaller circle where you want a cut-out dot, pick it with the bubble and use Subtract Front. Add two more dots, select all three and distribute them by spacing, then align them to the bubble as key object so they sit on its centre line. When the bubble looks right, merge its components.

Mistakes to avoid with boolean shapes

The most common surprise is stacking order. Subtract Front always removes the upper shape, so if the wrong piece disappears, swap the two layers and try again. Another is aligning to the selection when you meant the artboard; if nothing seems to move, check which reference is set. Finally, remember that these commands work on shape layers. A pixel layer has no path to combine, so draw your parts with the shape tools, or trace them first.

Combined with the Shape Builder, the Corner tool and the pen, these commands give Paint by Zaweba a small but genuine vector workshop inside a photo editor, so a simple mark can be built right next to the pictures it will sit on.