Honeycomb Background with Repeat Grid
This tutorial builds a dark, sci-fi style honeycomb background in Adobe Illustrator. A single hexagon becomes a grid with Repeat Grid, the cells get random colours, and three stylize effects give them depth. Once built, the colours can be swapped with Recolor Artwork.
Step 1: Hexagon grid
Select the Polygon Tool, click the artboard and set 6 sides with a 100 px radius. Go to Object > Repeat > Grid, switch the grid type to Brick by Column, set the vertical gap to 0 and the horizontal gap to minus 50 (half the radius) so the hexagons lock together. Stretch the grid to cover the artboard.
Step 2: Expand and randomise colours
Object > Expand with only Object ticked, so the cells become separate shapes. Randomly select cells (no pattern) and give them a near-black grey. Select another random set and give them a slightly different dark tone, so the grid has variation.
Step 3: Inner glow
Select a random group of cells and apply Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow: mode Multiply, colour black, Edge, blur 25, opacity 25. Move these to a new layer and lock it so you do not reselect them.
Step 4: Outer glow and drop shadow
Select another random set and apply Outer Glow with the same values (Multiply, black, blur 25, opacity 75). Move them to their own layer. Delete the clipping mask left over from the grid, select all remaining cells and apply Drop Shadow on Multiply with blur 25 and offsets of about 7 and 7.
Step 5: Finish and recolour
Unlock the layers, group everything and clip it to an artboard-sized rectangle. To change the palette later, enter the group and use Edit > Edit Colors > Recolor Artwork, or select cells and change their fills directly.
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