cs6 - How do I achieve this "Out of Sync"/mis-registration fill style in Adobe Illustrator?

What is an easy way to achieve this "Out of Sync" Color Fill style?

I'm using Adobe Illustrator CS6 and I think there is an easy way to do this with the way Illustrator is set up, but I'm not sure how.

Answer

To make things easy for yourself when editing later, it pays off to do a bit more work upfront by using the Appearance panel for this.

1. Draw a shape



2. Give it any fill and no stroke


3. Open the Appearance panel


4. Select your shape with the Move tool (V)


5. Choose Add New Stroke, either through Appearance panel options or with the icon bottom leftmost on the panel


6. Give the new stroke the desired colour and weight in the Appearance panel


7. With the stroke still selected in the panel, choose Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform... and use the Move settings to change the stroke's position. Click OK.

This way, the stroke and the fill are both controlled by the same shape. If you alter the shape in any way, both fill and stroke will change accordingly. This saves you the burden of having to make the exact same changes to a shape twice.

As an added bonus, you can drag the shape into the Graphic Styles panel to store its settings later. If you select another shape and then click the graphic style, it will change its appearance to the style. Saves you the time to reproduce the exact same transformation over and over again.