Objects that have a Fill and a Stroke attribute are referred to as having a basic appearance. However, vector objects aren’t limited to just one fill and one stroke and can contain multiple attributes. An object with more than just one fill or stroke is referred to as having a complex appearance.

To add an attribute to an object, choose Add New Fill or Add New Stroke from the Appearance palette menu. You’ll see the new attribute appear in the Appearance palette, where you can change its place in the stacking order. Alternatively, you can drag a Fill or a Stroke attribute to the duplicate icon at the bottom of the Appearance palette. Dragging an attribute to the trash icon removes the attribute from the object.

Choosing to add a new stroke from the Appearance palette menu. There’s no limit to how many fills or strokes you can add to a single object.

You may be wondering what good two fills or two strokes do in an object, because one always covers the one beneath it. Earlier, we discussed the ability to target a specific attribute so that you can apply settings to each individually. By first targeting the lower fill and specifying one color and then targeting the second fill, choosing a different color, and setting that fill to overprint, or by giving it an opacity setting or a blend mode, you’ve combined two inks in a single object. Adding multiple strokes, each with different widths, colors, and dash patterns, can result in useful borders or even stitch lines. There are numerous reasons for adding multiple attributes, and there’s no limit to how many fills or strokes you can add to an object. Another benefit of numerous fills and strokes is that you can create a complex appearance yet edit just a single path. We’ll discuss more ways in which this feature can be useful when we talk about Live Effects, later in this chapter.

The Appearance palette also gives you control over the behavior of appearances. At the bottom of the palette are several buttons:

• New Art Has Basic Appearance. This toggle, on by default, means that each new object you draw will have a basic appearance—a single fill and a single stroke. Normally, Illustrator styles a newly drawn object based on the last object that is selected. For example, if you click an object with a black stroke and a yellow fill, the next object you draw has a black stroke and a yellow fill as well. However, if you select an object with a complex appearance and then create a new shape, you may not want that new shape to be drawn with multiple attributes. When this is toggled off, all new objects pick up the complex appearances of any object previously selected.
• Clear appearance. This function reduces any appearance to a single fill and a single stroke, both with an attribute of None. This is a great way to select a shape and start from scratch.
• Reduce to Basic Appearance. This function reduces any complex appearance to a basic appearance by removing all fills and strokes except for the topmost fill and the topmost stroke.

The Appearance palette contains several functions to control the appearances of objects.