You will learn more about the Pathfinder, Offset Paths, playing with type, and making an awesome badge! The design below is what we’ll be creating:

Creating the badge shape.

We’ll dive right in and start with making a simple rectangle with the Rectangle Tool(Shortkey: M).  Give it a nice blue-gray color, I used the color #466072.

Now click the rectangle you just created and go to Effect > Warp > Bulge, and fill in the settings you see below.

Select the bulged rectangle and go to Object > Expand Appearance to make it one unified shape.

Now let’s make the corners a bit more interesting. Place a circle at each corner like you see in the image below. Select all the shapes by holding the Shift-key while you select them. Now right-click and select Group.

In the next step we select our group of circles, hold Shift and select the bulged rectangle.
We now go to the Pathfinder (if it’s not directly visible go to Window > Pathfinder.) and we click the second one of the shape modes: Minus Front, like illustrated below.

Spicing up the edges.

Now that we have created our badge shape, let’s make a nice dashed line on the edge of it. Select the badge and navigate to Object > Path > Offset Path. Fill in the following settings and hit OK.

Select the inner badge shape you just created and give it a white stroke and enter the following in the stroke settings to get those nice dashed lines (again, if this window is not visible, go to Window > Stroke):

Click the inner badge again and make another badge inside it by again going to Object > Path > Offset Path and entering the same settings we did two steps back. Now give this badge a simple 1pt stroke. I used the blueish color  #A7D5EB.

Adding some decorative elements.

Now we have our badge with nice edges, create a star with the Star Tool  and place it in the middle at the top of the badge. To copy this star, hit CMD+C (or Ctrl+C for Windows users) and CMD+F to paste it in front of the other one. Now move it down at the bottom of the badge.

Now we create a nice swoosh to the right of the star with the Pen Tool(Shortkey: P). Once you created the shape, right click select Transform > Reflect, fill in the settings below, and hit Copy instead of OK. Now move this copy to the left of the star.

Now select the two swooshes by holding Shift while selecting them. Again go to Transform > Reflect like illustrated below, and now select Horizontal for the Axis. Again hit Copy and move the copied shapes to the bottom of the badge.

Creating and modifying the type.

Let’s get started with the type. Type your upper text inside the badge, I used the font Arvo for this. Now select your text and go to Effect > Warp > Arc. And give it a 6% Bend like shown below.

Do the same for the bottom text but now give it a -6% Bend to make sure it bends downwards along with the edge of the badge.

Now type the text in the middle with the same color as the stars and swooshes. I used Calibri for this text. When you’re done select the text and click the blue Character link (next to the Font selection) to give the characters some individual spacing. See my settings below:

Select all the text, the upper, middle and bottom text, and go to Object > Expand, to make shapes out of the text. Now add some simple stripes to the right and left of the text in the middle to fill the badge up. Let’s see what we have now:

The finishing touches.

The badge, the decorative elements and the type are all done. Now let’s add some details, we’ll start with a shadow. Select everything except the badge shapes(the badge, the dashed line and blue stroke). Now copy this and paste it in front, to do this hit CMD+C and then CMD+F (Windows: replace CMD with Ctrl).

Right click and hit Group to group the elements and give these a dark gray color and set the transparency around 35%. Nudge the group to 3 times the right and two times to the bottom with your arrow keys.

Now send it behind the original elements by right clicking the gray group and selecting Arrange > Send Backward (or shortkey: CMD+ [ ) a couple of times until they are behind the original elements.

If all went right, you have ended up with something like the badge below.

This looks very nice already, but not what we’re going for right now. Let’s give it some extra texturing to give it that vintage feeling.

The easiest way to do this is with existing Photoshop brushes. First you need to download the brushes you like best.

Here are some links to nice grungy Photoshop brushes:

• BrushLovers – Grunge Brushes
• WeFunction – Subtle Grunge Brushes

Once you’ve downloaded them open them up with Photoshop.

Copy your badge in Illustrator and paste it in your Photoshop document. Paste as: Smart Object in case you plan on scaling it. Now create a new layer on top of the badge, grab your brush tool and start playing with your brushes and the blend modes.

This is what I eventually ended up with:

Download the Illustrator source file.

That’s it! I hope the tutorial was clear and useful to you. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments below and i’ll help you along any way I can

Oh, and if you enjoyed the tutorial please share it by tweeting and/or liking the post. Thanks!

For my first ever blog and tutorial post I will try to share my experiences with creating 3D icons and logo’s in Adobe Illustrator. Even though I am a minimalist when it comes to design(especially branding), I think these techniques can be useful for creating icons whenever you’ll be needing them. The post is basically for everybody wanting to get to know Illustrator’s tools a little better.

Since this is the first time I’ve ever done such a thing, I’d appreciate any feedback for a better tutorial post in the future. Thanks and enjoy!

What will we be making?

We will be making a simple enough 3D logo/icon. We will be doing a green earth themed icon for an imaginary event/company named ‘Earth After Eight’.

While the endresult is pretty simple, the techniques you will learn in this tutorial will hopefully help you to make your own cool 3D icons and logo’s.

You will get to know the Pathfinder tool, learn to make a simple original shape and turn it into a shiny 3D object.

Step 1: Creating the basic shape

In the first step you will create the basic shape on which we will base our icon. We’ll be making an abstract Eight-shape.

Draw a circle and give it a nice lime green color(I used #95C11F). Copy it and place the second circle on the right-bottom of the first one, creating the eight-shape we’re after.

Now we have two circles and we need to make them one shape. Go to the Pathfinder, if you can’t find it go to: Window > Pathfinder.

Once in the Pathfinder we’ll click Unite, the first one of the Shape Modes:

Now it’s going to get a bit more interesting. Click your the shape you just made, now copy it and paste it in front of your original: To do this press CMD+C and then CMD+F. Windows users: replace CMD with Ctrl.

Now give this shape a grey color and make it smaller but keep it exactly inside the original shape, to do this press Alt+Shift while resizing the shape.

Repeat the last action: Copy the grey shape, give it a blue color, and resize it within the grey shape. If you’ve done it correctly you now have something like in the image below.

Select the original green shape and the second grey shape(Hold Shift to select multiple shapes). Go to the Pathfinder again, but this time click the second Shape Mode: Minus Front. You have now punched the grey area through the green shape and are now left with a green and blue abstract 8 shape.

Select your entire shape, then hit right click > Group. Now they belong together and you won’t have to select them individually.

Step 2: Turn the shape into a 3D object

This is where the magic happens. Now we have created our shape we are going to make it 3D. We’ll be doing this with the Extrude & Bevel effect.

Select your shape and go to: Effects > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Check the preview button to see your shape evolve. In this window you can change the orientation of your shape, the depth, wether you want to add an extra border or not etc. Below you can see what options i entered. Do the same and follow me to the next step!

Step 3: Making it pretty

What we have now is a 3D object with ugly lines and colors. So we’re going to fix that.

First, select the 3D shape and go to: Object > Expand Appearance.

Now we’re going to ungroup the entire 3D object into separate shapes so we can edit these later. Right click the object and click Ungroup. Do this 3 times in a row (or until the Ungroup action is disabled), to make sure everything is separated now.

Now it’s time to assign each shape it’s basic color. Make sure you don’t miss some shapes so zoom in to see those(see the image below to see how i did it). If you find that some shapes belong together you can group them by selecting multiple shapes and right clicking and hitting Group. By doing this you can assign colors and gradients to entire groups instead of having to click each shape and giving it it’s color.

Step 4: Adding some shine and finishing off

After you established all the color groups, you can add some gradients and/or meshes to them. I used some quick subtle radial gradients.

If all went well you’ve got yourself a pretty icon now. Let’s add some shiny reflection to the icon. Create a wide cirkel with the ellipse tool and place it over the icon where you’d like the shine. Now give it a gradient that goes from white to transparent, like i’ve done below:

We now need to get rid of the excess of the shape. Select just the inner bright green shape and the ellipse you’ve just created. Now go to the Pathfinder again and press the second one of the Pathfinders called: Trim. Now right-click the ellipse and hit Ungroup. Now the ellipse has been broken down in multiple shapes. Simply select the outer and inner shapes you dont need and delete them.

That’s all there is to it!

You’ve made it till the end, you can now place some type next to your icon and call it a logo or use the shape and go an entire different grungy direction with it. Below you can see some examples, and you can download the original .AI source file of the icon.

Download the .AI source file.

The tutorial turned out longer than I was planning but i wanted to be as thorough as possible, so the beginners wouldn’t get frustrated with missing steps(we’ve all been there).

Let me know what you think of the tutorial, and wether you’d like more of this kind of posts. Any feedback is appreciated, and if you’ve enjoyed it don’t forget to share it!