Making a Retro/Vintage Style Badge
This week we will be making a nice retro/vintage style badge. We will create the badge with all the shapes and text we need in Illustrator and then finish it off in Photoshop with some nice textures to give it that vintage feeling.
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:
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!
Comments
inspirationfeed May 1, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Awesome tutorial, I wonder if you would ever be interested in writing an article on something like this @ Inspirationfeed?
Yassine Bentaieb May 2, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Thanks! Read your e-mail and will get back at you as soon as possible.
Thomas Offinga May 2, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Wow sir, awesome tutorial. I’ve taken the grunge step and taken it quite a bit further. Here is my endresult. Thanks for this tutorial 
Buster Rower May 3, 2011 at 12:24 am
Great review! You actually covered some great things in your post. I came across it by using Google and I’ve got to admit that I already subscribed to the RSS, will be following you on my iphone
lyndsay Ediger June 9, 2011 at 4:07 am
I wasn’t able to make the shapes out of the text because when I went to select object>expand it was gray, and I couldn’t select it. I was able to do everything else up to this point no problem. P.s I am working in CS5.
Yassine Bentaieb June 9, 2011 at 11:40 am
Hey Lindsay,
If you want to make shapes out of the text you don’t need to expand the text. To do this just select the text you want, right-click and click on ‘Create outlines’.
azcreative June 28, 2011 at 9:43 pm
nice tut, I knew how to do all the steps, but sometimes it just takes someone like yourself to remind us all how simple it can be. Great Job!
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Sharon September 14, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Thanks for the tutorial! It is just what I was looking for. Unfortunately, either I am missing something glaring, or perhaps you are using a different version which operates differently (I am on CS4). I am up to the step where I am supposed to ‘subtract front’–removing the circles from the corners of the bulged rectangle. I grouped the circles into one group, and then selected the bulged rectangle with shift-click, so both the circles group and the rectangle are selected (as I interpret the instructions), and when click on the pathfinder button indicated, it says “filter produced no results” and tells me my lines don’t intersect.
I have searched for solutions all over the web, and none of the suggestions solve this for me. It seems like this should be ridiculously easy as steps go, but it isn’t working no matter what I try. Any chance you have a suggestion for me? Thanks!
Yassine Bentaieb September 14, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Hello Sharon,
I’m using CS5, sorry to hear you’re having trouble with that step. You could also try to do the following: Select the group of circles, right-click > Arrange > Send to Back, then select both the group and the bulged shape and go to the Pathfinder and click the last one: Minus Back. Hope that works for you, if not, just let me know!
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Kelleigh @ Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs December 25, 2011 at 5:52 am
This was a great tutorial! I found it on Pinterest and couldn’t wait to try it. Thanks for teaching me some new stuff!
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Riana May 30, 2012 at 2:27 am
YAY! One of the clearest and easiest step-by-step tutorials I’ve found. Like others on the comment thread, I knew all of the functions available, but your execution of written and visual guides was TERRIFIC! Thank you!! Please keep posting more!!
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kunal June 30, 2012 at 4:06 pm
awesome tutorial i just didnt want to move to photoshop so i gave it a film grain effect that looks similar to your final product just wanted to share this :d
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the crypto-hipster August 29, 2012 at 12:14 am
Thanks this is very cool! I love retro/vintage design
Danny September 4, 2012 at 4:40 pm
hi, very creative tutorial, its very useful for me, im glad that to say that “I’ve learnt something new today”
Thank You,
Cheers
Janna April 30, 2011 at 8:19 pm
Wow great tutorial and awesome finished product. Thanks a lot for taking the time to write up this tutorial. Cheers.