Follow this logo design process walkthrough to see the making of a cubist style logo design made up of lots of detailed vector facets. Not only will we be creating the actual design in Adobe Illustrator, but I’ll also be describing the whole logo design process in this tutorial, from the initial sketches right through to finishing off the final design.
Follow this step by step Adobe Illustrator tutorial to create a simple vector ninja character. The design is made from basic shapes and uses Illustrator’s core tools, which makes this tutorial perfect for beginners.
The ninja character we’ll be creating is made up of simple shapes to create a cute overall appearance. Despite being generally dark in colour we’ll add definition to the character with the help of strokes and gradients using subtle changes in tone.
Open up Adobe Illustrator and draw a circle on the artboard, this will be the base of the ninja’s head.
Continue using the circle tool to draw the eyes, starting with the hole in the mask with a rotated oval, then a couple of generic eyes using two solid circles.
Use the Pen tool to draw the body, click and drag out lines to create a slightly curved, dynamic looking body shape. Press CMD+Shift+[ to send this item underneath the head.
Click and drag flowing lines across the body to represent the arms and legs in an exaggerated combat pose. Drag out long bezier handles for smooth curves.
Increase the stroke of these lines to around 25pt and change the option to Round Cap to smooth off the ends.
With both the lines selected go to Object > Expand. Select just the Stroke option to convert these paths into solid shapes.
Select the head and hit CMD+C to copy, we’ll need this shape again later. Add the body, arms and legs into the selection then click the Merge option from the Pathfinder window.
Change the fill colour to 90% black and adjust the stroke to 8pt black aligned to the outside.
In the Appearances palette select the Add New Stroke option from the fly out menu in the top left corner.
Adjust this new stroke to 4pt 93% black, aligned to the outside to create a double stroke effect.
Press CMD+F to paste in the copied head shape back into position. Change the fill colour to the 90% black and give it the 4pt 93% black stroke aligned to the outside. Press CMD+[ until the head sits under the shapes that make up the eyes.
Select the mask outline and give it the grey stroke, then adjust the fill colour to a natural skin tone. Add a second stroke and align it to the inside then select a slighter darker tone than the skin.
Use the Pen tool to draw some belt shapes across the body of the ninja character, give these a fill of 93% black so they blend with the stroke outline.
Our little ninja character is looking pretty good so far, but to really add some depth and an extra dimension we can make use of some subtle gradients.
Swap the solid fills on both the head and body shapes for a 90% black to 95% black radial gradient. Use the Gradient tool to adjust the flow so it runs smoothly across the shapes.
Finish off the ninja character design with a simple background, then draw a basic rectangular shape with a white fill. Select a pivot point for the Rotate tool then drag out a copy while holding the ALT key.
Repeatedly press CMD+D to repeat the rotation until you have a full circle of flaring shapes. Group all these shapes together and reduce the opacity to around 2%.
Our little ninja character is now complete. The basic shapes help give the character that stylised vector appearance while the subtle gradients and strokes all help add to the ninja’s stealthiness against the dark background.
It might only be November but we all know Christmas sneaks up on us fast! A couple of years ago I released a set of free sketchy Christmas vectorsthe Read the rest of this entry »
Follow this step by step Adobe Illustrator tutorial to create a simple vector penguin character. We’ll be using many of Illustrator’s basic shapes to create the structure of the character, which makes this tutorial great for beginners. We’ll then make use of various gradients to really bring the character to life with depth and dimension.
Whenever I’m stuck for tutorial ideas I always seem to be able to fall back on my typical ‘Chris Spooner’ style of cool abstract patterns people seem to enjoy. We’ve used similar techniques on the 3 poster
I’ve noticed the retro/vintage style theme in logo design is becoming an increasingly popular trend. This showcase pulls together a range of great looking logo designs based on the emblem or badge theme. Most often using a circular format, these logos use a mix of texture or intricate vector patterns to produce a creative and overall super-cool design.
In case you haven’t noticed, today is Valentine’s Day, so I thought it would be fitting to base today’s tutorial on some kind of ‘lovey-dovey’ theme. Follow this step by step Illustrator guide to creating an intricate vector heart illustration. We’ll build the various patterns and shapes out of simple objects and modify their appearance with Illustrator’s handy distort tools in order to completely fill our heart graphic with detailed elements.
Business card tutorials always seem to go down well with my Blog.SpoonGraphics readers, so I figured it was about time for another one! Follow this step by step guide to create a sophisticated business card design with a beautiful mix of coloured stripes. Learn how to set up your design file, create the card design and export a print ready document.
The card we’ll be designing is for a fictional interior designer. We’ll be using a beautiful colour scheme to create a decorative striped design that flows from the rear of the card to the front.
Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document. In the options box we need to set up the correct print settings. With this design being two sided we first need to set the number of artboard to 2. Then adjust the dimensions of the final card, we’ll be using Moo.com
Follow this step by step guide to create a sexy vector pin-up girl character design. We’ll start the process with a hand drawn sketch, then draw and manipulate the vector linework in Illustrator before adding colour and shading to bring the character to life.
I’ve always love browsing the amazing style of art known as Vexel illustration and recently I decided to finally give it a go myself. Follow this step by step tutorial for the making of my first vector art portrait of Tron Legacy’s Quorra. Learn how the portrait is carefully traced and vectorized in Adobe Illustrator to create an interesting vexel style design.
With Christmas being just around the corner I thought it would be fitting to create a festive themed tutorial. Follow this step by step process to design a cute little vector reindeer character. We’ll begin by creating the basic structure of the character with basic shapes, then build up the details with gradients and effects.
Follow this step by step tutorial to create a trendy geometric poster design with a series of tessellating three dimensional cubes. We’ll be creating the colourful shapes in Adobe Illustrator, then bring everything over to Photoshop to finish off the poster with subtle textures and colour casts.
Follow this step by step process of creating professional print ready design files for your letterhead and compliment slips stationery designs. We’ll build the design in Adobe Illustrator with the appropriate bleed and margin settings, then use a mix of Adobe Distiller and Adobe Acrobat to export and check over the final design files.
Use a range of vector shapes in Adobe Illustrator to create a detailed black and white emblem badge. We’ll use a mix of basic tools to align the various shapes together, then add some cool detail using the more advanced Pathfinder and Blend tools.
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