Simple Logo Mark with Circles Illustrator CC Tutorial

LEARN TO USE PATHFINDER TO BUILD COMPLEX SHAPES WITH EASE! | Learn to combine simple shapes with Pathfinder to build out a more complex and interesting shape.

Logo mark design inspired by: https://www.instagram.com/yogaperdana7/

In this Adobe Illustrator tutorial, we’ll jump in and create a series of circles and use alignment and Smart Guides to build what will be a complex and sleek little shape. We’ll learn to split and merge shapes and then fill with colors and add some gradients to really build out the depth of this shape as well. Check it out and I hope that you learn some new techniques and cool stuff from this video!

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Tutorial Recording Notes:

Disclaimer: these are the actual notes I used to record this video and are written in a language you may or may not understand. Hopefully, you find them useful or cool.

1. Create a new document 2560×1440
2. Create a new ellipse sized 600×600
3. Create a new ellipse sized 280×280 and center these ellipses up
4. Now create an ellipse that is radius of the outer circle + the radius of the inner circle (300 + 140 = 440)
5. Align it center and to the bottom of the larger ellipse
6. Select the larger ellipse and the 440 ellipse and hold shift and rotate clockwise 45º
7. Duplicate that 440 circle and select that and the larger circle and hold shift and rotate counter clockwise two clicks (90º)
8. Create a 360×360 square and rotate 45º and drag it so the left point is locked onto the very center of the whole set of the circles
9. TIP: Turn on smart guides to make this process extremely easy
10. Select all shapes and dump fill and stroke and turn on Outline mode
11. Select the outermost and innermost circles and flip the stroke and fill and punch a hole in the middle with Pathfinder
12. Select the square and flip the stroke to the fill and Pathfinder to punch that part of the donut shape out
13. Select all remaining shapes and Divide them and ungroup
14. Select bits that need to be together and remerge to build the shape out
15. Color top piece with C:100% -100%-0-0
16. Mid piece with C:65% -100%-0-0
17. Bottom piece with C:0-100%-10%-0
18. Copy the shapes and create a series of shadows with black to transparent gradients + blend modes + opacity
19. Copy the middle shape and offset the path 10px and set the miter limit to between 200-250 until you see the edges aren’t flat
20. Fill with white and set blend mode to Overlay
21. Mask the shape to the top and bottom pieces (both pieces of shapes in the same mask) and use black to white gradients in each shape to fade the colored stroke where you want it to go