By Tyler Bramer | 164 Comments

Step 1 – Creating the Background

Choosing colors for a background is important because it will influence how your image stands out. Since we are going to be creating a vibrant glossy box, let’s use a dark background. Create a new document, mine is 256×256px for the purpose of this tutorial. Set a dark gray, #363636, as your foreground color and black, #000000, as your background color.

Once you have your colors selected, grab your Gradient Tool and create a radial gradient near the center of your document as shown in the image below.

Since we want the box to appear as though it is on a surface and not floating in the air, we are going to add another gradient. On a new layer, make a selection about 90px tall from the bottom of your document (depends on the size of your document). Create a radial gradient closer to the left side and towards the top of the selection so that it looks like the one in the image below.

Step 2 – Creating the Box

Now that we have our background, we need to create our actual box. To begin, simply create a selection about 100×100px and fill it with a nice blue color, such as #0062b3.

Since we want our box to have some perspective, we are going to need to transform it by going to Edit > Transform > Perspective. Bring the top right and bottom right corners of the box towards the center of the side a small amount and complete your transformation.

Then go to Edit > Free Transform and drag the right side to the left a small amount, to compensate for the perspective that you applied. You want your box to look like a square, keeping in mind how perspective affects the way your eyes see an object.

Now that we have the right shape, let’s change the color. Grab your linear gradient tool and create a light blue (#0080c3) to dark blue (#004893) gradient from the bottom left to the top right of the box.

With the right side of the box complete, lets move on to the left side. Create a duplicate (Right click layer > Duplicate) of the right side of your box and flip it horizontally (Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal).

Then simply apply another perspective transformation (Edit > Transform > Perspective) of greater value, and drag the left side in even more. This will give the illusion that the left side of the box is viewable, but it is not the main side of the box. Depending on your tastes, you may want to create a new linear gradient for the left side to make it look a little more unique.

Notice that my box is near the center of the gradient for the surface we created. It also is low enough so that it appears that the entire bottom of the box is touching the surface. It is coming along great!

Step 3 – Creating the Gloss Effect

We have a great looking box already, but the style we are going for is glossy. We are going to accomplish this using a few different steps which can be difficult sometimes, so take your time here.

Lets start by applying a layer style effect called Satin to both of our box layers. this is going to give the box a neat effect that looks great underneath the gloss. It will also make the edges a little brighter than the center of the box, which matches the effect that I wanted.

On a new layer, make a selection of your right box layer by Ctrl+Clicking on the thumbnail for the layer. Grab your linear gradient tool and change it to Foreground to Transparent, with white (#FFFFFF) as your foreground. Create a gradient from the bottom left to the top right of the selection. Once the gradient is created, lower the Opacity of the layer to around 20%.

Now grab your Polygonal Lasso Tool and select part of the bottom of the gradient and delete it.

Repeat the process for the left box, making sure that the area of the gradient that you delete fits with the perspective of the box. I also lowered the opacity of the left gloss to around 10% or 15%.

Step 4 – Placing the Type

Choose a font type that you would like to use for your text, I chose Myriad Pro set to Bold and 60pt size.

Now, I want the text to fit along the same perspective of the box, but Photoshop doesn’t allow perspectives to be placed on text. To get around this, right click the text layer and go to Rasterize Type. This will change the text layer into a normal object layer. Now I can apply a perspective to it, and I will do the same things I did for the right box, bring the top right and bottom right sides in and move the right side to the left a little.

Then apply the following layer styles:

Gradient Overlay

#CCCCCC to #FFFFFF

Stroke

I’m going to place some extra text around my image and use Gradient Overlay effects to give them a unique look.

Step 5 – Creating the Reflection

Our image looks pretty good at this point and we could stop if we wanted to. However, this isn’t the effect I was going for. I really want my image to stand out with vibrant glows and colors, so let’s keep adding some effects.

Drag both of your box layers and both of the gloss layers into a new group (Layer > New > Group). Then duplicate that group (Right click layer > Duplicate). Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical to flip the new layer group upside down.

Now we need to make the sides of the reflection touch the sides of the box, so shift+click the right box layer and the right gloss layer inside of your reflection group. Go to Edit > Transform > Skew and drag the right side of the layers up until they meet with the bottom of the box. Do the same for the left side of the box. Then lower the opacity of the group to around 50%.

Step 6 – Making the Box Glow

As of now, our box just looks like a blue colored box sitting on a reflective surface. I want to give the appearance that the box is glowing, so that it increases the dramatic look of the image.

Go back down to your table layer and make a new layer above it. Ctrl+click the thumbnail for your table layer to make a selection of it. Now grab a large soft brush, mine is around 300px, with a color to match your box, #196dad. Make a single brush mark that centers around your box.

Now create a layer underneath the table and make another brush mark to go over the background. Lower the opacity of the layer to around 50%.

Step 7 – Creating the Sky Lights

I’ve almost got the results I set out for. The box immediately grabs attention and has a nice glow to it, but it isn’t as vibrant as I want it to be. Adding some sky lights should help.

Create a new layer underneath your box group. Make a selection of the right box, and move the selection up about 30-50px. Make a white to transparent gradient in your selection and lower the opacity of the layer to 50%. Then apply a new gradient overlay:

Repeat the same process for the left box.

Finally, on a new layer, use a 5px brush with a nice light color, such as #54e0ff, and brush at the three viewable corners. Then use a larger soft brush, such as a 30px brush, and erase the tips to make them look more like sky lights.

Experiment and Expand

As always, try new things and different styles. You’d be amazed at what things you can come up with on accident. By adding a curves layer (Layer > New Adjustments Layer > Curves) I can make the box appear more vibrant.

About the Author

Tyler Bramer started writing for Tutorial9 in 2008. He is a young designer constantly searching for ways to expand his knowledge and help others along the way.

Related posts:

1. Quick Tip: Create a Realistic Credit Card in Photoshop
2. How to Create Glass Transparency in a Cute Photo Manipulation
3. Create a Professional Web 2.0 Layout

Written by Chris Spooner

Chris Spooner is a designer who has a love for creativity and enjoys experimenting with various techniques in both print and web. Follow Chris’ daily design links on Twitter, and be sure to check out his second blog over at Line25.com.

I recently finished up a project with Scott McIntyre of Vivid Ways and Jon Phillip of Spyre Studios. My part in the project was to work on a new logo design for the Vivid Ways website and brand. Here’s my design process and a walkthrough of how the final logo is created in Adobe Illustrator.

Vivid Ways is a new blog focusing on the topic of personal development and colourful living, it aims to inspire and encourage readers through ideas and tips on how to live an amazing life.
After some initial correspondence with Scott and Jon via email we had fleshed out some thoughts on the style of the logo and what values would be presented through it. Examples of a previous design were supplied, and it was mentioned that the sans-serif font used was ideal. One other requirement was that the logo should use a separate graphic element along with the Vivid Ways wording. Otherwise, there was creative freedom surrounding the design – which is always nice!

I started work sketching out my ideas for the logo, my main focus for the graphic of the logo was to display the letters V and W in a creative way that could be seen as an abstract mark, but also recognisable as the letters under closer inspection.
After conducting a little research, it occurred to me that the ribbon is a widely recognised symbol of life, so I concentrated on drawing up a ribbon that flowed and twisted into the shapes of letters V and W. The two styles that stood out were the straight/folded effect and the smooth/curling version, both of which represented the same message but in different visual styles.

The logos graphic were then drawn up in Adobe Illustrator and experiments were conducted on the appropriate type styles. During the project commencement an example of a font was given, which I managed to identify as Century Gothic. Being a standard Windows font, I decided to compare it to two classics with similar letterforms: Avant Garde and Futura. I was expecting to go ahead with Avant Garde, but when placed side by side Century Gothic actually looked the nicest. I felt the letter S of Avant Garde and Futura was way too thin for the logo.

Colour wise, blue was an appropriate choice with it representing mind, body, confidence and intelligence in colour theory. It was also used well in the website design mockup.
Another idea for the colour of the logo was to take inspiration from the word vivid, and use a complete spectrum of colour. Combining both these colour concepts with subtle shading also helped boost the impact of the graphic with a three dimensional appearance.

Concepts were supplied to Scott and Jon and great feedback was received. Concept A with the smooth wave was the preferred graphic, but it was asked if it could be tried with the colouring and font choice of Concept B.

The final logo combines the strong waving graphic and vivid colour scheme and the smooth shapes of the typeface making for quite an impactful design.

Creating the Logo in Illustrator

With this background knowledge in mind, let’s take a look at the technical side of the design and see what processes are used to create this graphic in Adobe Illustrator.

As previously mentioned, the logo started out as a bunch of sketches, these were developed on paper and the designs I was happy with were scanned in.
In Adobe Illustrator the image was placed on a locked layer, the outline of one of the peaks was traced and taken to one side. It was important not to trace the sketch entirely because there wouldn’t be any accuracy, instead the elements were laid out to specific measurements to ensure the logo would look good even at large sizes.

The peak outline was then copied and pasted, then moved to the side until the lines connected.

The paths were then edited with the Scissors Tool, and joined in specific places to make solid shapes out of each segment.

With the wave then being made up of individual shapes, Gradient colour fills could then be added. Blending any old colour samples just doesn’t work – the result is a muddy brown. Colours must be taken in their natural order in the spectrum (think rainbows or the colour wheel).
The range started with blue, which faded to purple, to red, to orange, to yellow, to green and back to blue.

To give the three dimensional impression extra black was added to the areas of the ribbon that spiralled over, giving the impression that a soft shadow was being cast. This last touch is what really helps the graphic stand out.

The chosen font was also laid out. This was edited slightly by reducing the tracking and carefully kerning the letters to give equal spacing on either side. The gap between the words was closed up slightly to pull the words into more of a combined mark.

The logo graphic and type were then combined, the flowing line of the graphic seemed to fit quite well into the natural shape of the text when sat in a vertical layout.

The final logo was then developed into a few secondary variations such as being reversed out of a dark background, and reproduced using a single colour for use in specific circumstances.

This rendered the project complete, the logo files were zipped up and sent over by email.

Overall a highly enjoyable project, it has been a pleasure working with Scott and Jon and I’m looking forward to seeing the development of the Vivid Ways blog.

Related posts:

1. Web Design Trends For 2009
2. More Web Design Trends For 2009(layout)
3. 40 Beautiful Examples of Minimal Design for Inspiration

However, to master Adobe Illustrator isn’t easy; and the creating process of professional illustrations requires both time and patience. Therefore tutorials can turn out to be real life- and time-savers as they show exactly what needs to be done in order to create professional illustrations and how masters of illustration actually manage to do their magic. One year ago we’ve presented a hand-picked collection of Illustrator tutorials. Now it’s time for a fresh portion of healthy and creative Illustrator material.

In this post we present a collection of excellent Adobe Illustrator tutorials for beginners and advanced designers. The new selection isn’t enormous, but big enough to provide you with some good starting points.

Please notice that

• we’ve selected only those tutorials which haven’t been featured last year or were released after the article was published.
• you might also be interested in Adobe Photoshop Tutorials – Best Of we’ve presented few weeks ago.

[Offtopic: by the way, have you already visited Smashing Magazine's Facebook fan page? Join the community for a stream of useful resources, updates and giveaways!]

Illustrator Tutorials

Creating a Crazy Cool Logo
In this post I will show you how we created the logo. I will skip the drawing parts, yes there were tons of drawings before going to the computer, because when they stole my computer and backups in 2006 they took all my photos of the drawings.

Spice up Pie Charts
For some charts you might only want to spice up the most important slice or the biggest one. Although most topics aren’t as fun as mutations, any sort of added graphics make boring charts look a lot better.

Wolf Drawing Tutorial
Learn how to create an illustrated wolf from the hand-drawn paper sketch to final product with Illustrator and Photoshop.

Skull Tutorial
An alien skull tutorial. Editorial illustration.

How I Do Stuff Tutorial (Video-tutorial)
It’s just a speed-up video of how one can go from a sketch to a mediocre illustration using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

Test Your Creativity
“Using a provided set of basic shapes I have to compile them to create my illustration. The theme is up to me but there are some ground rules such as you cannot edit the shapes or distort them, you however can subtract from them using any of the shapes in the provided set.”

Vintage T-Shirts
It’s easy to create authentic collegiate T-shirt designs using Illustrator, Photoshop and a good old-fashioned iron. In this tutorial, illustrator Derek Lea reveals how combining both applications can create stunning results.

Gigposter Design: The New Sex
Learn how to create an impressive gig poster design with Illustrator.

Pirate cartoon tutorial
Learn how to create a vector pirate cartoon character from a hand-drawn sketch.

Pixels and Vectors Tutorial
The gap between working with pixels and vectors in Photoshop and Illustrator is closing rapidly, thanks to Smart Objects. Derek Lea explains all while creating a highly textured yet vector-sharp masterpiece.

Comic Book Style Tutorial
Learn how to create illustrations and turn them into flyers or posters. The end product will be a flyer which was created for an art show.

Creating Road Maps in Adobe Illustrator
Sooner or later every designer comes across the exciting job of producing a map, whether it’s on a leaflet or website the overall aim is to visually document a particular area of land to allow for people to find their way to a place of business or event.

Cutaway Car Illustration Tutorial
In this lesson you’ll learn how to create a 3-Point Perspective-view drawing of a generic car, working from plan and elevation view reference only.

White Tiger Tutorial
A cartoony white tiger tutorial. A poster illustration.

From Sketch To Vector Illustration
A technique of vector illustrating that takes a little bit more skill is starting with hand-drawn sketches. This tutorial captures the whole design process — from scratch.

Retro Car Tutorial
All you need is Illustrator, some inks and some brushes to turn a photograph of a car into a vector illustration.

Intricate Patterns In Illustrator Tutorial
This tutorial will show you how to create intricate patterns in Illustrator super quickly. Stuff that would take you hours to draw manually with the Pen Tool takes just seconds when you use this technique. Video-version is also available.

Not as easy as it looks: A beveled star
A simple and effective tutorial on how to create a beveled star — in 7 steps.

Tutorial: Transform, Style, Blend
Do you like things to have a bit of randomness, an element of surprise? Me too. Learn how to create random swirls in Illustrator with few steps.

Tutorial: Transform, Style, Blend
In this video tutorial you’ll learn how to illustrate an iPod Nano from scratch using the 3D Effect in Adobe Illustrator.

Ellipse Drawing Tutorial
Creating a Circle in Perspective with Adobe Illustrator. More excellent tutorials for beginners.

How To Make 3D Vector Vintage Stars
I’m going to walk you through a technique to create vintage looking 3d stars in Illustrator. You guessed it, 100% vector.

Poster Illustration: Go Forth and Create
Suffice it to say this tutorial is my personal switcher story from FreeHand to Illustrator and contains the good, the bad and the ugly details of both apps. Tutorial Includes Notes in both ‘English’ and ‘Español’.

Create a Vector RSS Icon with Illustrator
Probably one of the most popular and recognisable icons in the web universe; the RSS icon is displayed on many website to indicate the availability of a subscription feed. There are pre-made icons you can download and place on your website, however this tutorial cover the process of creating your own custom vector RSS icon in Illustrator.

Vehicle Vector Tutorial
Learn how to design a vector vehicle with Illustrator.

Fertile Mind Tutorial
This tutorial will walk you through an illustrative banner for the Portland Oregon AIGA chapters ‘Urban Forest Project.’

Face, Hair, Clothing Illustrator Tutorial
Learn how to create real-looking human face, hair and cloth.

Illustrator: Golden Selection
Have you ever wondered why a profound piece of art is so compositionally pleasing? The artist probably employed the use of the Divine Proportion, which is a phenomenon that suggests that there’s a mathematical equation that’s consistent with the aesthetics of good composition.

Tropical Transparency Effect
Learn how to create a bouquet of Tropical Flowers. This tutorial is a breeze. You’ll blow through this really fast.

Complex Circular Design Techniques
Creating intricate circular designs and patterns may look difficult because the shapes can be very complicated, but you will be surprised at just how easy making these shapes can be. I will go over some neat tricks, tools, techniques, and settings that will have you pumping out perfect circular designs in no time using Illustrator.

Illustrating the Flower Pattern
This article will outline the main steps on how I made the flower pattern in Illustrator. Hopefully, this can answer your question.

Drawing a Character’s Face in Illustrator
Creating a cartoon or human-like caricature is a fun and rewarding project to do in Illustrator. Not only that, but if you’re pretty good with the pen tool, it doesn’t take very long. In this tutorial I will be creating an elf. Be sure to look at refrences of other cartoons or caricatures to make sure your shapes are correct.

Ornate Lettering Process
I’m going to show you the process as to how I do my ornate lettering. This is a new design I did for Stone Sour that utilized this technique. Now right off the bat, this is not a step by step tutorial. It’s more of a look behind the scenes into how I work.

Transform Again
You can achieve surprisingly cool results using the Transform Again feature in Illustrator starting from a simple shape. As you all know simplicity is my motto. Today I try turn this into practice again. So sit tight for another step-by-step tutorial using this simple but oh so powerful feature.

Create A Blob Monster in Illustrator – The Scream
Over that last couple of days i’ve been playing around in Illustrator a lot make some basic shapes and images. One of my best creations is the Blob Monster called the scream. It is really simple to do and doesn’t take long to complete. This technique can be used for nearly any type of simple shape / monster.

Drawing Homer Simpson
Illustrator is a great program. It offers so much versatility in creating vector images. Hence why it is the top vector program out there. As a beginner to this program I want to share with you a tutorial that is simple to follow that you can use to draw Homer Simpson of The Simpsons.

7 Things You Didn’t Know Adobe Illustrator Could Do
These are: The Blend Tool / Adding Lines Between Lines… The Mesh Tool / Adding Shading To A Shape… 3D / Entering The Next Dimension… Patterns / Making Fills Interesting… Symbol Sprayer / Splatter some vector… Blur / Smooth Out The Vector…. Transparency / Bringing Depth To Overlaying Shapes…

Creating Seamless Patterns
One of the frequest questions I get from readers is how you create seamless patterns in Illustrator. Today I’ll explain how I create such patterns and how you can scale and rotate them using different settings in the Scale tool options.

Creating Pins
Pins are popular these days, so I thought why not write a tutorial on how to create these in Adobe Illustrator. If you’ve ever wondered how to simulate this realistic looking pin or button effect, here’s your chance to learn.

Complicate Orb Icon
This tutorial will teach you doing more complicate button icon or Orb effect Icon using Illustrator. This is quite a long tutorial.

Retain Spot Colors without Losing Your Marbles
Are you using Photoshop to create something with both transparency effects and spot colors? You may be better off with Illustrator instead.

Stylish Vector Flower
Learn how to create stylish vector/line flower with Illustrator Blend Tool. This Adobe Illustrator tutorial is great for creating background and large print illustration. More Illustrator tutorials from nDesign.

Illustrator Tutorial: Creating Vector Snowflakes
Just in time for the holidays… a tutorial for creating those fun, festive holiday snowflakes. These vector flakes are a must-have for turning your holiday designs into a winter wonderland. So sit back, grab a cup of eggnog, and feast your eyes on how amazingly simple it is to create a vector snowflake.

The Complete Digital Comic, Part 2: Inking in Illustrator
This is part two in my series of tutorials about how to make comic book art on the computer.

Instant Op Art
Use Illustrator’s transform functions to create a stunning op art piece with a real sense of movement. Mark Mayers shows you how… This is a PDF-Document.

Creating Reflecting Web Icons in Illustrator
One of the looks of “Web 2.0″ is the aqua icons that Matt Kloskowski shows us how to make in the first issue of Adobe Illustrator Techniques print issue. Another look is the reflecting icon. The clean, crisp look of these attractive images makes clicking through a website’s navigation fun. Here’s how to make one of those neat icons.

Draw Ballon in Illustrator Tutorial
Simple, yet effective. In few steps to a nice illustrated baloon.

Illustrator 3D Effect Tutorial
3D Effect slide show tutorial on Flickr.

Related posts:

1. Adobe Flash Tutorials – Best of
2. 40 Quality Photoshop UI Design Tutorials
3. 15 Detailed Expert Tutorials for ActionScript 3