How to create a Retro-Style Logo Badge in Adobe Illustrator

I am super-proud to present you my first Illustrator Tutorial ever! Today we’re going to create a retro-style logo badge. By reading this tutorial, I assume you have a basic knowledge of Adobe Illustrator’s workflow, tools and flavour. You’ll hear a couple of shortcuts and I’ll try to teach you new techniques of creating basic shape-combinations that can help your future Illustrator workflow.

This tutorial is Part 1/4 of my first tutorial series, in which we’ll create a sleek website design and later code it. This tutorial takes care of the logo that we’ll be using during the tutorial’s later steps.

Before we start, here are the resources we need for this tutorial:

• League Gothic font
• Adelle font

Here is what we will create.

Estimated Completion Time: 30 minutes
Required Software: Adobe Illustrator
Difficulty: Beginner

 

Step 1

Open up Adobe Illustrator, and create a new document by pressing Ctrl+N or Cmd+N. Give it a descriptive name, then set the Width to 15 inches and the Height to 10 inches. Color mode should be RGB. Click OK to create the document.

 

Step 2

We are going to start with the ribbon, for which we need the Star Tool first.

It’s a rather complex tool which can be used in combination with keyboard shortcuts. Let’s take a look at some of these first.

• Up arrow key – Increase the amount of points the star has (Default 5)
• Down arrow key – Decrease the number of points or spokes
• Control (Command) key – Adjusts the size or height of the star’s spokes
• Shift key – Makes the star straight

Now that we know these key bindings, let’s apply them.

We want to achieve a shape like this.

So, here’s how to do it. Click in the center point of the artboard, and drag out a shape (should be around 9×9 inches in size), and without releasing the mouse, press or hold the following keys. First, press the up arrow key 15 times to have a total of 20 spokes. Then hold Ctrl/Cmd to modify the size of the star’s spokes. When you’re happy with the size and details, hold down the Shift key, and release the mouse button to create the final shape.

When the shape is done, look at the right side of the Options Bar. You’ll see a blue Transform link. Click on it, and set both the Width and Height values to 9 inches.

While the shape is still selected, set the fill color to #0D0D0D, and set the stroke color to empty.

 

Step 3

Next, press L to select the Ellipse Tool. Set the fill color to white (#FFFFFF ), and drag out a circle that is a little smaller than the star shape.

Hold down Shift to create a perfect circle instead of an ellipse, and also hold down the Alt key to create the shape from the center point.

If you go up to the Options Bar and click the blue Transform link, you may set its size to exactly 7,77 inches wide and tall.

 

Step 4

We are now going to duplicate this circle a couple more times instead of creating new shapes. So, while your circle still selected, press Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on the Mac) then press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on the Mac) to paste in front. Now we have two identical circles on top of each other. Scale this top one down a bit, my size is 7,68 inches. Finally, set the fill color to a red of #910909.

 

Step 5

All right, now comes the dotted border. For this, we’ll duplicate this red shape and set a Stroke for it. So press Ctrl+C (Cmd+C) and then hit Ctrl+F (that is Cmd+F on the Mac) to paste in front. Reduce its size to 7,38 inches. Then, set the stroke color to white (#FFFFFF), and we need some more changes here, so bring up the Stroke panel by going up to the Window menu and choosing Stroke or by pressing Ctrl+F10. Set these values.

The key to create a dotted path in Illustrator is to check the option Dashed Line in the Stroke panel, and then set 0 points for the dash.

Now we have dotted lines surrounding this shape.

 

Step 6

Let’s now create the second white border. Grab the Ellipse Tool (L), and drag out a perfect circle from the middle of the artboard. Set 7,05 inches both for the width and height, then set the fill color to white, and reset the stroke color back to none.

Then, dupicate this shape by pressing Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on the Mac), followed by Ctrl+F (Cmd+F), and reduce its size to 6,96 inches. When done, set this shape’s fill color to a brown of #50210F.

 

Step 7

Now we’re going to create the upper and lower texts. For this, we need to duplicate the brown shape and scale it down to 6 inches. This layer will serve as a path for our text. Grab the Type on a Path tool, which can be found in the flyout menu of the Type Tool (T), and click on this layer’s top middle point and type in BEAUTIFUL, all caps. Now ths text is on the top of the path, but we need it centered both horizontally and vertically. So first, select all the text, and make it centered by clicking the Align Center button in the Options Bar. Now the text disappears, but if you scroll down, you can see it has jumped to the bottom of our shape. An easy way to fix this is to click Transform in the Options Bar and rotate it by 180 degrees. Then click on the Type on a Path Tool (T) again, and hit the Enter or Return key to bring up its options. In the pop-up window, set Align to Path to Center, and hit OK. Now, our text is in place, let’s set the Font to Adelle, the Size to 50 points, and the color to #F2E4AA.

 

Step 8

Now let’s duplicate this text layer (Ctrl+C then Ctrl+F which is Cmd+C then Cmd+F on the Mac), and rotate it 180 degrees. Then, select the Type on a Path Tool (T) again, and press Enter or Return to bring up its options. Check in Flip, and hit OK. Now we have two identical text layers, lets type in WEBDESIGN with all caps for the bottom one.

 

Step 9

Now let’s copy one of the brown shapes to create the inner part of the ribbon. Its size should be 5,1 inches. Set its fill color to #0D0D0D.

 

Step 10

In this step we’re going to create the stars to tidy up the text. Select the Star Tool from under the Rectangle Tool (M), and set the foregound color to #F2E4AA, the same dull yellow that we used to colorize the texts. Now click and drag out a start that is about 0,4 inches in size, and while doing that, hold down the Alt and Shift keys. You can adjust its size in the Transform pop-up window from the Options Bar. Now, let’s move it into place here.

Now bring up the Transport pop-up window, and rotate the star by +39 degrees.

 

Step 11

One star is done, let’s create the remaining three. Right-click on the star, and choose Reflect from the Transform menu. Select Vertical here, and press the Copy button. This copies our shape by reflecting it vertically. That’s exactly what we want. Now drag this new star shape to the right side, and nudge it into position.

When it’s done, select both of the star shape by holding down the Shift key, then right-click this selection, and choose Reflect from the Transform menu again. This time, we want to reflect these shapes horizontally, so select it from the options, and press the Copy button again, to make a copy of these 2 shapes. Then nudge these down around the word WEBDESIGN, and make subtle changes to position the stars correctly. We can also rotate the lower left star by +40 degrees, and the lower right star by by -40 degrees for perfect fitting.

 

Step 12

Okay. With the above steps, the ribbon is done. Let’s now create the stripe!

Grab the Rectangle Tool (M), and draw a rectangle that is wide and short, like this. My sizes are 10,35 inches for the width, and 3,05 inches for the height. Align this rectangle to the center of the artboard.

 

Step 13

Let’s duplicate this rectangle, and scale the new shape down to 1,5 inches wide, while leaving the height intact. Now nudge this new shape down and left a bit (see the next image for reference). Send this shape to the back one step by going up to the Object menu, selecting Arrange, then choosing Send Backward. Then long-click the Pen Tool (P), and select the Add Anchor Point Tool. Zoom in on the image, and click on the center the current shape’s left edge, to add a new achor point.

Now, grab the Direct Selection Tool (A), and click on this newly created anchor to select it, and by holding Shift, and pressing the right arrow key, nudge it to the right 6 or 7 increments. When done, duplicate this shape, reflect it horizontally (or rotate 180°), then move it to the right side, and position it accordingly.

 

Step 14

Now, let’s put the text on the stripe. Let’s adjust the Font to League Gothic, set the Size to 235 points, and set the color to #F2E4AA. Then click in the middle of the stripe, and type in the word RESPONSIVE. If you’ve followed by settings, we need to adjust a few more things.  Click on the Character flyout menu on the Options Bar, and set the tracking to -25. Try to adjust it just a few points lower than the horizontal center.

Now, click on the text, duplicate it, and move the new layer up – by holding the Shift key and using the Up arrow – two times. Select the bottom text layer, and set its color to #0D0D0D. And now our text is ready.

 

Step 15

In this step, we’re going to create the bends of our stripe. For this, we’ll need the Pen Tool (P). Also, set the fill color to #0D0D0D, and set the stroke to none. Now with the Pen Tool, draw a triangular shape as shown. No need to be super-perfect for the first time, if you make a mistake, you can correct it with the Direct Selection Tool (A).

When you’re done with this shape, right-click on it, go to Transform and choose Reflect. Click on Vertical, and click the Copy button to make a reflected copy of this layer. Move this new shape into position to the other side, and again, you can use the Direct Selection Tool (A) if you need to adjust some of the corner points.

 

Step 16

As a final step, lets add some motion to the stripe. First, select all the layers that make up the stripe. That is, the stripe itself, the two side shapes, their two correctional triangles and the two text layer s. That make up a total of seven shapes. When you’ve selected all of them, press Ctrl+G (that is Cmd+G on the Mac) to group all these shapes into one single group.

Now that they’re a group, let’s go to the Effect menu, choose Warp, and select Arc. Make sure that Horizontal is selected, and set 10% Bend. Click OK, and all we need to do is grab the Move Tool (V), and nudge the whole group down a little to make it vertically centered.

Here is my final result.

 

I hope you had a good time creating this retro logo badge, please share us your results in the comments. Also, if you liked the post, please share it through social media sites. Cheers!

 

Surprise! Here is the FREE .AI file that you can use in the next step of this tutorial series!