Discover the process of creating an icon with a construction helmet and safety glasses using design tools. Learn the basic techniques of using shapes such as circles and rectangles, and the shape builder tool to construct the design.
Key Insights
- The construction helmet icon is built using a circle and a rectangle, which are then merged and adjusted using the shape builder tool for the desired shape.
- Accent lines are added to the helmet icon with the line segment tool, using guides to ensure precision in placement and length of the lines.
- The entire design is grouped together and named in the working layer for efficient organization and saved to preserve the work done.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this video, we'll be creating an icon featuring a construction helmet and safety glasses. Before starting, let's look at our PDF and observe the icon we have.
First, let's discuss the helmet. We can build it using a circle and adding a rectangle to the bottom. We'll then add accent lines to complete our helmet. Moving on to the glasses, we'll see that they can be built from a rectangle with a rounded top and a triangle removed from it.
On the edges, we can add either a line or rectangles to form the edges of the frame. So let's begin. Shifting our perspective of the artboard with the hand tool, we can zoom in a little more and begin drawing our helmet.
To do this, we'll hit 'V' for the selection tool and select the working layer. Next, we'll want to draw our ellipse or circle. We'll click and hold on the line segment, then grab our ellipse tool.
From here, we can simply click and drag a circle covering most of the artboard, and if we'd like to move it, we can hit 'V' on the keyboard and adjust it. As we build, let's start by centering it horizontally and vertically, then focus our efforts on the helmet. Next, let's add a rectangle to the bottom of the helmet.
To do this, we'll go to our ellipse tool and select the rectangle tool. Next, we'll simply click and drag across, stopping when we reach the other end of the circle, and then drag it below. From here, we can continue expanding our rectangle, and by holding 'ALT', we'll expand it appropriately on both sides.
This might have been a little too far, so we'll hold 'ALT' and bring it back to about there. Next, we'll build out our helmet shape using the Shape Builder tool. With the rectangle already selected, we'll hold 'Shift' and also select the circle.
We'll then go to the Shape Builder tool and combine the top of the circle with the rectangle. Next, we'll delete the bottom shape. To do this, we'll hit 'V' and then 'CTRL + Shift + A' to deselect. We'll then select the bottom half of the circle and press 'Delete'.
We now have the first part of the helmet. Next, let's add the accent lines to our helmet. To do this, let's start by adding a line across the middle of the helmet.
If we look at our PDF, we can see one line going across and three lines down the middle. We'll go back into Illustrator and use the Line Segment tool. We'll click and hold to select the Line Segment tool.
From here, we'll start at the inside anchor point and simply drag to the other anchor point. While this line is currently too long, if we click and drag one of the endpoints while holding 'Shift', we can adjust the size of our line. If we hold 'ALT', we'll drag from the center. We'll release here, and now we have our first bottom accent line.
Next, let's add three lines to the top. For the first line, we can again start with the Line Segment tool, starting at the top anchor, clicking, and dragging down. For the other two lines, let's add guides as we zoom in.
We'll zoom in using 'CTRL + PLUS (+)' on the keyboard. Next, let's add a guide by dragging from the left side of the ruler and release it at 12 pixels. Next, let's add another guide on the other side. We'll release this one at the same distance, right at 18 pixels.
From here, we can now draw our lines. We'll start at the intersection of the guide and the circle, then click and drag down. We'll release when it's even with the center line. Next, we'll drag from the other intersection, dragging down until they intersect again.
Next, let's zoom out. We have our three lines; however, we want the center line to be longer than the other two. This center line can stretch further, or in this case, let's select both outside lines by using 'V' on the keyboard. With this line selected, we'll hold 'Shift' to select the other line and simply drag up on the bounding box so that they’re shorter than the center line.
Next, we'll hide the guides by right-clicking and selecting 'Hide Guides'.
Finally, let's draw a selection box around the entire helmet and group it by right-clicking and selecting 'Group'. We can then name it in our working layer by double-clicking, typing 'Helmet, ' and hitting 'Enter'. Lastly, we'll hit 'CTRL + S' on the keyboard to save our work.
In the next video, we'll be working on the safety glasses. See you there!