Explore the procedure of designing a networking icon using Adobe Illustrator. This detailed guide provides step-by-step instructions on the creation of a networking icon, including drawing circles and lines, setting default strokes, and aligning objects to the center of the artboard.
Key Insights
- The network icon design process begins with creating lines connecting circles in the middle using the line segment tool. This is followed by setting it as the default stroke.
- Subsequent steps involve creating circles of varying sizes at the intersections of the lines. This is achieved by using the ellipse tool and ensuring the circles form from the center point.
- Finally, the created elements are grouped, renamed, and moved to the final layer in Adobe Illustrator, finalizing the network icon. The icon is then saved and ready for use.
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In this video, we’ll be creating our fourth icon, the networking icon. So, let’s scroll over to our fourth artboard by holding CTRL on the keyboard and scrolling down with the mouse, and now we’re ready to create our icon.
To start, we’ll select "Working, " and next, we’ll preview our PDF file, looking at the fourth icon to view our network icon. This network icon has one large circle in the middle and four smaller circles on the outside. The middle two are medium-sized, the one on top is the smallest circle, and the one on the bottom left is slightly smaller than the middle circle. Let’s now begin.
We’ll go back into Illustrator, and with the "Working" layer selected, we’re ready to begin. The first thing we’ll want to do is create our lines connecting the circles in the middle. To do this, we can go to our toolbar, click and hold the Ellipse Tool, and select the Line Segment Tool.
From here, we can simply click and drag an X, and if we hold Shift, we’ll ensure that we have an angle of 315 degrees, then we’ll release. Next, let’s click once more and create the other line segment, again holding Shift so that we’re at 225 degrees, then release.
Currently, our two segments are not set to the default, so let’s select them by hitting V on the keyboard to activate the Selection Tool. We’ll then drag a selection box to select both line segments.
We’ll then hit D on the keyboard to set it to the default settings, making it the default stroke. Next, let’s begin creating our circles.
To do this, we’ll click outside the selected lines, go into our toolbar, click and hold the Line Segment Tool, and select the Ellipse Tool.
From here, we can draw circles at each of these intersections. Let’s first start with the middle. Hover over the intersection, or click and drag out while holding Shift to ensure we have a circle. The second thing we want to do is make sure that the point we clicked on is where the center of the circle is. To do this, while holding Shift as we drag, we’ll hold ALT on the keyboard, and we’ll see that the circle increases and reduces in size from the center.
We have a circle about the appropriate size, and after releasing, we have our centered circle. Next, let’s create the two side circles, or the medium-sized circles. To do this, we’ll again go to the end of the line, click and drag out, then hold Shift to ensure that we have a circle, and ALT to ensure that our circle forms from the center.
We’ll release about here, and next, we want to keep the same proportions for the top left circle. Instead of guessing, we can simply copy this one. We’ll hit CTRL + C on the keyboard, then hit CTRL + V to paste.
Next, we’ll want to move this smaller circle to the top left-hand side. We’ll hit V on the keyboard for the Selection Tool, and then, grabbing the center of the circle, we’ll click and drag it over so that it’s at the end of the top line and release.
Next, we’re ready to add the small circle on the top right-hand side and a slightly larger circle on the bottom left. To do this, we’ll go back to the Ellipse Tool, and we’ll again create a circle from the center, holding Shift to make a circle, and ALT to ensure that where we clicked will be our center point.
We’ll make a slightly smaller circle about this size, and now we’re ready to create our final circle. We’ll go to the bottom left-hand side, click from the center, and drag out, holding ALT and Shift.
We’ll release when it’s slightly larger than the top left and bottom right circles and slightly smaller than the middle circle, about here, and we’ve now created our network icon.
As a quick change, we want to move this circle and the bottom left-hand circle down just a little. We’ll go to our Selection Tool (or hit V on the keyboard), select the circle, the line, and the medium-sized circle, and simply shift them down, following the path of our line. We’ll release, and here’s our network icon.
Next, let’s shift our network icon from the bottom left, where it’s outside our artboard, toward the center. To do this, we’ll use the Selection Tool, drag a selection around each of our elements, drag them up and to the right, and release. As a final step, we’re now going to group our network. To do this, we’ll right-click and select "Group." From here, we can go into "Working, " click the dropdown, and rename this group by double-clicking on it, typing "4. Network, " and hitting Enter.
Finally, as one last change, we’ll drag this group by selecting the red square on the right-hand side of "Network, " and we’ll drag it into "Final."
Our network icon is now finalized. Let’s save our work using CTRL + S on the keyboard, and in the next video, we’ll discuss aligning objects to the center of the artboard. See you there!