Gain practical knowledge on graphic design as we deconstruct the process of creating a wrench icon. This article carefully illustrates each step, from the initial circle to the final adjustments, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the process.
Key Insights
- The creation of a wrench icon starts with a circle using the ellipse tool, followed by a handle using a rounded corners rectangle. These two are then combined using the shape builder tool.
- A square, created from the shapes tool, is then cut out from the top of the wrench for a more detailed depiction. The size and position of the square can be adjusted using the selection tool.
- Finally, the wrench is moved to the center of the artboard, and rotated to the left for the correct angle. Regular saving of the work is emphasized throughout the process.
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In this video, we'll be working on our ninth icon with the wrenches. First, before we begin, let's delete our green rectangle that we used for transparency.
To do this, we'll simply select it and hit delete. Next, let's zoom in on our ninth artboard using CTRL + (+) on the keyboard and scrolling while holding CTRL until we have our artboard in view.
Next, let's open up our PDF to view our wrenches icon. Here we have it. And so to create our first wrench, we'll need a circle with a square cut out of it, as well as a rectangle with rounded corners.
So let's begin. To create our wrench, let's first start with our circle. We'll go to the ellipse tool and we'll be working within our working layer.
Next, we'll draw our first circle for our wrench and leave it about this size. We'll then change our fill to default using D. And we now have the outer circle for our wrench. Next, we need to create a wrench handle using a rounded corners rectangle.
We'll click on the ellipse and hold, going into the tool group and select the rounded rectangle tool. We'll then click and drag a rectangle and remember, if you need to round your corners, you can use the up and down arrows to adjust the round as well as the left and right arrows. In this case, we'll have our wrench about this size and we'll adjust our wrench handle so that it is aligned and centered by clicking and dragging it into the center of our circle.
We now have a wrench on top as well as a wrench handle. Let's combine both of these for now using the shape builder tool. We'll select them first, holding shift and selecting both objects.
We can then go to our shape builder tool and click and drag over all three sections to build it into one shape. Finally, we'll need to cut out a square from the top of our wrench. To do this, we'll go back to our shapes tool.
We'll click and hold, selecting the rectangle tool. From here, let's zoom in and we'll simply click and drag a square holding shift and when we see the diagonal line in pink, we'll know that we've created a square. We'll then create our square and if we need to adjust the size, we'll hit V on our keyboard for the selection tool and we'll simply adjust the size holding shift and clicking and dragging it so that it's centered within our wrench.
Make it a little bit smaller. If we drag from one corner and hold shift, we'll make sure that we have a square while the square stays centered within the wrench. Reduce the size a little bit.
I'm just going to move it to the right using the arrow key on the keyboard. We'll adjust it to where it's appropriate. I think this looks like a good size square.
We'll select both objects using a selection box and we'll then use the shape builder tool and we'll create the wrench and the outer square, making sure to include these corners as well. We can then use V on the keyboard to access the selection tool. We'll hit CTRL + Shift + A to deselect all objects and then we'll select the square with the edges and hit the delete key.
We've now created our wrench. Let's zoom out and move this wrench to the middle of our artboard. Looking back at our PDF, we'll want to rotate it so it's angled up and to the left.
To do this, we'll go to one of the edges and click and drag holding shift until we're angled appropriately. We now have the first part of our wrench icon. Let's hit CTRL S on the keyboard to save our work and in the next video we'll be creating the second wrench.
See you there!