How to duplicate an object around a circle in Adobe Illustrator?

Solide · 10-09-2018, 03:51 PM

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]How to duplicate an object around a circle in Adobe Illustrator?[/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]What is the goal of this tutorial?
The goal of thistutorialis to show how to duplicate an object around a circle with an even distance between them, like in the thumbnail of this post and like example down below. This technique in Adobe Illustrator can help you by speeding up your workflow, as it is going to be much more time consuming if you have to do this all manually, because manually trying to spread the objects evenly around the circular path will always leave you with flaws: this technique isn't beatable by hand.

Why duplicate objects around a circular path in Adobe Illustrator?
Even if you don't need this nice trick right now, I can tell you it will be worth it to take a little time to learn it in minutes. Duplicating an element around a circle in Adobe Illustrator is an often used technique, which you have to have heard of once and you will not forget it anymore. The main use is to create bigger items, like in the picture above. For example, a 2D sun will be very easily made.
Someexamplesof elements duplicated around a circle to create a bigger element down below:
[Image: maxresdefault.jpg]

Seen enough? Ready for the tutorial?

You can view the video or read thetutorial, whatever you prefer!
Let's jump straight into thetutorialof how to distribute objects evenly around a circle in Adobe Illustrator.
I will explain this in steps, so follow along in your own Adobe Illustrator file. That way you learn quickest!
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Step 1:Open a blank Adobe Illustrator file, or continue in the file you are already working on if you like.
Step2:Setting up the objects. This is where you decide what you want to duplicate around your circle. In my case I have decided to make a gears icon, so this is the basicsetupfor some basic gears in Adobe Illustrator:
Step 3:Select the object you want to duplicate around the circle. You can additionally select the circle with it, but doing so will only result in more unnecessary work to be done later.
Step 4:Enable the Rotate tool by either clicking on it in your toolsmenu, or hitting 'R' on your keyboard and drag the blue marker to the center of the circle while holding your alt key.
This is the Rotate tool icon in Adobe Illustrator

This 'Rotate' popup will appear after you have dragged the lightblue marker from the (in my case) rounded rectangle towards the middle of the circle.
Step 5:Decide how many times you want to duplicate the object around the circle.The amountneeds to evenly divide 360. For example, duplicating it 6 times will work, because 360/6 = 60. Duplicating it 7 times wont work as good, because 360/7 wont give you a nice full number. In my example, I'll duplicate it 6 times.

The way you do this, is dividing 360 bythe amountyou want to have around the circle. Then you enter that number into the 'Angle' field, check preview just to see if this is what you want & hit copy.

After hitting copy, you will see that you only have two element now.
Step 6:This is where the real magic happens: use the shortcutctrl + don Windows orCommand + don Mac. This will duplicate the objects around the circular path on the same angle as the first copy.
Step 7:For the sake of finishing my gear, I'll place remove the inside of my circle by adding a new circle on top of it and using the pathfinder tool to create the hole.

Now you can create your own items with the trick you just learned. Easy enough, right?

(from my website)

How to duplicate an object around a circle in Adobe Illustrator?

Submitted by Solide, 10-09-2018, 03:51 PM, Thread ID: 101394