Web 2.0 Badges

In this tutorial I will guide you through creating Web 2.0 Badges in Illustrator.

1. Basic Shape:

Select the Star Tool from the Tools Pallet and draw a Star as shown below. (while dragging, without releasing the mouse key, press UP arrow key on your keyboard to increase the number of points of the Star. You can use down arrow key to decrease the points, if in case. You can also try holding down the Ctrl/Command key while dragging to adjust the radius of the Star).

Select the star and go to Effect menu and select Round Corners from Stylize sub menu.

A Round Corners window will open. Keeping the Preview ON, put in a figure to have proper rounded corners and press OK. I have used 25 pt, hence my star has proper rounded corners.

2. Colors & Glow:

Apply a nice linear gradient to the star with rounded corners. Be sure to use fresh colors, Web 2.0 is not about boredom!

While the star is still selected go to Object menu and select Flatten Transparency. A window named Flatten Transparency will open. Put 100 in the Raster/Vector Balance and press OK.

Make a copy of this star by pressing Ctrl/Command + C and then Ctrl/Command + F. This will create a copy of the star at the same position above the original star. Scale down this copy of the star by holding down the Shift + Alt/Option key as shown in the picture below.

Using Pen tools from the Tools Pallet, draw a simple curve on the star to divide it in two parts. Open the Pathfinder window from Window menu (OR press Shift + Ctrl + F9). Select the curve and the smaller star, hold down the Alt/Option key and click on the Divide icon in the Pathfinder window.

The star gets divided in two parts but it is a group. So ungroup it from the Object menu or right click and select Ungroup (OR you can press Shift + Ctrl + G).

Delete the lower half portion of the star. Now fill this half star with a white to black Linear gradient as you can see on my image.

While this half star is selected, open the Transparency window from Window menu (OR press Shift + Ctrl + F10) and select Screen from the drop down menu in it.

Holding down the Alt/Option key you can drag copies of this set and try giving different color gradients to the bigger star which is behind the half star. You don’t need to change the color of the small (half) star.

3. Adding Text:

With the help of Type Tool from Tools Pallet, type some text on it to make sense as a Web 2.0 Badge. You can also have a slight shadow effect by having a copy of the text in darker shade of the color of star.

Nice and colorful Web 2.0 badges!

4. Trying Different Shapes:

Now let’s try few more shapes for the badges.

Draw a circle with Ellipse Tool from the Tools Pallet. Then go to Object menu and select Add Anchor Points from the Path sub menu. You will notice few anchor points are added to the circle.

Repeat this two more times to have enough anchor points as on the image below.

While this circle is still selected, go to Effect menu and select ‘Pucker & Bloat’ from ‘Distort & Transform’ sub menu.

A window named Pucker & Bloat will open. Try different values for Pucker and set it to have desired output and press OK. I have set -8%.

Similarly you can try putting some value for Bloat to get a result as shown below. Here I have set it to 15%.

Using the step 2 (Applying Colors & Glow) we can create badges with these new shapes. Here is how they will look like.

I hope you'll have a good use of these Web 2.0 badges!