Hi guys, Marcus from Adobe here. In this tutorial I show you how to achieve this effect in just a few steps - all while keeping it 100% vector.

There is a simple script that you can use in step 6, it basically rotates each circle towards the center. It's optional though. You can compare the looks on step 5 and 6 - I think it makes a significant difference! If you want to have the script, here is the link:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/c9skc4696sxr2inup1nmv/aim_circles_at_center.jsx?rlkey=tpkxi8p73kauj2pu4fce6b7y2&st=sp4q4jop&dl=0

Let me know how you like it!

Thanks to damonxart for inspiration.

I don't think Illustrator is ever going to give us more spiral types - so I've made my own spiral extension: Live Spiral. It let's you live edit various types of spirals, and save presets - and easily create an archimedean (most useful spiral - and I never liked the result of offsetting circles). Sharing in comments.

Bonus points if anyone guesses the reference for the first image...

Hi all,

About a month ago I shared Color Control, a free script for adjusting colors in Illustrator with live sliders. Thanks for all the feedback! I’ve made some updates and wanted to answer some questions that came up.

What’s new

• Fill or stroke only: exclude fills or strokes if you only want to change one of them
• One Color: select one object, and every fill, stroke or text with that same color gets adjusted together
• Colorize: drag to activate and set a tint. Great if you like to start in grayscale and add color later
• Cleaner preview: selection edges and bounding box are hidden while previewing
• Gradient stops — You can now adjust gradient stop colors individually

Questions from last time

What happens if I select multiple shapes with different colors?
Every selected object is adjusted, each relative to its own color.

Does it work with CMYK?
It works on RGB documents. For CMYK files you have to convert to RGB temporarily (File > Document Color Mode), adjust, and convert back.

Can’t you do this with Recolor Artwork?
Partly, yes. For me Color Control is more intuitive, and it adds things Recolor doesn’t do as directly, like contrast, opacity and blend modes.

All features

• Hue, Saturation, Brightness and Contrast sliders with live preview
• Opacity
• All 16 blend modes
• Live preview toggle for large selections

I ran into an issue where adjusting colors gave a flickering preview. This can be resolved by accessing the script through a recorded action.

Run it from an Action for a smooth preview
When run from File > Scripts, Illustrator refreshes its panels after every change, which makes the preview flicker. Run it from an action instead. Illustrator waits and only shows the result, so the preview stays super smooth

1. Actions panel > New Action
2. Panel menu > Insert Menu Item > File > Scripts > Color Control
3. Stop recording
4. Optionally assign a function key, and you’ve got a one-key shortcut too

Curious what you think?

The "Pixel Stretch" trend has been taking social media by storm this year—it looks awesome and packs a serious visual punch! 💥

Most designers rely on Photoshop to pull it off. But as someone who loves working in vector, I kept thinking: Wouldn't this be so much better directly inside Adobe Illustrator?

With Illustrator's powerful vector editing and layout capabilities, we could take this style to a whole new level without losing crisp scalability. So, I built the Streak Tool (part of the IllustKit plugin). 🎨

✨ Key Highlights:

1. Intuitive Sampling: Effortlessly extract precise color stripes straight from your selected objects.
2. Flexible Distortion: Seamlessly pair your extracted color bars with Illustrator's built-in Envelope Distort to craft bold shapes and fluid curves.
3. Way Beyond Pixel Stretch: Why didn't I just call it a "Pixel Stretch Tool"? Because stretching is only the beginning! The sampled color stripes can also be transformed into Gradient Meshes or Strokes, opening up endless creative possibilities.

💬 I'd love to get your thoughts! How do you currently handle pixel stretch or dynamic color trails in your vector workflow? What other features or use cases would you like to see with a tool like this?

Took me a while to work on this but here it is! Hypervelocity Stars!

However this wing I am making was the result of manipulating shapes with the rectangle tool and I cant remember if I grouped it all and how the heck can I color each feather and piece a different color. I tried minus front and ungrouping.

Does anyone know why my blend function keeps defaulting to "align to page" instead of "align to path" when I'm replacing spine?

This is for a school project.

I want to put some drawn text through illustrator for a vector version, but I'm not sure what would be the best way to approach it.

Is it just tracing round them with the pen and curve tool? Thank you!

Hello! I wasn't sure if this was the right place to ask but I'm willing to give it a shot. I'm designing a logo which involves having to edit a font or build letters from scratch, which I'm very new to. This is where I'm at, but something feels off.

I think it's the S and the P, as trying to build letters curved like this (in order to match the stylized K) are quite difficult, at least for me who is still very much a beginner at logo design and using adobe illustrator in general. I've tried adjusting the outlines individually but I've really struggled trying to find where to put all the points in order to keep the curved appearance of the letter, surely there must be an easier way?

Is there a way I can just type the letters using a font and curve them using an illustrator tool? And why does the logo look off in general, is there anything or any tool i could use to fix the off appearance it has? Any help would be really appreciated, thanks!