Illustrator is one of Adobe’s two vector graphics editing programs, and it evokes feelings of hatred and love in equal measure. The power of its many tools is often overshadowed by the long startup time and crashes. The basics of using vector graphics can even get lost amongst complex, super-specific tools with names like extrude and bevel, AI_Dilate_6, or color halftone; but the basics allow you to make some very interesting and useful shapes. Shapes with circles can be daunting because arcs and degrees of rotation are not easy to eyeball.
This tutorial will cover the basics of excluding, intersecting and uniting as well as anchor points, guides and rotations: all of them with circles.
1. Place some circles
- Click and hold the Rectangle Tool to reveal a dropdown menu.
- Select the Ellipse Tool from the dropdown menu Keyboard Shortcut: [L].
- Click once inside the artboard to open the Ellipse toolbox.
- Type the Width and Height dimensions into the Options boxes, in this case 200 pixels for each.
- Click the OK button to place the circle.
Note: For this tutorial, make four more circles, two with widths and heights of 44 pixels and two others at 20 pixels.
2. Center the circles
- Go to Select > All Keyboard Shortcut: [command/ctrl + A].
- Go to Window > Align to bring up the Align Panel Keyboard Shortcut: [shift + F7].
- Click on the Horizontal Align Center button and the Vertical Align Center button to align each circle on the center of the board.
Note: With circles, it is much easier to keep track of exact locations and degrees of rotation when each is centered on the same point.
3. Make the donuts
- Go to Window > Pathfinder to bring up the Pathfinder Panel Keyboard Shortcut: [shift + command/ctrl + F9].
- Click on one of the middle-radius circles to select it.
- Shift click on one of the small-radius circles to select both.
- Click the Minus Front button in the Pathfinder Panel.
- Click, hold and drag the middle-radius donut to reveal the second middle-radius circle.
- Select both the large-radius circle and the middle-radius circle.
- Click on the Minus Front button in the Pathfinder Panel.
- Select all three donuts.
- Paste the donuts anywhere on the artboard Keyboard shortcut: [command/ctrl + V].
- These donuts will make the base of the pie that will be sliced.
4. Quarter the donuts
- Select the Direct Selection tool Keyboard shortcut: [A].
- Click, hold and drag over two anchor points on the large circle as shown in the graphic.
- Delete the anchor points.
- Click the Unite button in the Pathfinder Panel to link the anchor points together into a complete shape.
- Click, hold and drag to select an additional two anchor points on the large-radius donut.
- Delete the anchor points.
- Re-center the middle-radius donut.
- Repeat the above steps on the middle-radius donut to quarter it.
5. Quarter the small-radius circle
- Delete two of the anchor points on the small-radius circle using the Direct Selection Tool.
- Click on the Unite button in the Pathfinder Panel.
- Click and hold the Pen Tool button to reveal a dropdown menu.
- Select the Add Anchor Point Tool Keyboard shortcut: [+].
- Click to add an anchor point anywhere along the straight line of the new shape.
- Center the anchor point both vertically and horizontally.
6. Turn the quarters into eighths
- Select all three quarters.
- Click on the Rotate Tool Keyboard shortcut: [R].
- Click on the center anchor point of the small-radius quarter to set the rotation point.
- Click and hold to rotate the quarters around the rotation point.
- Hold down Shift to keep the rotation set to 45 degree increments.
- Hold down Alt to add another set of quarters on top of the original three.
- Select both large-radius quarters.
- Click on the Intersect button in the Pathfinder Panel to cut the quarters into eighths.
- Repeat for each of the sets of quarters.
7. Cut out eighths from a full donut
- Copy and paste the donuts you saved on another layer onto the active layer.
- Center the donuts, but not the eighths.
- Select both the large-radius donut and the large-radius eighth.
- Click on the Exclude button in the Pathfinder Panel to remove the eighth from the donut.
- Click the Unite button in the Pathfinder Panel.
- Repeat for each of the other eighths.
- Use the Direct Selection Tool to delete any unnecessary anchor points in the voids.