Everyone at some stage needs to quickly produce a logo or a set of icons, here is a simple but classy looking gel filled element that can be modified to fit many situations.

Step 1: Create a New Document

First open a new illustrator document and make it 210x210mm, remember if you intend to use it for print it has to be CMYK. You can leave all of the other settings as default.

Step 2: Creating the background

Select the "rectangle tool" (M). Click in the top left hand corner of the page and create a box 210x210mm then fill it with rich black (100c, 100m, 100y, 100k).

Double click on the base layer and a renaming box will open, name the layer "background".

Step 3: Creating an ellipse

Create a circle roughly 270x270mm just above the centre of the page using the "ellipse tool" (L) and fill it with a "Linear gradient" (G) (top to bottom ranging from white to green (50c, 0m, 100y, 15k).

Step 4: Radial gradient

Select the circle and "copy" and "paste in front" and fill it with a "radial gradient" ranging from green (50c, 0m, 100y, 15k) in the centre to rich black (100c, 100m, 100y, 100k) on the outside.

Step 5: Adding a drop shadow

With the circle selected squash the circle and move it down to below the main circle (using the bounding box) to create a drop shadow.

Step 6: New icon layer

OK, to keep this neat and tidy and easily editable we now need to create a new layer, so click on the new layer icon in the layer tab and name it icon.

Step 7: Working on a new layer

If you select the "selection tool" (V) and click on the main circle you can simply drag the main circle from the "background" layer to the new "icon" layer (via the layer tab).

Step 8: The base for the effect

With the main body of the icon produced now we overlay it with the ying yang element. Using the "pen tool" (P) create the shape in the image below (I have made it red just to highlight the shape).

Step 9: Adding volume with the Ying Yang shape

Select the main circle with the "selection tool" (V) and "copy" and "paste in front". Select both the circle and the new "ying yang" element and press the "intersect shape areas" button in the "pathfinder tab" and then hit the expand button.

Step 10: Radial gradient fill to complete coloring

Fill the new ying yang shape with a "radial gradient fill" (G) (bottom to the top) from light green (50c, 0m, 100y, 0k) to a dark green (50c, 0m, 100y, 90k).

Step 11: Finish the image

That's the basic shape completed, to personalise things further you can add extra highlight elements or text as I have done in this example.

About Michael Travers:

Michael has been in the print industry since leaving school which is scarily over 20 years ago! Three years ago he broke free and went at it alone and that is when Nicemonkey.co.uk was born. Although he specialises in microstock Illustrations he also freelances and produces stock video.

Check out Michael's portfolio at Nicemonkey and Zymmetrical