With the reference grids in place, we can now start working on the actual icons, and we will do so by creating the colored backgrounds using six 48 x 48 px circles ( #7FD7E5), which we will position to the center of each of the underlying Artboards as seen in the reference image. Populate the remaining Artboards using five copies ( Control-C > Control-F) of the reference grid that we’ve just finished working on, making sure to lock the current layer before moving on to the next step. Start by positioning yourself onto bottom layer, and using the Rectangle Tool (M) create a 64 x 64 px square which we will color using #F15A24, and then center align to the first Artboard.Īdd the active drawing area using a smaller 56 x 56 px square ( #FFFFFF), making sure to select and group the two together afterwards using the Control-G keyboard shortcut. Next we need to create the reference grids, which are a set of precisely delimited surfaces, that allow us to give our icons a small protective padding.

Let’s kick off the project by setting up a New Document by going to File > New or by using the Control-N keyboard shortcut, which we will adjust as follows:Īs soon as we’ve created our project file, we should take a couple of moments and structure our document, so open up the Layers panel and create a total of two layers, which we will rename as follows:

Illustrator icons