Creating Rivets in Adobe Illustrator

In this week’s free episode of Deke’s Techniques, Deke shows you how he created these rivets for our triceratops logo completely out of thin air with the help of Adobe Illustrator.

He begins with a small, unassuming, unsuspecting circle.

A white circle on the brushed metal background


To which he adds a gradient lifted from the brushed metal background he created last week, and then customizes.

A circle filled with a grayscale gradient on a brushed metal bacground


Next, he duplicates the lone would-be rivet to the bottom of the document, then uses Illustrator’s Blend option to create a whole line of duplicates.

The Blend Options dialog box, creating a row of rivets between two copies


Finally, he uses the Move/Copy capabilities in Illustrator to create rivets for all four edges of brushed metal. A suitably strong and fierce backdrop for our triceratops logo.

The Move dialog box in Adobe Illustrator, creating copies of the rows of rivets

If you’re a member of LinkedIn Learning, Deke’s got an exclusive follow-up tutorial in which he shows you how to apply a gradient inside the object blend in Illustrator in order to have our rivets match the light reflection of the background.

A triceratops logo on a brushed metal bacground with appropriately lit rivets


Deke’s Techniques, this is where I make a joke about it being riveting! It’s true.

P.S. if you’d like to experiment with Deke’s exercise files, I’ve attached them below.

 

Related downloads

  • Exercise Files for Deke's Techniques Episode 989 and 990

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