Going Around in Circles – December 2011 Guest Tutorial

Going Around in Circles

A Guest Tutorial by Gary W. Priester

Several years ago when I was complaining about not having any inspiration upon which to create a tutorial, my long suffering wife suggested that I do a tutorial on how to create the logo for my alma mater, Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. And this month lacking both a Guest Tutor and inspiration, I have decided to accept her suggestion. Even new users should be able to complete these tutorials.

Download this tutorial:  Guest-Tutorial-101-Dec-2011

Figure 01Display the screen rulers (Window > Bars > Rulers, or use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl L). Drag a vertical and horizontal guideline from the screen rulers (hold down the left mouse button and drag from the ruler onto the page).

Figure 02Select the Ellipse Tool (keyboard shortcut is L). Click the Diameter Creation icon on the Infobar at the top of the screen. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, click at the intersection of the two guidelines and drag a 350 pixel circle as shown above.

TIP: Create any size circle. Then on the Infobar, highlight and change the W and H dimensions to 350 and press Enter to apply the change. This works with ellipses, rectangles and squares as well. It only works right after the object’s creation however. Your circle should look just like mine above.

Your circle should look just like mine above.Figure 03With the circle selected, open the Color Editor (Ctrl e). Select the HSV Color Model (Hue Saturation Value). Enter these color values: H: 15, S: 200, V: 255.Figure 04If you followed my instructions, you should have something like the logo shown above. If you are wondering, yes, that was the actual Art Center logo and to some extent still is, though now it is gray and smaller. But the college catalog looked pretty much like the above, except it was square. Simple but very recognizable. So this got me to thinking. A circle is a circle is a circle, isn’t it? Well yes and no. Maybe visually. Bit what about in terms of creation? On the following pages we’ll look at some other methods you can use to create a circle. After all, I have four more pages to fill up!