How to make bumpy circles, flowers, splats and rounded stars in Illustrator
Here are a few quick tips about how to create some easy circle shapes in Illustrator. Plain circles can be boring, so these embellishments can help to make things more exciting if needed.
I’ve used Adobe Illustrator CS5 to create these shapes, so the tools may look slightly different in your version of Illustrator. The steps should be the same in recent versions.
Quick navigation
Click the type of shape you want to create.
Bumpy Circles, Splats and Flowers
1. Select the polygon tool.
2. Click the canvas and edit your settings to create your shape.
If you click and drag, you will create a polygon using the existing settings. If you want to choose the settings for your polygon, be sure to select the polygon tool and click the canvas. The number of sides you choose on your polygon will be the number of “bumps” around the circle’s edge. Here are the settings I’ve used.
3. Choose Effect > Distort & Transform > Pucker & Bloat
For a bumpy circle, use a small positive percentage.
For a splat, use a negative percentage.
For a flower, use a large bloat percentage.
Try experimenting with different values to create some unique effects.
Rounded Stars
For a smoother alternative, try creating rounded stars using the steps below.
1. Select the star tool
2. Click the canvas and edit your settings to create your shape.
If you click and drag, you will create a star using existing settings. Be sure to click the canvas with the star tool if you want to choose options for your star. A larger difference between Radius 1 and Radius 2 will result in a more pointy star. Try and play around to get your desired effect. Here are the settings I’ve used.
3. Select Effect > Stylise > Round Corners
4. Choose a corner radius
All done! Hopefully this showed you how to do something new or something more quickly. If you want to see more tutorials like this, please leave a comment below.
