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Illustrator Tutorial : Wooden Radio

18 November by into1 | Illustrator Tutorials |

One day I saw a picture of a wooden radio in a local newspaper, I liked it very much. The design is so old school and minimalist, it has inspired me to create wooden look icon. In this tutorial we are going to make one, starting with a radio. Since I'm going to use it as icon there will be no unnecessary details added to the image, let's make it simple yet elegant.

Tutorial Details

Program: Adobe Illustrator
Version: CS
Difficulty: Easy/ Beginner
Estimated Completion Time: 30 - 60 minutes

Step 1

After you make your new document, let's make the radio as simple as possible. I make one big ellipse for the speaker, two small ellipses for the buttons, and simple shape for the body. Fill them with white and black stroke.

Step 2

Now fill the body with brown gradient, use some brown color combination to the gradient until you get the result like you want it to. Play with the diamond sliders to have different lines effect for the texture. Add the gradient to your swatch palette.

Step 3

Use the same gradient to the speaker, I set dark brown as its stroke.

Step 4

Apply Inner Glow effect to it so it has the depth, adjust the setting in dialog box until you happy with the look.

Step 5

Now we need a hole in the body where the speaker attached. Make an ellipse little bit bigger than the speaker and place exactly below it. Fill it with black and apply Outer Glow effect.

Step 6

Apply the same style/treatment to the buttons.

Step 7

Unlike the speaker, the buttons pop-out more, that's why there should be drop shadows of buttons on the surface of the radio. Apply Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow to the buttons (I set the light source coming from the above right)

Step 8

Now back to the speaker, let's create the holes. Make two small ellipses, align them to speaker as shown below, select them both and apply Blend. The outcome has too many ellipses, let's change the number by double click the Blend tool (W), in dialog box type the specific number you like for the blended ellipse.

Step 9

Copy the blend as many as you needed so it fills the speaker.

Step 10

Expand the blends.

Step 11

The expanded blends are still in group. Ungroup (Ctrl + Shift + G) them, fill with black and dark brown stroke, and delete ellipses that overlap the speaker.

Step 12

Next is creating a highlight reflection to speaker. Make two ellipses as shown below, apply the Subtract from Shape Area in Pathfinder Palette, and click Expand when it's done.

Step 13

Position the subtracted shape above the speaker, fill it with white, use soft light blending mode and set 32% opacity. Make two copies of it and use them in buttons.

Step 14

Adjust the gradient angle of the buttons so we can have more natural look.

Step 15

Apply the gradient to the shape as shown below, this time drag the tool (G) horizontally.

Step 16

Select it and press Ctrl + C than Ctrl + F, this action is copying the shape and place the duplicate right in front of it. Fill the duplicate with black. Make an ellipse and position it as shown below to intersect the black area.

Step 17

Fill the intersected shape with black, set to multiply and change the opacity to 31%.

This is what we have so far. ^_^

Step 18

Now make simple antenna and fill it with white to black gradient. Don't forget to add the hole where it is attached.

Step 19

Now let's make a simple drop shadow from ellipse using Gaussian Blur effect.

Step 20

Apply the same technique as Step 16 to the body, but this time use soft light mode to the intersected shape. Adjust the opacity.

Step 21

Let's make a reflection of the radio. Group the object except the drop shadow, than duplicate it. Position the duplicate below the original, go to Transform palette, click the drop down menu and choose flip vertical.

Step 22

We are going to mask the duplicate. Make a white to black rectangular, position it right on top of the duplicate one. Select them both, go to transparency palette, click the drop down menu and choose Make Opacity Mask, this action hide object that has black color overlaps on it and keep the object with white color on it. After we do this action, every time we select the object there will be two thumbnails in Transparency palette, click the right one to go to masking mode so you can adjust the gradient, and click the left to go back to normal mode.