With all eyes feverishly following the Summer Olympics, we thought there’s no better time for an easy step-by-step tutorial of how to create the ultimate symbol of victory, the medal.
- A) Setting up the document
For this project we are going to use a 1920 x 1080, RGB document.
- B) The first steps:
First of all, select the Ellipse Tool (the short cuts is the “L”) and make and round ellipse keeping the “shift” key pressed down to make it nice and round, otherwise it will be oval.
With the ellipse done, we are going to fill it black and duplicate it with the selection tool (V), pressing the “alt” key, drag it to the side (you can hold the “shift” key to: Alt + Shift to have it at the same horizontal position as the other one).
With this other Ellipse we are going to make the inside of the medal, so we need to make it smaller than the black one. To do that, we are going to pick the Selection tool (V) and drag one corner inside holding the “shift” key (if you don’t press the shift key it will be a smaller, but oval).
After that, we are going to select both ellipses with the Selection tool (V) and then, we are going to look for the Align tool and select “Align to artboard”. With this selected, we can align it horizontally and vertically.
So, now that we have the ellipse complete we are going to make the top part of the medal:
- A rectangle with the Rectangle tool (M) and we are going to send it to back (you can do this clicking on the path with the right button and go to “Arrange” / “Send to back”).
- Another small rectangle to put inside the other path (in order to make the cut-out). Then select both, and go to the pathfinder window and select “Subtract from Shape Area”.
- This will cut-out the topmost shape from the underlying shape.
- C) Making the stripes:
For the stripes we are going to do a few things:
1- Select the Rectangle tool (M), and make a long vertical rectangle.
2- Pick the Selection tool (V) and go to the Scale tool panel. When you click on it, you will see three options; select the Shear tool. Grab one side of the rectangle and drag it to the side holding the “Shift” key. In this case, we want it at a -15° shear angle.
3- Selecting the Direct selection tool (A), we are going to grab the left upper corner of the rectangle, and we are going to take it down a few millimeters. This will help us to connect the stripes together later on.
- D) Connect the stripes together:
1- With the first stripe ready, we are going to duplicate it grabbing the Selection tool (V) and then drag it to the side holding the “all” key to duplicate (you can mix it with the “shift” key to make it straight: “alt”+”shift”)
2- After that, with the Selection tool (V) pick-up the stripe from the right and click the left button of the mouse, then go to: Transform / Reflect, and click on the vertical option. With this ready, align the bottom of the two stripes together.
3- To finish the stripes, do another rectangle with the Rectangle tool (M) for the backside of the stripe, then select with the Direct selection tool (A) and drag the upper corner of the path to the inside (for both ends.)
- E) The elements:
So, finally we have all our parts ready for construction:
– The medal.
– The stripes.
– The number (we chose “Acumin Pro” font from Adobe Typekit CC on Ultra black style).
– And our color schemes.
Next, we need to put it all together selecting the rights colors for each part and then we can add some highlights and shadows (we can do it with the Pathfinder window for the cut out).
- F) The last details:
To add textures to our medal, we are going to make a line texture for the stripes, and a dot pattern for the gold.
1- First, make a red vertical line using the Pen tool (P) and make a line holding the “alt” key to make it straight.
2- Then with the Selection tool (M) drag it to the side holding the “alt” + “shift” key to duplicate the line, and immediately after that press “cmd” + “D” key, this will copy the line in the same direction. Press it as many times as needed (23 times to get 25 lines, for example). Select all the stripes with the Selection tool (V) and group it together (“cmd”+ “G”).
3- Then copy one of the red stripe paths of our medal, and paste it on the side of the lines. With the Selection tool (V) grab one corner of the lines to rotate just at the same angle as the Red Stripe Path. Put the red stripe over the lines (make sure than the stripe path is placed on the top of the layers. You can do this clicking on the path with the right button and go to “Arrange” / “Bring to front”)
4- Select all with the Selection tool (V), and press “cmd” + ”7” to make a clipping mask of the lines into the red stripe path. Duplicate, and put the line texture into the red stripe path.
For the metal texture, we are going to repeat the same steps of the lines, but with little gold dots to be placed inside the ellipse.
Finally, you can change the colors of the metals and the numbers to make the 2nd and the 3rd place medals.
- G) The result:
There you have it, three nice medals ready to use in any format, size and colors! Always remember to organize your layers (by name) and group the paths for a better use.
