Adobe Illustrator CS3 Buttons: Silver Plastic Pill Button with Spirals

This tutorial will show you how to create Silver Plastic Pill buttons with Spirals. These buttons are real simple to create. You will need to download the Plastic Style Boxes file to use this tutorial. You can find that file here. You can also download the .ai file that I have added to work along with this tutorial. You can find the .ai file here.

After you have downloaded and installed the Plastic Style Boxes file, open Illustrator and create a new document to work on. We will come back to the file that you downloaded in a minute. Go ahead and select the rounded rectangle tool. Draw a rounded rectangle on your document. It should look like a pill. You can adjust the size of it by using the transform tool.

Now you can open the file that you downloaded. Go to the top of Illustrator and click Window > Graphic Style Libraries > Other Library. When the box opens, locate the file that you downloaded and unzipped. Click the .ai file and click the Open button on the box. The Plastic Style Boxes will open in your Illustrator window.

Next, you will need to apply the Light Plastic Variation style to the button. That is the last style in the box. So, click the button to select it and click the style to apply it. You do not need to mess with the stroke. There is no stroke applied to this button.

The next step is to add the two spirals to the button. We will use the properties box to add the spiral. Grab the spiral tool and click the document. The Spiral Tool properties box will open. You will need to enter the following into the fields.

Radius - 10.2956 pt

Decay – 80

Segments – 10

Style – Top Choice

Click OK on the box to apply it and close it. Change the color stroke of the spiral to black. Then drag the spiral to your button. Copy the spiral and paste it to create the other spiral. Drag the spiral to the other end of the button.

Now you can group the objects together and create the other buttons that you need. Click the button, hold down the shift key and click the two spirals. Go to the top of Illustrator and click Object > Group. The objects are now one object. To copy the button, press CTRL C. To paste the button, press CTRL V. Press CTRL V to paste all of the buttons that you need.

After you have created your buttons, you can start adding the text to the buttons. Once you have finished, save the buttons and export them.

Buttons were designed and created by the author.

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