How to Make a Sound Icon in Adobe Illustrator: Red Glass Customizable Design

2008-10-30

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Creating a Sound Icon

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to create a red glass sound icon. Take a look at the image to the left to see the icon. This icon is created using symbols. With Illustrator CS3 you can create many different things with the new symbols that they have. We will use two of those symbols in this tutorial. Open your Adobe Illustrator program and create a new document to work on.

Creating the Background Part of the Sound Icon

Adobe Illustrator CS3 Icons - red glass sound icon - web buttons box

We will start off by creating the background part of the sound icon. The background part is created using a symbol from the Web Buttons and Bars symbol box. To open this box, do the following. Go to the top of your Adobe Illustrator CS3 window and click Window > Symbol Libraries > Web Buttons and Bars.

When the Web Buttons and Bars box opens, scroll to the bottom of the box. In the bottom of the box, you will see the red glass ball. Grab that ball with your mouse and drag it to your document. You can resize the ball by dragging the bottom right corner. To make the ball larger, drag the bottom right corner outward. To make the ball smaller, drag the bottom right corner inward. The background part or your icon is created.

Creating the Sound Part of the Sound Icon

To create the sound part of the icon, you will need to open the Web Icons box. Go to the top of your Illustrator window and click Window > Symbol Libraries > Web Icons. When the Web Icons box opens, you will need to scroll to the end of the box. At the end, you will see the Sound Icon. Click the Sound Icon and drag it to your document. You can go ahead and place it on your red glass icon.

You can adjust the size of the sound symbol by clicking it and dragging the corner. To make the sound symbol larger, drag the bottom right corner outward. To make the sound symbol smaller, drag the bottom right corner inward. You can also change the color of the sound symbol and you can make it thicker by changing the stroke size. To edit the sound symbol, you will need to break the link. Right click on the Sound Symbol and click Break the Link in the menu that pops up. Now you can edit your symbol using the options at the top of the window.

Your Red Glass Sound Icon is finished. You can make any adjustments needed before exporting the icon. Once you have it the way that you want it, you can export it.

This post is part of the series: Adobe Illustrator CS3 Icons

This series will show you how to create different icons in Adobe Illustrator CS3.