How to redraw the Instagram Logo in Adobe Illustrator CC

Hi there, in this video we're going to redraw the Instagram logo. Rounded corners, we're going to look at Corner options. We're going to look at this red Gradient in the background you can see in there. All right, let's go build it now in Adobe Illustrator.

To get started, let's go to 'File', 'Open'. We are going to open up, in your 'Exercise Files', 'Logo Exercise', there's a folder, there's one called '2 Instagram'. Click 'Open'. Remember, I've got Layers set up for you, there's a Background Layer. Turn the Eyeball on and off, that's what we're going to trace. And we're going to work on this redrawn Layer. So just make sure it is blue. We'll start with the outer square. I'm going to grab and hold down this tool here. We're going to grab the 'Rectangle Tool'. And in terms of Fill and Stroke, I'm going to have 'no' Fill. So this red line, and the Stroke's going to be 'black', and '1pt'. I'm going to start on the outside here, try and guess it, and drag it out.

Now remember, holding down Shift while dragging gives me a perfect rectangle. I'm going to try and guess it there. Grab your 'Black Arrow', you have to grab the edge. And try and align things up. You can use your keyboard. I'm just using the keys on my keyboard, just to bump it around, to get it close. That works for me. Next is the Corners, so with my 'Black Arrow', and this Liner around the outside selected, I can grab this inner bit. Just drag it until you feel like it lines up. Perfect. So that's going to be the inside line.

Next tool, we'll do this guy, in the inside here. I'm going to copy and paste him. So, 'Edit', 'Copy', 'Edit', 'Paste'. It kind of puts it in the middle of the screen. A nicer way to do it is to go 'Edit', 'Copy' then 'Edit', something called 'Paste in Place'. Nothing looks like it happens, but there's now just two copies right on top of each other. It means, now when I scale it, it's kind of right in the position I need it to be. So holding down Shift, and scaling the corner will do whatever-- from wherever, the corner down. If we hold 'Shift' and 'Option' on a Mac, or 'Alt' on a PC, it will scale in from the center.

Now, there's a couple of things you need to know when you're Scaling. Especially when you've done this kind of corner thing. So if I have nothing selected, there are times when you want the Scale Corners to work and sometimes you don't want it to work. In this case, watch this, by default it's off, right? So if I have it like this, and I scale it down, look what's going to happen. I'm going to get down and you can see, it eventually turns into a circle because it's trying to remember the radius you had over here. So you might want to turn on Scale Corners. So when it gets smaller they scale along with your shrinking, or your transformation. So there’s times for both. Both of them don't work in this instance because they've done like a special radius in the middle here.

So I'm just trying to get it, so it is almost per-- like I'm just trying to align it up in the middle of this white line here. Now what you might find is, under 'View', there's one called 'Smart Guides'. That can be really helpful sometimes, and real painful sometimes. It's a little painful when you're doing really small adjustments. I'm just doing this. The weird thing about this logo, it's maybe I've got a bunked version, but it's a little bit taller. It's not square, square on the outside, but not in the center here. That either annoys me-- I don't know, they've got a way up anyway. So, I'm going to drag it down. I could drag it down, then drag it at the top here, but what you can do is, you can hold down 'Alt', and drag both of them. Can you see, the top gets bigger and smaller at the same time. Not making much sense, but you get the idea, right?

We've got the lines lining up. Now go off, back with my 'Black Arrow', grab these dots, and kind of drag them into, like they're in the center there. Awesome! So that will be that guy. Let's click and hold down the 'Rectangle Tool', and let's do the center part. The thing with the Ellipse Tool is, normally you drag from the top, kind of right down. That's how people do it. You hold down the 'Alt' key on a PC, or 'Option' key on a Mac. It drags from the center. If you hold 'Shift' as well, you kind of get a perfect circle. I'm not pretending that's right in the middle. I'm just kind of hoping it there. What I can do is, select everything with my 'Black Arrow' over here, in 'Properties Panel', I'm going to go to 'Align Center'. I might go 'Align Vertically' as well. So we've got most of the bits. I'm going to draw this guy out, stuff in the center. Holding 'Shift' and 'Alt' on a PC, or 'Option' on a Mac. It's all looking pretty good.

The easy bits, let's do this line in the center here. I'm going to just leave it as black for the moment and just keep increasing the Weight of it till I feel like we got it. This one here, increase this side as well. So I feel like we got different weights. This guy here is just going to have a Fill color. So 'no' Stroke around the outside, and we're going to have a Fill of, it's going to be 'white'. Awesome! I'm going to change these two to white now as well. So I've 'Shift' clicked at both of them, 'Black Arrow', click the first one. Hold 'Shift' on your keyboard, click the second one. And over here, you guys are now going to be 'white'. The interesting part is the Gradient on the inside. So I'm going to select this outside guy, and I want 'no' Stroke now. I want a 'Fill color'. We're going to start with just this plain old Gradient. So, ugly old linear black and white Gradient.

What you might find if you've just done that, is that yours might be like this, in front of everything. You might have to select it, go to 'Arrange', 'Send to Back'. So let's look at the colors. First of all, we'll get the colors, then we'll apply them. So stealing colors from a logo, we use the 'Eyedropper Tool'. I got nothing selected. So I've got my 'Black Arrow', clicked in the background. I'm going to grab my 'Eye Dropper Tool', and I'm going to grab the-- that looks like a Radial, kind of coming out of here. I'm going to find the center of it. And you can see down here, it's picked that color. I used the Eye Dropper Tool. Over here, my Fill, what I'm going to do is, see this turned up new page thing? This is a new Swatch. I'm going to give it a name. I'm not going to give it a name, just going to click 'OK'.

You'll see, it appears like a pre-mixed Swatch. It's going to be handy later on. So back to the 'Eye Dropper Tool', I'm going to click this outside color. Back to 'Properties', and I'm going to click on here and say 'Add to Swatches'. I'm not going to worry about the naming. Then there's this kind of intermediatary color. This is a bit of a guess, right? So, 'Eye Dropper Tool', I'm going to pick this kind of red. Looks like it's about there, in between. 'Properties', and you, my friend are now part of the game. So we have three colors. Now I want to apply them to this Gradient. So with it selected, with my 'Black Arrow', go to' 'Window', let's go to 'Gradient'. And in here, we're going to go from Linear to 'Radial'. That's kind of part of it. That's moved the box out of the way.

I'll grab that little slip along the top there, and move it. Now we're going to use the 'Gradient Tool', there it is there because the center of rotation is in the center. And what I want to do is grab the middle and drag it to roughly where it looks like it is in the logo there. Now this outside option here, I drag it to the right. It kind of increases. I'm going to increase it. I'm just guessing again. Looks like it kind of wraps into there. Now this bit comes into place. It starts at white, and ends in black. So what I'm going to do is double click the 'white box' and say, it starts with you. Click that off, double click the 'black box', and it ends with you.

Now we need to put in a middle Gradient. It's really easy. Anywhere along this line, I'm going to put it in the middle. You can see, my cursor changes to the White Arrow. Hit the '+'. Adds another Swatch. You can delete it by dragging it off, if you accidentally do it. We got it selected, I'm going to double click it. And I'm going to say, there's my magic middle Gradient. And it's not bad. It's pretty close, right? I'm kind of looking back and forth. Yes, it looks all right. That is how to redraw the Instagram logo in Illustrator CC. All right, let's get on to the logo redraw.