How To Design A Stylish Flat Space Using Adobe Illustrator: Processing Design Of THE ASTEROIDS

This style of design has recently spread through global design sites and has been used by many designers to create distinctive space designs to highlight their skills or use them in both advertising and print design, so Nina Geometrieva has used it in its design, Meteor.

Source: Nina Geometrieva

As well as Filip Benda, who used this style to design his exhibition site interface.

Source: Filip Benda

Simonas Mačiulis has designed a design entitled the solar system using the same style.

Source: Simonas Mačiulis

This is why we will learn in this lesson how to design with this style using Adobe Illustrator.

Start a new document: size of 700 by 600 pixels.




Before starting, we will need to activate the smart guides to facilitate the design task where this guides will help you to match the shapes more easily. Go to menu:

View > Smart Guides

Make sure to activate it.

To start working as a  professional designer you should determine which design palette will work, this step can be done before or after the design, but I'll processing Color panel design here before starting the design to get a uniform color system to work with, so use rectangles and hold the Shift key to create a small square outside the drawing board and then uncheck the border color and use the dark red as a color for the rectangle.

Tip: By pressing the Shift key continuously  while drawing the rectangle will result in an equal rectangular box.

Now use the selection tool and then continue by pressing the Alt key while pulling a copy of the box to the side and use the smart guides to put the new box beside the Old one. The color of the new box should be light red color.

And to avoid repeating the process to create several new versions press Ctrl D several times to create new boxes to the same direction and the same distance and arrangement. Add new colors to these boxes as in the picture.

If you want to use the same exact colors you can copy and paste this picture in the document on the side of the drawing board.

Use rectangles tool from the toolbar to draw a rectangle of the size of the drawing board as the background of the design. Click once using this tool on the drawing board to show you the window to determine the size of the RECTANGLE to be drawn. Place the same size of work 700 600 pixels. Then press OK.

The result would be a rectangular shape with the size of the artwork but does not cover it properly, So move the RECTANGLE to cover the entire work space. Then color the rectangle using the color in left of the palette.

You can get the same color by using eyedropper color tool.



Open the layers panel by pressing F7 key in the keyboard and create a new layer by clicking on the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the panel, and then click Next to the first layer, which contains the background and color panel to show the lock icon so that we have closed the layer and could not be modified or moved until we remove the lock signal.

Tip: Locking the layer will process avoid selecting it each time you select the other layers above.



Now we will create the Undulating shape inside the asteroids. Use rectangles tool to draw a skinny accidental rectangular.



Then use the selection tool and hold the Alt key to pull a copy of the rectangle down and make the new rectangle adjacent to the old one.



Press Ctrl D several times to repeat the process.



Select the second RECTANGLE from the top to change its width. If the rectangle size modifying tools did not appear, press the shortcut Shift Ctrl B until you see those tools.



Now continue holding the Alt key while clicking on the small box on one side of the RECTANGLE and pulling it inward, to minimize the rectangle width perfectly.



Now edit the rest of rectangles so that each of them have varying width degrees.



Now move the other RECTANGLES to the right and to the left so that they become asymmetrical to each other.Continue pressing the Shift key during the sweep to maintain the stability of the horizontal axis.



Press the Shortcut Ctrl Shift F9 to show the Pathfinder. Select all the rectangles and then click on Unite in the Pathfinder panel to unify all RECTANGLES in one shape.



Select the Direct Selection tool, then select the shape, and you'll see small circles in the corners of the selected shape.



Click on one of these circles and then pull it inside to the maximum degree so the square corners will become rounded like in the picture below.



We will need this shape in this design so we will save it as a symbol in the symbols panel. Open the symbols panel by pressing Shift Ctrl F11 and then pull this shape to the panel and rename it. leave everything else and click OK.



This shape has become a cloud within the symbols. Delete the original shape and then pull this shape to the drawing board. Select the selection tool and then continue pressing Alt Shift while pulling him down, make the new shape adjacent to the basic format.



Repeat the process easily by pressing Ctrl D, thus creating a new version of the same way down the last sha.



Select all these shapes and then click on the option Unite in the Pathfinder panel to unit these shapes together in one shape.



Select the direct selection tool and then select the points in the left side of the shape, except for the highest point and down points in that side.



Delete these points by pressing Delete key to keep the left straight blacked out.



Select the top point in the left and then continue by pressing the Shift key and click on the lower point of the same direction then align them horizontally by clicking on the horizontal alignment option in the top toolbar.



Select the points of the head of the top right side shape and then pull it toward the right. Repeat the same process with the bottom head.



Use the Ellipse Shape tool to draw a circle that covers the right-hand side of the shape by holding Shift while dragging the shape to get a perfect circle. Adjust the size of the circle and move it to cover the right part of the shape of the cloud, matching the top and bottom of the circle with the top and bottom of two points of the cloud (use the smart guide).



Select the two shapes and click the Divide option from the Pathfinder panel to cut the shapes into smaller shapes at the intersection of the border.



Select everything outside the circle and delete it by pressing the Delete key.



Select the right side of the circle and then use the Eyedropper tool and choose a color from the color palette of the design, I chose Light Red. The left side is dark red in the same way.



Draw a new circle and align it with the alignment tools in the top toolbar horizontally and vertically with the old circle and make them slightly larger and then use the white color for it.



Select the large white circle and go to the list:

Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur

Set the value 10 to half the diameter. This completes the shape of the asteroid with the effect of the surrounding aura.

Select the shape of the asteroid and then place the cursor near one of the angles to change the shape to two square arrows to rotate the shape for about 40 degrees.



Select the asteroid shape and drag it to the symbol panel to become an icon so we can use later.



Delete the asteroid and drag its icon from the symbol panel several times to create a constellation of planets and then adjust its sizes and positions randomly.



Select an asteroid and right-click it and choose Break Link to Symbol.



Then give the asteroid in a new color palette. Since we made the light color for the right and dark color for the left in the initial design of the first asteroid, it is better to continue in the same coordination for the rest of the asteroids so as to show consistency for the issue of lighting and shadows. Repeat the previous process by right-clicking on the next asteroid and modifying all its colors.



In the second part we will complete the design of stars and meteors.
Click Here for to see the second part.