Creating a Starburst Shape in Illustrator CS2

(beginner level)

Often in flyers or magazine ads you will see a starburst shape highlighting some important information such as "On Sale Now ", "Limited Time Offer" or even "Free Pony with Every Purchase". OK maybe not the last one .

We can quickly create starbursts of the correct size and shape for our text using Illustrator's ellipse tool and distortion effects.

Step 1: Setting the Stroke and Fill

By default Illustrator creates shapes with a white fill and a black stroke until you create a shape using a different colour combination and then it remembers that, until you either create another shape with a different set of colours or you close illustrator. If you just started Illustrator chances are your toolbox will look like the illustration to the right.

The toolbox colour section contains four icons: the fill icon, the stroke icon, the default colour icon and the switch fill and stroke icon. Either the Fill or Stroke Icon will appear in front of the other to indicate which colour attribute (fill or stroke) you are working with.

To choose a colour for the fill of your starburst shape click on the Fill icon to make sure it is selected. Then, you can simply select a colour from the swatches palette or double click the fill icon to launch the colour picker which gives you a full range of colours to choose from. Once you have selected a colour the Fill icon in the toolbox will change to display that colour.

Next, set the stroke to none, click on the Stroke icon to select it and then click the None icon to remove the stroke.

Step 2: Drawing an Ellipse

We are going to create an starburst similar to the "Free Pony with every Purchase" starburst above. Select the ellipse tool from the tool box. Click once on the Artboard and enter the following dimensions, Width 3" and Height 2 " and click OK. Alternatively you can draw your ellipse by clicking and dragging on the artboard till you have the size and shape you want.

Step 3: Adding Anchor Points to the Shape

When Illustrator draws an ellipse it has a total of four anchor points. We need to add a bunch of anchor points to allow us to make the rays of the starburst. Choose Object > Path > Add Anchor Points - you will need to do this twice.

Step 4: Applying an Effect

Next we will apply one of my favourite effects, Pucker & Bloat (you have to love a name like that!). The Pucker part of the effect moves anchor points away from the center point to give a spiky effect and Bloat moves the anchor points towards the center point giving a flower petal effect.

Select the ellipse and choose Effects > Distort and Transform > Pucker and Bloat. Click the preview check box and drag the slider till you are happy with the starburst effect. In this example I used a value of -16.

If you are happy with this very evenly spaced starburst that's it you are done. But, if you are looking for something with a bit more variety carry on.

Step 5: Expanding the Shape (optional)

Now that we have a basic starburst we might want to improve on it by making it a little less regular. At this point, even though our object looks like a starburst, Illustrator still thinks this shape is an ellipse ( notice the image to the left shows that the anchor points still outline an ellipse, whereas on the image to the right the anchor points define an actual starburst).

If we want to actually work with the spiky shape we need to expand the appearance of the shape. This will convert the shape from an ellipse with a pucker effect applied to an actual starburst shape. Select the ellipse, if it is not already selected, and choose Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 6: Varying the rays (method 1)

To add a little variety to the rays so that they are not so evenly sized and spaced we can apply another Effect to our expanded starburst shape. Select the starburst shape and Choose Effect > Distort and Transform > Tweak. Click the preview checkbox, select Anchor points and adjust the slider till you get the appearance you like. Tip: A little tweaking goes a long way. This is a pretty random method of adding variety and can be a bit fiddly. For the image at the right the settings were horizontal 7, vertical 1 with and relative (which is based on a percentage of the objects size)setting, rather than absolute setting, (which is a specified size such as .25 in).

Step 6: Varying the rays (method 2)

Another option for adding variety is to use the direct selection tool to select a few end points and drag them slightly further out. The easiest way to select the anchor point at the end of the one of the rays is to take the direct select tool (white arrow) and drag a small marquee around the anchor point you wish to move. The selected anchor point will become filled, meaning that it is selected and therefore editable. You can then click and drag it to a new location.

Starburst Examples

In the following examples I started with an almost circular ellipse Starburst A, had a Twist effect applied. Note: you don't need to expand the appearance of the object before applying the Twist Effect. The Twist Effect is found under the same menu as Pucker and Bloat, Effects > Distort and Transform > Twist. Starburst B had a stroke of 3 and colour of black and a marquee was drawn around the 4 anchor points on each end to select them and then they were dragged slightly further out. Starburst C, was done in much the same way as Starburst B. The three points at each end were selected and dragged slightly further out and then the single bottom point was selected and dragged out further still, then whole object was rotated slightly.