Rounding edges in Illustrator

Using a simple technique you can round the edges of pretty much anything in Illustrator. Furthermore with the Graphic Styles Panel you can reuse your style over and over again.

Here's the Illustrator file for these examples

The technique

Rounding the edge of pretty much anything in Illustrator is quite straight forward. In this example we will curve the edges of a star. This technique works for pretty much any object through. First we draw a star using the Star Tool. The star has a pink fill and an orange stroke of 5pt.

With the star selected go to Object > Path > Offset Path. In the dialog box turn on the Preview option so you can see how it is going to turn out. Select an offset of 3pt and choose Round for the Joins. This is the crucial bit - it will round off the edges. Exactly what we want to achieve. This will produce a new star with rounded edges. Rounded star

The two stars are still on the canvas - if you move one to the left you should see something like this:

You can delete the original star you created leaving just the star with rounded corners.

Reusing styles

Using the Graphic Styles panel you can reuse the style you have created with the rounded edges. To get the Graphic Styles Panel up go to Window > Graphic Styles. Then simply drag the rounded edge star in the the Appearance Panel. You should see the style added to the default list.

Now you can reuse this style with other elements in your design. Create some text and then make sure it is selected. Then click on the Graphic Style in the panel. The rounded edges and colours are applied. Not happy with how it has come out? You can still edit it through the Appearance Panel. In this example I reduced the stroke a little.

With the style in your Graphic Styles box it is pretty easy to give a curved edge to almost anything. Here's a button for example. If I want a curved edge on it then I just click the Graphic Style.

Want to work through these examples? Here's the illustrator file

Comments

dustin Jul 10 2007: you could just use the “round corners” effect, but yes, i love the offset path command…..it is great for dynamic logo creation
Abhijit V. Chaore Aug 1 2007: These small techniques indeed save lot of time. Thanks for highlighing these small aspects of Illstrator.
Vujevic Aug 27 2007: Helped, thanks.
davidf Aug 28 2007: thanks for such hot tips !! it is really great for u to share :)
Rakib Rana Sep 16 2007: The tutorial was really very interesting. Keep up the good works!
Sanya Nov 8 2007: I’m such a newbie to illustrator….I was wondering how to round edges and now I have my answer…this tutorial totally was useful…...I love that I can work through the examples. Thanks!!
Stefan Ashwell Sep 13 2008: Was wondering how to do this thanks a lot for the tutorial :)