Illustrator has a lot of features a lot of people don’t even know about, one of them is the 3D Rotate Tool. In this beginners Illustrator tutorial you’ll be using that tool to create a cube icon in 10 very simple steps. Your outcome could be used as part of a logo design, backgrounds for stationery products, advertisements or even favicons.

Step 1: Create Your Document

I made my document using a simple web preset at 800×600px.

Step 2: Draw A Square

Select the rectangle tool and click on your empty canvas to bring up the Rectangle options. Make sure it’s square – mine is 100×100px.

Step 3: Repeat The Last Step …Twice!

Repeat the last step twice, or just copy and paste the square two times.

Step 4: Going Isometric…

Select one of your squares and go to Effect > 3D > Rotate. Select Isometric Top from the drop-down menu and hit OK.

Step 5: Repeat The Last Step …Twice …Again!

Repeat the previous step on your other squares, this time using the Isometric Left and the Isometric Right options from the drop-down menu.

Step 6: Stitching It All Up

The main shape of our cube is almost finished. Select each one of your sides and change it’s colour, it doesn’t matter what at this point. Whilst your there, remove the strokes.

Select each one of your sides again and go to Object > Expand Appearance. With the strokes gone, zoom right into your sides and use the cursor keys to position them up right.

Step 7: Getting That Shading Right

At the moment, our cube looks like some kind of cheesy logo. Make your mind up which direction you want your light coming from, and choose a main colour. I’ve decided my light source is going to be coming from the right, and I’m going to use a nice blue colour.

Select the top side, and fill it with a colour of your choice. Open up the Colour Guide (Window > Colour Guide) and from the drop-down menu select shades.

Select the right side, and using the colours now in your colour guide, select a colour lighter than your original. Do the same with the left side, but this time selecting a darker colour. You might want to play about with the different shades to see what you come up with.

Step 8: Adding Some Depth

Grab the Pen Tool and make a custom shape round the bottom left side of your cube (in my case, the darkest area). I’m using a bright red just to show you my shape. Repeat the step on some other areas of your cube.

Looks like a complete mess, uh? Not to worry, this is where the Pathfinder comes in. Select the left side of your cube, copy it and place it in place (Cmnd/Ctrl+F). With the shape still selected hold the shift key and select the first custom shape to select both objects at once. Open the Pathfinder window (Pathfinder > Window) and click Intersect. This should cut the edges away. Change the custom shape to black, and lower the opacity to about 5%.

Repeat the steps again with all your other shapes – remember to use white with a low opacity for highlights.

Step 9: Adding Some Text…

Our cube is now becoming a little more 3D like. To add something a little more interesting I’m going to add the word ‘CUBE’ in the corner of one side.

Select the Type Tool and in your chosen font type a word of your choice. I’m using the font ‘American Typewriter’. With that done, select your word and go to Type > Create Outlines. With it still selected, go back to Effects > 3D > Rotate, select Isometric Left from the drop-down menu and hit OK. With that done, go to Object > Expand Appearance. Change your words colour to white and it’s opacity to about 70%.

Step 10: Adding A Back Shadow

Select all 3 of your original sides by holding the shift key down and selecting each individual side. Duplicate them by copying and pasting. Manually convert the shapes to B&W by selecting different shades of grey.

Reselect the grey cube and go to Object > Group. Stretch the cube whilst holding the shift key to make it bigger. Select all of your shapes and objects used in your original coloured cube and go to Object > Group.

Select the grey cube and align it to the centre (both horizontally and vertically), make sure ‘Align To Artboard’ is selected when doing this. Do the same for your colourful cube. Lower the opacity of the grey cube, and there you have it, your very own simple cube from scratch made in just 10 simple steps.

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