While practising my Adobe Illustrator skills this afternoon, I’ve decided to share the outcome of my Calendaricon with you, and not only the regular png, but also the vector file (at the bottom of the post). And (because I’m in such a good mood) I’ve tried to write down some tips to customize the icon, so that’s it’s possible for everybody to use this resource. (I don’t think it will stay 25-5 forever (actually, today isn’t 25-5 either)). I start with apologizing for my bad english. I’ll try to improve it.

Maybe someday I will release a Tutorial on making this Icon, especially when there are some specific requests, but for now I think there are enough tutorials covering the basics (just some gradients). For all the rectangles I’ve used a vertical shear of 4 degrees and a horizontal shear of 12 degrees. This can come in handy when you want to edit the icon (what I do encourage). Ow, and I know this is not an intermediate tutorial or something approaching a high level, but it should an beginner getting started (and it’s not about the Zend Framework). But for now:

How to edit the Calendar Icon

I assume that you want to put the current date or something into this icon, and it’s actually very easy. So for this time I while leave the screenshots (again, unless there are some specific requests)

Step 1: Removing the date

Open the illustrator file you can download at the end of this post, and with the select tool (Press V) click on the letters and figures while holding shift. Then press delete to remove these characters. Now you’ve got a blank calendar.

Step 2: Typing the new Month

Select the text tool (Press T) and make sure you’re color is not white when typing on a white background. The font I’ve used is Nevis Bold which you can download for free. http://www.tenbytwenty.com/products/typefaces/nevis

Just type the month, in my case MAY, in capital letters (because I like that, of course are you free to choose your own font and month). Set the font size to 14 pt and the color to white.

Step 3: Placing the month

Drag the month into the red area of the calendar, and press the right mouse button on the letters and choose Transform->shear. Make sure Horizantal is selected and set the angle to 12 and press Ok. Repeat this procedure but with Vertical selected and an angle of 4 degrees. Drag the month in the position where you like it.

Step 4: Typing the new Date

The procedure for adding the date starts the same. So type the date (for instance 25 :)), and font size approximately 36 pt.

Step 5: Placing the date

This is the same as step 3, a horizontal shear of 12 and a vertical of 4, and drag it into place.

Step 6: Applying a gradient

Right-click on the date and choose Create Outline. Then at the top choose the black-to-white gradient for the fill color. (Haven’t just any strokes, in case you didn’t noticed)

Open up your gradient panel, located right in the workspace or bring it up Ctrl + F9 (and notice some window changing). Set the angle to 135 degrees and the handle around 20%. I’ve replaced the white color with some gray color. You can accomplish that by simple dragging the color of choice (from the swatched panel) on the colorhandler.

The .AI file

Download here the illustrator CS3 file (other formats also on request).

Download here the illustrator CS file

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