Create a simple spinner icon in Sketch
I’ve seen myself having to create a simple spinner icon a few times lately. And every time, I have to remind myself how to do it, because I don’t use often the techniques needed. So I decided to write a short tutorial, to remember it once and for all. And to, hopefully help other designers to avoid the same frustration.
It’s actually pretty simple, you just have to know the right commands. Here are the 3 steps:
1. Create a shape
The first thing to do is to create any shape you’d like in an artboard.
2. Rotate copies
Select your shape, and go to “Layer > Path > Rotate Copies”.
Enter the number of copies of your shape you want. In this case, I want the total of shapes to be 12, so I enter 11. Click OK.
You should now see all your 12 shapes. You can move around the white dot to get the radius and orientation desired. Hit ESC to confirm.
3. Style the icon
Almost there. Depending on the kind of style you want, you have at least 2 options:
3.A. Smooth gradient
The easiest way to style your spinner is to select “Angular Gradient” in the “Fills” section. Then select one of the dots and change its opacity to 0. Set the opacity of the other one to 100. You can also change the position of the dots to not have the start and end of the gradient in the middle of a shape. See below.
3.B. Individual style
Another option if you aren’t a fan of gradients is to style the shapes individually. For that, you first need to split them*. Go to “Layer > Combine > Split”. You can now select every shape separately. From here, you can either change the color, or like I did, change the opacity of the shapes.
*Here is Before and After splitting the shapes at a layer level:
Congrats! You made a nice spinner icon.
