How to create a flat styled icon in Sketch 3
A small tutorial for the ones who are just starting out
You can skip all this and directly download the 139kb sketch file. Its at the end of this article.
So lets start. This is the final product we’d like to achieve. Might not be the exact same but you’ll learn few things on the way.
STEP 1 — Create a new sketch document
This is the blank canvas you’ll get the moment you open Sketch 3.
STEP 2 — Create a new art-board of size 200x200px
You can create a new artboard by clicking on the ‘+’ icon for insert or by using shortcut ‘A’ on your keyboard. Create a new artboard of size 200x200 px
STEP 3 — Create a circle of size 150x150 px
Create a circle of size 150x150 px and place it in centre. You can place the circle in centre by alignment tools on top of position panel on right hand side.
Now turn off the borders of the circle and it will look like this:
STEP 3 — Create a two rectangles of size 132x100 px and 122x90 px respectively and place them on top of each other
The position of these two rectangles doesn’t really matter as long as they are centre aligned to the canvas. Give the rectangles different colors so its easier for you to distinguis between them.
STEP 4 — Bring the bigger rectangle above the smaller one and edit it as shown below
To bring the rectangle above you can either just drag it above other in layers panel on left hand side or you can select it and click on ‘Forward’ on top menu bar. Once it is up, click on ‘Edit’ and add an anchor point somewhere in centre like this:
Once anchor is added, click on that anchor point and on right properties panel click on ‘Straight’. This will remove the handle bars from the anchor point making sure there wont be any curves attached to it. Once you’ve done that drag the anchor point down in the centre. You’ll see a red guide showing if its in line with the centre of the rectangle. It should look something like this:
STEP 5— Duplicate the top rectangle (the one that looks like an envelope) and delete its top left anchor point
To duplicate any object in Sketch 3 you can simply select that element and press ‘cmd+D’. Now once you’ve duplicated the rectangle click on ‘Edit’ on top bar and select the left top anchor point and hit ‘delete’ on your keyboard. It should look something like this:
STEP 6— Delete another anchor point of the previous shape and make it look like a triangle
Now edit the shape below this triangle and bring the centre anchor point straight down in such a way that it looks like this:
STEP 7— Duplicate the circle (cmd+d), place the duplicate circle on top of the first rectangle and click on ‘intersect’ on top panel
STEP 8— Repeat STEP 7 for other shapes as well (except the circle of course)
The results will look something like this
You can see that you are almost there. Now its time to add some finishing touches.
STEP 9— Create a new small equilateral triangle and place it on top of the circle and behind all the other shapes
There is a check box on properties panel on right hand side which can turn any triangle into equilateral triangle. Place the triangle behind all the shapes but on top of the circle.
Duplicate the same shape (cmd+d), flip it vertically and place it on the other end as shown below. The option to flip any element appears on the properties panel once you select it.
STEP 9— Create a square on right top corner of the bottom rectangle (the one below all the rectangles and above the circle)
Before proceeding in this step, I gave colors to my shapes. Now create a square as shown below:
STEP 10— Delete the square’s right top anchor point
Select the square and then click on ‘Edit’. Delete the right anchor point of the square by selecting it and hitting ‘delete’ on your keyboard.
STEP 10— Add two anchor points on the white rectangle below the the newly formed triangle and delete the right top anchor point of the white rectangle
Add two anchor points on the white rectangle at places where the triangle touches the white rectangle (i.e. at two places). Now delete the right top anchor point on same white rectangle. It will look something like this:
Give a darker shade to the same triangle and remove the borders.
STEP 11 — Add some rectangles like these to make it more.. pretty (yeah, really, pretty)
STEP 12 — Group those rectangles and bring them in between the white paper shape and the envelope shape
..so that it looks like this:
STEP 13— Add corner radius to the rectangles and give color to your artboard
The great thing about Sketch 3 is that you can give corner radius to selected anchor point. Select the white paper shape. Click on edit and select left top anchor point. When you select the anchor point on the right side in properties panel you will see an option called ‘Corners’. Give it a 3px value. You can apply the same technique for rest of the corners.
To add background color to your artboard, select your artboard from left layers panel. Once you do that on the right side you will see the artboard’s properties. Give your artboard a dark greyish color and your icon is ready!
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