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- In this movie, I'll share with

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you the formula for creating a

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perfect five-pointed star
here inside Illustrator.

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I'm going to go and switch over

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to my documents so far, and I don't

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need these stars, so I'll go ahead

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and press Ctrl + A or Cmd + A on a Mac

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to select them, and then I'll press

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the backspace key or
the delete key on a Mac

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to get rid of them.

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Now I want to add a background

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to this stars layer, and so I'm

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going to press Ctrl +
0 or Cmd + 0 on a Mac

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to fit the art board on screen,

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and I'm going to zoom out even farther,

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so I have plenty of room to work,

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and I'll go ahead and
select the rectangle tool,

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and now I want to fill this entire

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bleed zone that's surrounded with

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a red border with this rectangle,

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and so I'm going to go ahead and

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drag from one corner to the opposite

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corner like so, and if you're working

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along with me, and your smart guides

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are turned on, then you should see

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a heads-up display with a width

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value of 1,032 points and a height

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of 696, at which point, go ahead

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and release the mouse button
to create that rectangle.

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We don't need any strokes, so I'm

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going to go ahead and click on

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the second swatch up
here in the control panel

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and change it to none, and now

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I'll click on the first swatch

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in order to change the fill, and I'm

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going to set it to this shade of blue,

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which will be available to you

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by virtue of the fact that you

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created a basic RGB document
here inside of Illustrator,

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and that blue is called R0G113B188,

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and it ends up producing
this effect right here.

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I don't want this
rectangle to get in our way

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as we're adding stars to the document,

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so I'm going to lock it down, and you

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do that by going to the object menu,

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choosing lock, and then
choosing selection,

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and the second you choose that command,

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your handles are going to disappear,

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and you will no longer be able

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to select that shape, so notice

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if I switch to the black-arrow tool,

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and I go ahead and click on that shape,

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I can't select it.

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If I drag it, it doesn't
move, and so forth,

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and that way it won't get
in our face in the future.

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I'm going to zoom back in by pressing

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Ctrl + 0 or Cmd + 0 on a Mac,

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and I'm also going to turn on my

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angled layer, so that I can see

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the magnifying glass.

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If you take a look at the final version

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of the illustration, and I'll turn off

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the lone-star layer here
just so that we can see.

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Notice that this perfectly
rendered five-point star

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is perfectly centered
inside the magnifying glass.

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In order to make that happen, I need

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to find the center of this large circle,

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so I'll go ahead and switch over

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to my document so far, and I'll click

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on the outermost circle to select it,

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and notice that we have a center point.

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You also notice that our points

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are sort of off kilter here.

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Notice these four points that are

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surrounding the circle, and that's

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because we rotated these shapes,

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and that means we rotated
their points as well,

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but the center point is all we care about.

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So with that center point visible

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go ahead and press Ctrl
+ R or Cmd + R in a Mac

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to bring up the rulers, and you can

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just drag a horizontal guide out of

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the horizontal ruler, and a vertical guide

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out of the vertical one, but if

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you want to save time, then press

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and hold the control key or the

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command key on a Mac, and drag

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two guides at once out of the intersection

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of those two rulers, and then drop them

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into place right there at
that center point like so.

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But I made one big mistake, which is

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that I put the guides on the wrong layer,

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so I'm going to undo that modification.

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I'm going to click on the guides layer

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to make it active, and then I will

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once again press the control key

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or the command key on a Mac and drag out

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from the intersection of those two rulers,

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and then drop those guys
onto the right layer.

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Now I'll press Ctrl +
R or Cmd + R in a Mac

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in order to hide the rulers, and I'll

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switch back to the stars layer,

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which is where I'm going to draw

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my five-pointed star.

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I'll go ahead and select the star

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either from this floating toolbar

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or by clicking and holding on the

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rectangle-tool icon and
choosing the star tool

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from the fly-up menu, and now I'll

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drag out from that center right there

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because the star tool, after all,

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always draws from the center outward.

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Now notice that we do have five points,

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which is great, and if you have more

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then go ahead and press the down-arrow key

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until you have just five, and now

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don't worry about the fact that

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it's really super spiky.

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Just go ahead and press the alt key

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or the option key on a Mac in order to

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create a perfectly
aligned five-pointed star,

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and also press the shift key in order to

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constrain the star so it's upright,

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and I'm looking for values in my

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heads-up display around
285 for the width value,

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but I'm having problems getting it.

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There it was just for
a moment right there.

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That would do:

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28523 with a height of 271.27,

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but it's pretty hard to get exactly

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those values because of all the

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smart-guide snapping that's going on,

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and so you may prefer to dial in

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numerical values, in which case

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I'll go ahead and press the backspace key

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or the delete key on a Mac in order

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to delete that star, and I'll just click

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at the intersection of
these two guidelines

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to bring up the star-dialogue box.

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Here's the problem.

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What values do you enter in order

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to get a perfect five-pointed star?

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Well here's how it works.

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You want to go ahead and change

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the radius 1 value to 150, that's

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just so you and I get the same size star,

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and then you change the
radius 2 value to 150

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as well, in other words that same value,

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so whatever size star
you end up going with,

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go ahead and enter that value again,

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and then enter asterisk for times 0.382.

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That portion of the formula right there

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times 0.382 will give you a perfect

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five-pointed star every time,

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assuming that your points are set to five,

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at which point, go ahead
and press the tab key

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in order to do the math, and in our case

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that's going to translate to a
radius 2 value of 57.3 points

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and then go ahead and click OK

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in order to create that five-pointed star.

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And that, my friends, is the formula

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for creating the perfect five-pointed star

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right off the American Flag
here inside Illustrator.