Tutorial: Glossy Sticker

 That neat-o pen icon in the upper right is the work of the excellent Tom Nulens over at iStockphoto.com. Here’s how to make those glossy peeled stickers. Download this tutorial as a PDF

Step 1: Draw a square using the Marquee tool (M) {Holding down the Shift key will constrain it to a perfect square}. Go to Effects>Stylize>Rounded Corners and enter a radius that suits you. I’ve used .08 inches.

Expand. (Object>Expand Appearance):

Step 2: Copy the rounded square and paste it in front (Cmd-F) Draw an arc using the Arc tool that intersects the square:

Step 3: Select both the arc and the top square, and click

Divide on the Pathfinder panel:

Step 4: Fill the top shape with a gradient, which has as its darkest color the same color as the bottom square. This will simulate the gloss effect:  

Step 5: Draw a 45° line that intersects the lower right corner of the square.This will be the “peeled” part of the icon. As before, select both the line and the square and use Pathfinder>Divide.

Step 6: Select the newly-divided corner with the Direct Selection tool. Double-click the Rotate tool in the toolbox and enter 180° to flip it around:

Step 7: Fill the peeled corner with a light gradient to make it look like it’s curling back:

Step 7b: Duplicate the peeled corner, fill it with a dark color and send it backward, behind the “peel” (Cmd-[ ).  Nudge the shape to the left a bit to create a shadow for the peel:

Step 8: To make a shadow for the icon, you can simply go to Effects>Stylize>Drop Shadow. If you don’t want any raster effects, however, you can make a soft drop shadow with a Blend. First, make a copy of the square shape. Then Option-drag to make a copy of that. Nudge the bottom shape to the right a bit. Fill the top shape with a light gray and the bottom with white. Double-click the Blend tool and choose “Smooth Color” as the type of spacing. Then with both shapes selected, go to Object>Blend>Make (Cmd-Opt-B).

You’ll probably have to tweak the anchor points a bit to get a smooth, rounded shadow: 

Done! Add an icon or text