New Imac Mini Icon Design Tutorial

What We’ll Be Creating

Resources Used In This Tutorial

For this tutorial I’ve gone ahead and pre-made the Apple Logo for you to use, you can get it from the link below.

• Apple Logo (.png)

Lets Get Started, Creating Your Document

Create a new document (Ctrl + N) 800 x 600 pixels with any background color. Select the gradient tool (G) with a linear gradient as your gradient type.

Drag the linear gradient from the top of the canvas down towards the bottom.

Use the color #878787 as your foreground color and #ececec as your background color. You should have something like this.

Creating The Imac Mini Top

Select the rounded rectangle tool (U) with a radius of 40px. Make sure your selection type is set to shape layers.

Drag out the rectangle in the middle of the canvas, once your happy with the rectangle go to “Edit > Transform > Skew” and/or “Edit > Transform > Distort”. Distort/skew the rectangle until you have something like this.

Now that you have your rectangle label your layer “imac top” then right click the layer and go to “Convert To Smart Object”.

Double click the “imac top” layers thumbnail from within the layers window.

Once you’ve double clicked the thumbnail a new canvas should open containing your shape. Double click the actual layer and add the following layer styles to your shape.

Close the recently opened canvas saving on exit. The layer styles you just added should now be reflected in your original canvas. Were now going to add some noise to the “imac top” layer, make sure the layer is selected in the layers window then go to “Filter > Noise > Add Noise”. Use the settings below.

Creating The Imac Mini Front/Bottom

Right click your “imac top” layer and select “New Smart Object Via Copy”. Double click the thumbnail on the layer to access the layers original content, once the canvas has opened right click the layer and go to “Clear Layer Styles”. Once the layer styles have been cleared exit and save.

Rename the duplicated layer “imac bottom” then drag the layer to the bottom of the stack above the background layer. Select the move tool (V) then move the “imac layer” downwards a couple of times.

Double click the “imac bottom” thumbnail to access the original content then select the rectangle tool (U) with the following settings.

Zoom in onto either the left or right bottom corners of the shape then select the shape whilst holding down the Ctrl key on the keyboard

Once you’ve selected the shape hold down the shift key on the keyboard and drag out a rectangle shown in the image below.

Repeat the same step for the other side of the shape. Once you’ve finished adding the rectangles to either side of the shape re-make the selection by selecting the shape whilst holding down the Ctrl key. Now select the move tool (V), hold down the Ctrl key and move the bottom anchor point over towards the right.

Repeat the same process for the other side. You should hopefully have something like this.

Still inside the “imac bottom” smart layer double click the layer then add a gradient overlay using the settings below.

Exit the smart layer saving on exit then add some noise to the bottom layer using the same settings as we did for the top.

You should have something like this.

Creating The CD Slot

Select the rounded rectangle tool (U) then drag out a small rectangle about 430 – 435px wide. Drag the CD Slot layer above your “imac bottom” layer.

Once you’ve made the rectangle add the following layer styles to your CD slot shape.

You should have something like this.

Creating The CD Eject Button

Create a new layer above your CD slot layer called “CD Button”, select the rectangular marquee tool (M) and make a selection about 15px wide which covers the end of the CD slot.

Keep the CD button layer selected but load a selection around the CD slot layer by clicking the thumbnail on the CD slot layer whilst holding down the Ctrl key on the keyboard. Once you’ve loaded the selection go to “Select > Inverse” to inverse the selection then hit the delete key.

Now load a selection around the CD eject button and go to “Select > Modify > Contract”, contract the selection by 1px then inverse the selection and hit the delete key.

Its now time to add the layer styles to our CD eject button.

Creating The Light

Create a new layer called “Light” above your CD slot layer. Next to the CD slot create a 3 x 3 px circle using the elliptical marquee tool (M).

Next add a drop shadow to the light layer using the settings below.

Creating The Imac Mini Shadow

Duplicate the “imac bottom” layer by right clicking it and going to “New Smart Object Via Copy”. Drag the duplicated layer down to the bottom of the stack above your background layer, then rename the layer “Imac Bottom Shadow”.

Double click the thumbnail in the layers window to access the smart objects original content. Clear the current layer styles on the shape then add a black #000000 color overlay. Exit and save.

Select the move tool (V) then move the shadow layer down a couple of pixels so you can just see the bottom poking from underneath the bottom of the imac.

Blur the layer by 2.0px by going to “Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur”.

Now add a layer mask to the shadow layer then drag a reflected gradient from the middle of the shadow outwards to either the left or right side of the canvas. Make sure your foreground is set to white #ffffff and background black #000000.

The shadow should blend into the background on the left and right sides of the imac.

Creating The Imac Mini Reflection

Duplicate the “Imac Bottom” Layer by right clicking and going to “New Smart Object Via Copy”. Drag the duplicated layer down to the bottom of the stack above your background layer, then rename the layer “Imac Reflection”. Now nudge down the reflection layer like the image below.

Blur the layer by 2.0px by going to “Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur”.

Now add a layer mask to your reflection layer then drag a linear gradient from the bottom of the reflection upwards towards the top. You may need to undo and redo a couple of times until you get the look you want.

Adding The Apple Trademark

If you haven’t already, download the apple logo which i made earlier.

• Apple Logo (.png)

Drag the logo onto your canvas, re size, distort and skew into place on top of the imac mini.

Now add the following layer styles to your apple logo.

Conclusion

That’s it folks you’ve finished the tutorial, hope you’ve learned something new. You can now resize the illustration and use it as an icon without loss of quality.