Interlocking Rings
Software Used: Adobe Illustrator 8

A visitor to the site recently asked me how to make interlocking rings such as those in the Olympic Games' logo. The request was for CorelDraw 8, but I decided to also show you how it's done in Illustrator 8 or 9. You don't have to use this technique only for circular rings... use it for text and other shapes to give the illusion of dimension.

1.) Set the fill to none and the stroke to any color (I'm using red).

2.) Select the ellipse tool and drag out a circle by holding the shift key as you drag.

3.) In the stroke palette, change the stroke weight to create a thicker outline.

4.) Go to Object > Path > Outline Path. This converts the outline to a object.

5.) With the selection tool, Alt drag (Mac Users: Option drag) to create a copy, then repeat to create another copy.

6.) Change the fill of each object to a different color.

7.) Select all three rings and from the align palette choose Vertical Align Center and then horizontal Distribute center .

8.) With the three object still selected, go to the pathfinder palette and choose divide .

9.) Choose Object > Ungroup

10.) Select the section where you want the rings to overlap and fill the section to match the overlapping ring. Use the eyedropper tool to match the color.

Here's how:
Select the section, make sure fill is active on the color swatch, select the eyedropper, then click the eyedropper on the color you want for the fill. You'll need to do this for the middle ring and the right ring.

----->

11.) Now the rings appear to be overlapping, but you'll find that the rings are now chopped up into many sections. To join the rings together, select all the sections of each ring, then choose Object > Make compound path. When selecting the sections of each ring, you can do it very easily by selecting one section, then choosing Edit > Select > Same fill color. Then choose Object > Make compound path.

12.) Finally, you may wish to select all the interlocking rings and group them.

Obviosly, the Olympics' logo has a few more rings, but you've learned the basic steps for how it's done.

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