How to Duplicate & Rotate Shapes in a Circle | Adobe Illustrator Tips

Duplicate and Rotate Shapes in a Circle

This tip uses Illustrator’s Radial Repeat to arrange copies of an object around a circle. The copies are live instances, so changing the original changes all of them, which used to need a Rotate-and-Copy routine or a blend.

Steps

1. Select the object and go to Object > Repeat > Radial. Illustrator places eight instances around a circle by default.
2. Change the number of instances in the Properties panel or by dragging the count handle.
3. Drag the circle handle to make the radius larger or smaller.
4. Drag the two end handles to limit the repeat to an arc instead of a full circle.
5. Double-click an instance to edit the source: change colour, angle or shape and every copy updates. You can also paste extra objects inside the group and they repeat too.

The follow-up tip on this site shows the Grid version of the same feature for seamless patterns.

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