Create a Perforated Metal Background in Illustrator

Icon design is a fascinating niche that requires its own bag of tricks and techniques. One popular technique I've been seeing around lately is a perforated metal texture. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch take a look at the Settings icon. If you look closely you will see a very subtle but wonderful perforated metal background. Textures such as this add a level of polish and detail that can set your icons apart and can help make you a leading icon designer. Today I'll walk you through how this texture is created using simple shapes, basic gradients and easy to master transformations.

Read the rest of this tutorial and watch a video demo over at HiDef's blog.