How to make a heart in Illustrator

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

In the following tutorial, you'll learn how to make a heart in Illustrator in six simple steps. You'll learn how to easily turn a rectangle into a rounded rectangle, how to rotate and duplicate it, how to cut and unite vector shapes, and finally, how to warp your heart shape in Adobe Illustrator.

But if you're looking for a video tutorial to learn how to draw a heart in Illustrator, then you're in luck! Here's a design video tutorial from the Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel to quickly learn how to do this heart illustration:

How to make a heart in Illustrator

Step 1

Let's do the drawing of a heart shape. Pick the Rectangle Tool (M) from your toolbar and focus on the color settings. Remove the color from the stroke and then select the fill and set its color to R=255 G=29 B=37.

Move to your artboard and simply create a 150 x 350 px shape. You can either click and drag to create this shape or you can click on your artboard and enter the Width and Height values in the newly opened Rectangle window.

Step 2

Switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A) and select your rectangle. Hover over one of the corners of this shape and click and drag to easily turn your rectangle into a rounded rectangle, as shown in the second image.

Alternatively, you can select your entire rectangle, focus on the control panel, and enter 75 px in the Corners input field.

Step 3

Select your rounded rectangle and rotate it 45 degrees to the left. You can do this manually using the bounding box that's available when the Selection Tool (V) is active or by going to Object > Transform > Rotate. Set the Angle to 45 degrees and click OK.

Make sure that your shape stays selected and go again to Object > Transform > Rotate. This time, set the Angle to 90 degrees and click the Copy button to add a copy of your shape that's rotated 90 degrees to the right.

Step 4

Select both of your shapes and pick the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M) from your toolbar.

Hold down Alt and simply click the two sections highlighted in the first two images to remove them. In the end, things should look like in the third image.

Step 5

Make sure that your two shapes are selected, open the Pathfinder panel (Window > Pathfinder), click the Unite button, and you've got your heart shape in Illustrator.

Step 6

Finally, you can use a Warp effect to bulge your heart in Illustrator. Make sure that you have it selected and go to Effect > Warp > FishEye. Keep the Horizontal box checked, drag the Bend slider to 20%, and click OK to easily stylize your heart illustration.

Congratulations, you're done!

Here is how the drawing of a heart shape should look. Now that you know how to draw a heart in Illustrator, you can further stylize it and turn it into a more complex design.

You can find some great Illustrator templates and sources of inspiration at Envato. Download professional layer styles, brushes, and actions to improve this heart in Illustrator.

Popular assets from Envato

Envato is an excellent resource for heart shapes in Illustrator. Here's an example:

35 Illustrator Heart Shapes: Handdrawn (AI, EPS, PNG, SVG)

If you're in a hurry or you simply can't be bothered to learn how to make a heart in Illustrator, this small pack of heart elements might be the solution. This pack comes with a variety of hand-drawn heart shapes that can be used in any type of design.

Want to learn more?

We have loads of tutorials on Envato Tuts+, from beginner to intermediate level. Take a look!