Inspiring

Question

need help sorting dots on a circle

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
January 22, 2026
6 replies
159 views

Have to rebuild this as a part of someones logo: Artboard 1-50.jpg

struggle with the workflow to have the dots distributed with equal spacing on a circle (or 3 circles on different layers). If someone could point me to a german or english tutorial would be apreciated.

How-to

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Provinz, everyone,

I have just learned that the forums are planned to switch to new software by tomorrow afternoon, and that this and all other threads started between 17th November and the switch tomorrow will be unavailable until some day in March 2026, which means that the new forum will be starting with older threads and then the new threads tomorrow.

Obviously, threads unfinished by tomorrow will remain so during the following month(s).

Therefore it may be necessary to start over in a new thread based on what has been achieved, more easily if crucial parts are copied so they can be repeated.

Kurt Gold

Community Expert

You may also tinker with a Pattern Brush approach in this sample Illustrator file.

Dots 1

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Provinz,

Based on your original and latest screenshots, I believe this is a task for a few old friends among the tools, who can do this among them, see the sketchy steps below, step instructions can be added if deemed usable,

Click to get closer, Click again to get closer still

PROVINZAuthor

Inspiring

erm, yes. please. 😄
I can see you can do it, but how?
if you'd deliver steps would be appreciated.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Provinz,

The reasons for my only showing the screenshots of steps were, firstly that the drawing is much simpler and faster than a sufficiently detailed description of what my hands know how to do, and secondly that the actual steps and their simplicity or complexity really depend on the specific details of the basis for your rebuilding a part of someones logo.

Therefore, if you can use one of the other ways shown in the thread, including the ready document Dots 1 by Kurt, which I hope you have had a look at, there would be no reason to go further.

The specific details of the basis are crucial because presumably the new logo part must be as close to the original as possible, or changed in a specific way, or with a more indefinate way to roughly recreate the visual appearance.

Dpending on that, the work can be done in one go, or parts of it redone with mutual adaptations intil satisfactory.

Key details, each preferably to be establihed once:

A) More easily the exact sizes, or at least the mutual proportions, of the first and last dot in the dot sets, as well as the spacing, which is growing with the dot sizes in the original (very little) image/screenshot, which will determine the total length of each dot set;
B) More easily the exact size of the circle that the sets are centred on (or C will be more complicated), or at least the mutual proportions of circle and dot set length;
C) The exact angle covered by each dot set, and the two different exact angles between the sets (the top angle being larger).

PROVINZAuthor

Inspiring

Hey Guys, thanks for your feedback.
My problem remains, The dots have to be placed exaktly like in the above picture. I tried the Blend tool to get 9 circles but they overlap. i tried to expand the result and map the 9 circles onto a path. again, overlap. 😞 (see attached pic)
I´m sure there is a way to evenly distribute the circles on a defined part of the circle, but i lack the words to search for the tutorial that fits this problem.
problem.JPG

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

The distribute spacing should work after expanding and ungrouping the blend to avoid overlap.

PROVINZAuthor

Inspiring

maybe i was unclear, you can follow my steps from right to left. If i expand, ungroup and delete the round path between the dots in the left result, and then click distribute spacing the cicular shape of their positions is destroyed.

Plus, it would be a destructive method.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

If it must more look like your image, you could create a brush with a background rectangle that defines the space between the groups of dots.

Screenshot 2026-01-23 at 01.06.19.png

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

An Art Brush might distort the circle shapes a bit. What about breaking the large circle shape apart in 6 equal segments and then using the Objects on Path tool to apply the three groups of circles to three different segments of the large circle?

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

If I understand your problem correctly, you may want to use the Object on a Path tool.

Screenshot 2026-01-23 at 00.03.27.png

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