How to align different objects in a pattern to a spiral increasing in size?

Roxanne,

I believe this is one of the obvious uses of the 1 step blend fake:

When you wish to have undistorted objects distributed along (part of) a circle (or another curved path which may be done similarly) and you know the number of objects, you may use the 1 step fake blend (for each set of objects if you have more sets to be distributed), with some preparation to make things fit together:

1) First place the objects on a straight horizontal line as they would be on a straight path, with a copy of the first object as the last object (only) if you have a closed path and wish to have the objects go all the way round;

2) With the centre Reference Point selected in the Transform palette use the X values of the first and last objects to establish the total width (which must be measured centre to centre) for the next steps;

3) Create the curved path, copy it in front of itself if you wish to retain the actual curved path behind the objects then lock/hide the original and work with the copy, then cut the path (if not ending there already) where you want the centre of the first/last object and establish the total path length, you should be able to see it in the Document Info palette; for a full circle just cut at the start/stop (coinciding), for a partial circle or similar curved path cut in two places;

4) Adapt the size of the objects 1) or the circle 3) so that the width and the path length become identical; you may use the Transform palette and multiply/divide the value in the W or H box by the quotient of the two lengths (just add * or / and then the number) and press Ctrl/CmdEnter to retain proportions;

5) Object>Blend>Options>Specified steps, set the value to 1 and set Orientation to Align to Path;

6) Select all the objects and Object>Blend>Make, create a copy just in case (now you have some distorted shapes between the objects, but not for long);

7) Select the Blend from 6) and the circle from 3) and Object>Blend>Replace Spine;

8) Object>Blend>Release, and you may also delete the last object on top of first object if you have the objects going all the way round a closed path;

9) Enjoy.

You can see a screenshot from a somewhat different use in post #8 in this recent thread:

How to wrap a bar chart around a circle?

You could create the pattern with pattern brushes and the change in size with a width profile.

But the pattern brush will distort the pattern slightly.

You could also try a blend, but this only works when all the pattern shapes are identical.