Going Aqua

The Finished Product!This is the simplest possible tutorial for creating convincing OS X–style Aqua effects using only vector graphics. The Ultimate Aqua Button takes a designer step-by-step through Fireworks to create a simple oval button. Here are the advantages listed in the tutorial:

• It takes the fewest number of steps (for a technique that doesn’t leave out any design elements)
• It uses fewer objects to complete the design
• All the elements of the button remain fully editable
• The final button is made entirely out of vector objects

This technique applies equally well to other shapes and can be ported to other vector graphics programs quite easily. It’s a very interesting technique in that it makes Aqua-style graphics extremely portable in size, color and so forth and shows how an operating system like OS X could save on memory (sacrificing CPU) by rendering graphic effects on the fly as vectors instead of using prerendered bitmaps.