How to achieve a circle with variable stroke in Illustrator?

Question

Notice the circle around the "kt". It's a circle with a varying stroke. At one point, it even thins out and becomes absent.

How do I achieve a stroke like this in Illustrator?

Answer 1

Depending upon what you're after specifically, you could also merely set a Stroke Profile for the stroke on the Stroke Panel.

Answer 2

There are probably many ways this could be done. Others have mentioned the width tool, a predefined brush, using two circles, etc. Another method is to make a custom Art Brush yourself.

With the Pen tool, draw a shape like this:

Then click and drag it into the Brushes panel, and choose the option to make an Art Brush.

Next, draw a circle, add an anchor point at about the 1 o'clock position, and delete a small section of the circle.

Apply the brush you made previously, and reduce the stroke width.

It's even possible to make an Art Brush with a bit of a bump to create something that looks a bit like a brush stroke.

Answer 3

It's hard to see how this was achieved exactly dus to the low resolution of the image, but there is a couple ways to get a similar effect.

With a brush

Less exact control, more natural-looking effect.

1. Draw a circle.
2. Get out the Brushes palette: Window > Brushes or F5>.
3. Open the palette options for thus Brushes palette (the icon with four lines and a triangle pointing downwards at the top right of the palette) and select Open Brush Library > Artistic > Artistic_ChalkCharcoalPencil.
4. Try different brushes of this collection, varying their thickness until you achieve the desired effect.

With the Width tool

More control, cleaner and more clinical effect

1. Draw a circle.
2. Find the Width tool in your toolbox: (hotkey: Shift+W)

3. Click-drag on the circle's stroke to add a width point and set the width of the stroke there.

You can add more width points as needed, and using Alt / Option while click-dragging, affect the width of the stroke on either site of the path individually.

Answer 4

Have 2 filled circles with slightly different diameters. Subtract (=Pathfinder panel minus) the smaller from the bigger:

Stretching one of the circles a little to make it elliptic creates more variation possibilities:

But technically these are not strokes, they are filled paths. If that's a problem do as already suggested by others: use stroke width tool or an artistic brush.