Making parts of Illustrator logo transparent - rather than faking it with the background color

Question

So a designer has given me some logos (for the web) which are white on a blue background. She has, however, added blue paths to the shape to make it match the background.

I would prefer to change these blue parts to be transparent.

One path is just a circle that should really be a circle cut out of the main image. The other path is a circle where the border only is blue. So the main image has a ring/"o" shape that should be cut out.

I don't know enough about Illustrator to figure this out. I've tried clipping mask but that's not what I want. Would there be an easier way to just take the image into Photoshop when I'm saving it for the web, and remove the color then? I don't want to have any fringes of color left if I go with that method.

Answer 1

• Select the icon
• Choose Object > Expand Appearance (if available)
• Choose Object > Expand (if available)
• Click the Merge button on the Pathfinder Panel

The above turns all strokes into shapes, then removes any overlapping objects. This will essentially give you a set of perfectly aligned blue and white shapes with appropriate "holes" in any areas where you would expect them, like the camera lens and viewport in your sample. Now, it's simply a matter of selecting the blue and deleting those shapes leaving holes in the white.

I'm sure if you explained to the designer you need correct shapes, they would adjust for you.