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enter image description hereI have followed this video from Lynda http://www.lynda.com/articles/dekes-techniques-drawing-a-perfect-spiral-in-illustrator to try and make a perfect spiral for a logo I am working on. I've done each step but when it comes to the part where I actually bring the bottom lines to join with top ones Illustrator keeps jumping so the lines wont meet. I've looked at the incremental settings incase that was the cause but that is set at the very lowest (0.01 pixels). I've tried turning on and off the "snap to point" option but that doesn't make any difference.

This is as close as I can get and if I move it again it just jumps to the other side....

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  • Is this a really small spiral? Maybe scaling it up, positioning them, then scaling it back down would help
    – Ryan
    Jul 12, 2016 at 10:54
  • Is align to pixel grid turned on? (check in the transform panel, with the objects selected)
    – Cai
    Jul 12, 2016 at 11:00
  • Also it is not a perfect spiral if you make it out of circle halves. Youd get a better approximation with circle quarters. If you want to make an even better approximation read This post on spirals. Certainly the tangent fit could be better, offcourse standard beziers can not make perfect rational curves so no "perfect" spirals are possible in illustrator.
    – joojaa
    Jul 12, 2016 at 11:13
  • The scaling up totally worked. Thanks for that @Ryan.
    – CIDO
    Jul 12, 2016 at 14:28
  • @CIDO just left it as an answer then which perhaps I should've done originally. If you don't mind marking it correct so this doesn't remain an unanswered one -- the stupid "Community Robot" will bump unanswered ones forever
    – Ryan
    Jul 12, 2016 at 17:30

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Hum. I am afraid that is an incorrect aproach, regardless if the tutorial says it is a perfect spiral.

The error is that that figure has a "Jump" in the diameter every half circle.

A "perfect" spiral has a smooth continous progressive increment in diameter. Your specific model is an Archimedean spiral.

That can be minimimized using smaller fractions, for example every 90° make a smaller jump.

1) A real quick solution for the type of spiral you are drawing is that you install Inkscape which is free and use it to generate your real spiral.

2) There is another type of spiral called logaritmic spiral which is the one you see in sea shells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_spiral

If you need the logarithmic one, either you use this diagram as a basis to draw one. Extend the number of circles as you need

or if you have a PC, use the 30 day trial of CorelDraw which has a tool to create this kind of spirals in one click.

3) If you want to stay with your aproach Join the segments and fuse the nodes. (In fact, your spiral is not one but two spirals)

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  • I dont think you need to go to inkscape just to plot a spiral, you can do it in illustrator easy enough.
    – joojaa
    Jul 12, 2016 at 21:23
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    If you need a logarithmic spiral you can just use Illustrators spiral tool.
    – Cai
    Jul 12, 2016 at 21:27
  • I don't really like it because it does not starts at a center. But yeap You can probably simply correct the center of the spiral.
    – Rafael
    Jul 12, 2016 at 21:34
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Given what you've tried it sounds like its a very small spiral. Scale it up, position them, then scale it back down.

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