Custom-designed buttons have come a long way. We’re no longer tied to the standard HTML buttons dropped into our designs by the browsers, and there are many, many button styles out there. We see quick tutorials on how to create more complex button designs with gloss, shine, depth, shadow, texture, and general “make you want to touch it-ness”, and most of those how-to guides involve creating more refined buttons using several objects, vectors, layers, blend modes, etc.
I prefer to work with vectors and editable filters and effects whenever possible, because it makes it much easier to edit a design later when the size or color needs to be changed. I wanted to see if it is possible to create a more complex and detailed button with nothing but two vector objects: a button and a text label. Here’s how I did it.