Rotating without Rotating

If you're going to copy rotate an object around a given centre point without rotating the objects themselves, you can use the following technique that is based on envelopes. Let's say you've got a text object. Now:

• Select the text object that is located at the North Pole position for example
• Go to Object > Envelope Distort > Make with Mesh: 1 row, 1 column
• Copy rotate the text object (the envelope) with the Rotate tool. Like this:

• Then, while everything is selected, go to Object > Envelope Distort > Release. That's what you get now:

• Now, select one of the grey mesh objects, execute the Select > Same > Fill Colour command and delete the selection. Here we are:

kg

Illustrator 10 and above