How can I do this flare in Illustrator?

Question

Need to recreate a logo which I think it was originally done in Photoshop, but I prefer the sharp edged vectors of Illustrator for the main part of the logo.
Please ignore all the greeny blue pink rubbish. What I want to recreate is the white flare with several long white rays shooting out.
I have tried using the flare tool in Illustrator (for the first time in my life) without much success, especially unsuccessful with removing the colour. Searching for flare tool in Illustrator forum did not bring up any results.
Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

So I should do this in Photoshop, or will the rastered flare still cause problems? Should I tell the client that the raster effect will not work when printed. At the moment, its just for business cards and for use on the Internet.
James,
You call this a "logo." The rampant overuse of this word (especially by beginners and amateurs--and no, I'm not saying you are either) is one of my pet peeves.
A proper logo is the cornerstone identity graphic of a commercial entity or product. It serves as the pristine "master" for all occurrances of the entity's mark. It is therefore built with exacting care, accuracy, and technical efficiency. It is also built to technically accommodate as many repro environments as possible to ensure consistent integrity to the design and reproduction quality. Its use is strictly controlled by its owner.
That's what separates proper logo design from amateurish, sloppily-built "wannabe" graphics and makes it recognizable among the deafening garbage-filled roar of the marketplace. A proper logo is key to a business's success.
That's why proper logo designs (among other things) consist entirely of fully-optimized vector line art whenever possible. They contain no application-specific "live tricks" that create substandard repro problems, or which cause the client delays and anguish in the across-the-board media and reproduction environments in which they are surely to be needed. They usually also avoid any use of halftone-dependent effects like fuzzy shadows and contone grads. A logo needs to be built to repro standards for everything from newsprint ads to glossy brochures; from web page to television ads, from vehicle wraps to polo-shirt embroidery; from storefront signage to engraving on a writing pen--and much more.
So that said...
No, I would not do this in Photoshop, unless there something in the design that just must be done as a raster image. And as explained above, that requirement is to be avoided whenever possible even at the sacrifice of the designer's infactuation with a raster effect. If a designer doesn't know how to attractively suggest the complex with elegant simplicity--well, then the designer is not a logo designer; that's what logo design is all about.
For me to recommend and demonstrate exactly how I would build the identity mark you have described would require answers to questions which, frankly, you should have been considering long before the day before deadline, such as:
How do you intend that specular highlight graphic to interact with whatever backgrounds it may need to occur on? For example, you mention only print (business cards) and monitor (internet). That doesn't tell me much. Will the business cards just show the graphic and text on the white stock? If so, what's supposed to happen with those portions of the white flare that spill over onto the white background?  That design is going to be pretty limiting if it always requires a non-white background, unless you make the non-white background part of the graphic itself.
Not having any details, I would just offer these general guidelines regarding logo design:
Forget any pet effects. A highlight star itself is not going to impress anyone. There's nothing distinctive about it, or any other such effect, no matter how you decide to render it. Whatever you come up with thinking that way will not be anything the jaded viewing audience hasn't already seen a million times before.
Think only about the message. Boil it down to its essence. Then come up with a distinctive and attractive way to convey that essence with as much elegant simplicity as you can.
Force yourself to be ruthlessly objective with yourself. No matter how much you "like" something toss it out if it is superfluous to the message. Ask yourself: "Why am I having to resort to a flare sparkle [or drop shadow, or grad, or...) in this attempt to come up with what should be a distinctive identity mark?"
Think of all the household-word logos you can, which you would instantly recognize anywhere. Then ask yourself: "How many of these employ any gratuitous, overused effect (sparkle, drop shadow, etc.) as an element of the logo proper? Dell? Pepsi? Adobe? Toyota? AutoZone? Prudential?
I know; I know...You're deadline is tomorrow and you just want to know how to draw a sparkle. Answer the questions regarding background treatment. Also ask yourself: "How can I suggest the essence of "sparkle" or "reflection flare" with hard-edged line-art shapes?"
JET