scale color:[NSColor colorWithCalibratedWhite:0 alpha:0.75]]; [[NSColor colorWithCalibratedWhite:0.9 alpha:1.0] set]; [[NSBezierPath bezierPathWithOvalInRect:ellipseRect] fill]; [NSShadow clearShadow]; Coding practice aside: If you're a good coder, you should avoid " magic numbers ". Magic numbers are unnamed numbers used without explanation in the code. They are considered bad practice (instead, you should assign values to a constant