Creating and Adapting a Logo

Learn how to create an eye-catching logo and adapt it to fit a variety of device-independent applications, from business cards to banner ads, using Illustrator and Photoshop.

Introduction

• Welcome

1. Brainstorming and Development

• Identifying the client's brand objectives
• Sketching a few prospective designs
• A brief tour of the logo development process

2. Drawing the Art for Your Logo

• Documenting your design with interactive instructions
• Creating a new document for your logo
• Numerical sizes and coordinate positions
• Establishing a few custom guides
• Creating an element as a compound shape
• Drawing Saturn behind a rocket
• Fusing Saturn and the rocket into a single path

3. Setting the Type

• Selecting the perfect font for your logo
• Taking a first swing at the text on the Mac
• Formatting your logo with a free OpenType font
• Reshaping a letter with the Join tool
• Upping your game with a commercial font
• Tweaking letterforms to achieve a custom effect

4. Assigning Spot Colors for Print

• Choosing the perfect spot colors
• Adding Pantone spot colors to your artwork
• Modifying art inside a clipping group
• Streamlining your inks in CMYK
• Streamlining your inks in RGB
• Identifying and correcting spot-color mishaps

5. Adding Device-Independent Shading

• Preparing your logo for vector-based shading
• Establishing a base radial gradient
• Blending a second gradient using translucency
• Coloring a gradient with a blend mode
• Exporting your logo as a PNG graphic
• Scaling your PNG graphic to fit a large display

6. Adding Some Photorealism

• Exporting your logo as a layered PSD file
• Scaling a design to avoid antialiasing
• Masking a photograph into your logo
• Better integrating the photo into the logo
• Introducing a photo as a Smart Object
• Reestablishing the original color scheme

7. Changing the Orientation

• Arranging the logo into a horizontal design
• Copying a graphic with all blending intact

Conclusion

• Until next time