How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion
This first tutorial at Spoon Graphics covers the process of designing a logotype, this particular logo created in the tutorial is for a fictional business named Purple Lemon, which immediately suggests a modern, trendy, possibly web/internet or design related company.
The tutorial covers the complete design process from conception to completion, creating a practical logotype that will work in the real world.
For a commissioned project more details on what the business specializes in, and their desired image and values would be researched, but for this tutorial the rather vague description allows us to create a more generic logo.
When designing a logo it is important that the final creation is practical, in that it can be used in everyday business life as intended. Here are some general rules that should apply to your logo designs:
1) Always design your logos in a vector application such as Adobe Illustrator, and not a raster application such as Photoshop, reason being the logo must be scalable without losing quality and needs to appear crisp when printed on anything from business cards to 20ft vinyl banners.
2) Ensure that the logo can be reproduced in a single colour, such as black and still be recognisable. Think how the logo will look on a press advert or fax letter, or reversed out of a black background.
3) Bear in mind that the logo may need to be reproduced as small as a postage stamp, so ensure that any fine lines or text will still be legible when scaled down.
4) Limit your colour palette and specify your corporate colours with Pantone or CMYK references to certify correct colour reproduction when printed.
5) Finally bear in mind your use of typeface, colour and form to give your logo the desired appearance of it’s business.
The logo that will be created in this tutorial can be seen below. Following the above rules this logo can be implemented on anything from a pen to full van livery, by designing it to work well in black and white, it can then be produced in flat colours, and then maybe even be given some trendy gradient and reflection treatment for use on screen.
Before starting your computer based designs it is always useful to sketch out your ideas with a good old pencil and notepad.
It may also help to browse the internet for relevant images and photographs, for example in this project it helped to study the shape of a lemon.
Once you have your chosen design(s) in mind open up Adobe Illustrator, and create a canvas in CMYK mode.
Use the Ellipse Tool to draw an oval shape and fill with a random colour.
Draw a smaller circle while holding shift, then duplicate it and place them at either side of the larger oval.
Select all three objects and select ‘Add to Shape Area’ with the Pathfinder tool and click Expand, this merges all the shapes into one path.
To create a smoother, lemon-style shape, draw a curved line with the Pen tool that follows the form of the graphic, and complete the path to form a shape. Repeat this on the remaining corners. It may help to toggle to outline mode by pressing CTRL-Y.
Select all the shapes and select ‘Add to Shape Area’ again in the Pathfinder window and Expand, this shape now looks more like a lemon!
Zoom in on this shape’s path and you will find a few unnecessary points, it is good practice to remove these using Delete Anchor Point under the Pen tool to give a smoother shape.
Next, select the shape and go to Object > Path > Offset Path…
Enter 3mm in the option box. Fill this new shape with another random colour.
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April 21st, 2007 at 4:57 am
Great tutorial!
April 25th, 2007 at 5:55 am
thans for this great lesson!
May 7th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
it ’s great !thanks a lot
May 9th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
This is a very good tutorial.. Excellent quality & very informative.. Thanks a lot.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:40 am
[...] How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion»» [...]
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
[...] How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion»» [...]
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:49 am
the tutorials in here are handsOn and effective…much respect
May 25th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Thanks for the lesson! Very well written and easy to follow.
June 5th, 2007 at 2:49 am
Can you please explain how to do this part?
To create a smoother, lemon-style shape, draw a curved line with the Pen tool that follows the form of the graphic, and complete the path to form a shape.
I can’t figure it out.
thx
June 5th, 2007 at 9:02 am
DJTrex,
Hopefully this will clear things up.. take a look at this screen shot:
http://www.spoongraphics.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/4.jpg
Where the smaller circles on each side of the large oval were combined, it left sharp angles. Basically you’re using the pen tool to create the triangle shape to follow the contour of the large oval and smooth out the angles. Do this on all four corners then Add to Shape Area with the Pathfinder then you are left with a curvaceous overall shape.
June 10th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
[...] How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion»» [...]
June 18th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! mbjswfcwyafsvf
June 25th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
[...] To start, open up your vector logo design in Adobe Illustrator, this tutorial makes use of the Purple Lemon logo from a previous tutorial. [...]
July 21st, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Good tutorial for a beginner like me, very straightforward!
July 26th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
[...] How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion [...]
August 6th, 2007 at 5:42 am
[...] How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion [...]
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:03 am
Great tutorial! Here is a link some more useful tutorials to design logo.
http://www.logoblog.org/wordpress/category/logo-tutorial/
August 30th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
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October 27th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
This is a really cool tutorial, can’t believe i’v only just found it!!!
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:08 pm
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November 7th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
respect, great tutorials, great site
December 6th, 2007 at 8:41 am
nice guide
thx very much
really helped me
December 11th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
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Wo kann ich filme downloaden?…
January 20th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
You help me a lot
thank you very much
January 29th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
[...] How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion»» [...]
January 30th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
This is the same process I’ve always used
You gotta start out with sketches, it helps tremendously. Otherwise sometimes you get lost if you go straight into illustrator. Excellent TooT!
February 5th, 2008 at 3:26 am
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February 10th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
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March 11th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Awesome tutorial man.
This will give me some good inspiration in the future!
March 12th, 2008 at 1:48 am
it seems like e very good web site but my Chinese is not good. It would be great if it might be availible in English too. Thanks.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I stumbled across your website while building my own portfolio. You help me A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your site looks fantastic and tutorials AWESOME. Many thanks x x x
March 28th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Good job.
PS I added this site into memori.ru
April 17th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Hey, like your website and respect your work! Very informative articles and a joy to read.
April 27th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Great site. Question: If I want to design a logotype for my business that I will eventually register as a trademark, are there potential copyright infringement issues with using existing typefaces in my design?
April 28th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
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May 6th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Thanx 4 sharing a great tutorial!