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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Great tutorial!
thans for this great lesson!
it ’s great !thanks a lot
This is a very good tutorial.. Excellent quality & very informative.. Thanks a lot.
the tutorials in here are handsOn and effective…much respect
Thanks for the lesson! Very well written and easy to follow.
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
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.
Good tutorial for a beginner like me, very straightforward!
Great tutorial! Here is a link some more useful tutorials to design logo.
http://www.logoblog.org/wordpress/category/logo-tutorial/
This is a really cool tutorial, can’t believe i’v only just found it!!!
respect, great tutorials, great site
nice guide
thx very much
really helped me
You help me a lot
thank you very much
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!
Awesome tutorial man.
This will give me some good inspiration in the future!
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
Good job.
PS I added this site into memori.ru
Hey, like your website and respect your work! Very informative articles and a joy to read.
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?
Thanx 4 sharing a great tutorial!
great tutorial!
i don’t think that’s a good logo. what about a reproduction in b&w. even a “web/internet or design related company” sometimes has to print its logo.
the tutorial shows a nice graphics design work but not the right way to make a logotype.
cheers, tobias
This is very informative tutorial
First of all: Great Website and great Tutorial
Now, Could you explain how to make the whole Logo look aqua (first picture)
Thank You Very Much