Ever since my brother Dr. Lyndes Wini introduced me to Photoshop, I have never looked back. Back in those days, I had little choice so I designed using Microsoft Paint until he pointed me to what has now become my design platform of choice, Adobe CS. I have always been the kind to share and here I am sharing with my readers my first tutorial, perhaps it is only fitting that it should be on the first application apart from MS Word that I learned to use.
I am using a logo I created over lunch today for grafixFarm Designs. I am excited about the new grafixFarm Designs logo. grafixFarm Designs is my “fictitious” front for desktop designs/publishing and most recently web development. I think getting a logo would probably be the final step in getting grafixFarm Designs off the ground as a properly licensed business entity. I said licensed not a business.
The grafixFarm Designs logo like every good thing in life has naturally evolved and this is one of its evolution, one I hope will stay longest. Read on and learn some simple but very effective Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop hints to help you create that knockout logo.
Step 1. Design the logo, sketch it using a pen on any scrap paper.
Step 2. Scan your sketch and save as a JPG. Open Adobe Illustrator and open the JPG file as a new document. Enable Grid View and Snap to Grid. This gives you great guides as you trace or reproduce your logo. There are great tutorials on the web on how to do this. But here is my completed logo reproduced in AI.
Step 3. Save the finished digitally sketched logo as an AI file. You can save as an EPS or select all and choose Edit -> Copy to paste into Photoshop.
Step 4. Fire up Photoshop. Open the AI file or EPS, ensuring to use high resolutions when importing into Photoshop. Or select File-New and then pasting the copied logo into Photoshop.
Step 5. Here the fun begins. Transform the logo by selecting Edit->Transform-Skew. Create a perspective view by pulling on the bottom handlers outward as shown below.
Step 6. Next up, go to Edit>Transform>Scale and resize your logo by pulling only the top handles downward, giving your logo a more proportional look.
Step 7. Add a slight bevel to your design. Go to Filter>Stylize>Emboss and tweak the settings to your liking depending on the shape and size of your logo. I used the settings below.
Step 8. Here is a neat trick I learned today. While you are on the layer with your logo on it, press and hold the Ctrl & Alt button, and while holding them, click on the Up arrow key. This will duplicate the original layer over and over, but slightly above the original one, giving it a totally 3d look. Stop when you are satisfied with the outcome.
Mine turned out like this.
Step 9. Merge all of your layers together except the bottom layer. Depending on your version of Photoshop, this can be done in different ways. I use Photoshop CS so linked all layers by locking all layers then using CTRL + E to merge all the layers.
Step 10. Colorize your design by clicking on the layer containing the merged layers while holding the CTRL key. IMPORTANT: Add a new layer at this point. Fill in the new layer using a color of your choice, I used #F2890C. To fill the selection choose CTRL + BACKSPACE or ALT + BACKSPACE to fill with the fore or background colors.
Step 11. Apply Blending Change, I selected Overlay to produce this effect. You should be done. Now its time to decorate and apply other effects. Be creative and try anything. Mine turned out like this.
Housekeeping: The effect may not turn out as perfect and to get the final desired effect, I tweaked and cleaned up the design. It is never easy to get the perfect effect but a little creativity and work will do you no harm. However, these steps are not important to achieving the above result and so are not covered in this tutorial.
Adding the background can be done using the following steps.
Step 1. To reproduce the granulated background. I chose a dark gray color. Then selected Filter->Distort->Diffuse Glow. The default settings should produce this same effect. You can tweak to get an effect that works best for your design. You can also choose a different color as your base.
Step 2. Select the merged layer again then add a Drop Shadow effect to complete the 3D effect. Again tweak the settings to get the desired outcome.
Adding Text.
Once that was complete, I added the text using Myriad as font. I applied Bevel & Emboss effect, Layer->Layer Styles->Bevel & Emboss, to get the following results. I used Pillow Emboss from the Bevel & Emboss settings to give the effect that the text is engraved into the background. Tweak settings to suit design.
If you did most of the steps I outlined, you might get something that looks distinctly like my finished product at the start of this tutorial or something better.
Hope you enjoyed my first tutorial. Leave a comment if you wish more clarification. This tutorial is a compilation of tricks of the trade learned from other tutorials similar to this.
I hope grafixFarm Designs does become a reality and become Solomon Island’s premier web development and graphic design outfit. Who says we can’t dream!
Simple tutorial and cool! I like it! 🙂