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An Elliptical Logo

by admin on 05/03/09 at 8:41 am

Create a new document that is 500 pixels by 500 pixels and has a white background. Draw an ellipse with a width of 200 pixels and a height of 120 pixels. Give it an ellipse gradient with a ‘white black’ preset fill. Position the gradient like this:

Copy and paste the ellipse and scale it down to be 70% of the original size (using Modify > Transform > Numeric Transform). On the new, smaller ellipse change the fill to solid #00CC00 and reduce the opacity to around 40%. Position the green ellipse like this:

Reducing the opacity allows the colour transition on the ellipse below it to show through a little. It gives the illusion of a green gradient that follows the grey gradient closely. Give the green ellipse an inset emboss by clicking on the Add Live Filter button > Bevel and Emboss > Inset Emboss and leave the settings at their defaults.

The green ellipse should look like it’s set into the larger grey ellipse:

We are going to add some text that follows the contour of the larger ellipse. Copy and paste the grey ellipse and scale it down to 90% of its original size. Move it to the left slightly by pressing the right arrow key a few times while it is still selected (the arrow keys move selected objects 1 pixel in the arrow direction; if you hold shift while you press an arrow key, the object moves 10 pixels). You should now have something like:

Type out your text anywhere on the canvas. I used a font of Vibrocentric, size of 15 pixels and typed something meaningless (zingo zango). Use a light grey, like #CCCCCC. Select the pointer tool, and while the text is selected, hold down shift and select the last ellipse you drew. Select Text > Attach to Path. The text is on the outside of the path and we want it on the inside, so select Text > Reverse Direction. The text is not quite where we want it – we need to slide it round the curve of the path. Enter a Text offset of 20 to do this. You should end up with something like this:

There is an optional step. To give your design an extra zing, draw a large ellipse like this:

Copy this ellipse and paste it. Move the new ellipse 10 pixels to the left and 5 pixels up to get the following:

Select both of the large ellipses and select Modify > Combine Paths > Punch. Get rid of any stroke on the new path, and change the fill to be white. This gives you the finished article: