caughtinthefire.com

Combining Basic Shapes To Create A Logo

by admin on 05/03/09 at 8:06 am

This project is a thorough exercise in combining basic shapes. Select the ellipse tool and drag out a circle 140 pixels wide by 140 pixels high. Choose any fill and stroke you like, as we will be changing them later. Copy and paste the circle and make the new circle 80% of the size of the original. Do this by clicking Modify > Transform > Numeric Transform and entering the following:

The reason we created this new circle by copying and pasting the original and then transforming it is because doing it this way ensures that both circles are aligned both vertically and horizontally. We could have drawn out the smaller circle manually but then we would have had to align both circles manually too. You should now have the following:

I used a light blue fill and a black stroke on mine. Select both circles by using ctrl-A and then punch out the smaller one from the larger one by clicking Modify > Combine Paths > Punch. This gives the following shape:

Be aware that there is a doughnut tool that you can select if you hold down the ellipse tool, and that will give you the same shape as the one you know have. However, now you know how to punch one shape out of another shape.

Draw a rectangle with a width greater than that of your doughnut and a height of 4 pixels. Any fill and stroke will do. Select both the doughnut shape and the rectangle and align them horizontally by clicking Modify > Align > Center Horizontal. Do the same vertically by clicking Modify > Align > Center Vertical. You should now have something similar to this:

Select the rectangle only and copy and paste it. While the copy is still selected, rotate it by 90 degrees by clicking Modify > Transform > Numeric Transform and entering the following:

Alternatively, and I find this a better method, you can simply click on the rotate 90 degrees CW tool found on the Modify toolbar. The toolbar looks like this:

and can be displayed (normally in between the bottom of the canvas and the top of the property inspector) by clicking Window > Toolbars > Modify.

After that last rotation, you should have the following:

Select both rectangles and make them one path by clicking Modify > Combine Paths > Union. The two rectangles have ‘melded’ together to form a single shape.

While this new path is still selected, rotate it 45 degrees, to arrive at the following:

Because the new path rotated around its centre we don’t have to align the shapes; they are still aligned horizontally and vertically.

Select both shapes and punch the cross shape out of the doughnut shape to give the following:

It’s starting to look funky. Lets remove the stroke, give the shape a white fill and add an inner shadow:

For the inner shadow, I used the following settings, but feel free to experiment.

Now drag out a green (#00CC00) rectangle 20 pixels by 80 pixels inside your shape. Don’t worry whether it’s ‘lying down’ or ‘standing up’. Copy and paste it, then rotate it 90 degrees to get the following:

Notice that my shapes aren’t centred (yet). Select both the new rectangles and union them (Modify > Combine Paths > Union). Select the new cross shape and the circular shape and align them both horizontally and vertically (Modify > Align > Center Vertical, and then Horizontal). Your shapes are now centred.

Drag out a rectangle 40 pixels by 40 pixels. Don’t worry about centring it just yet. Copy and paste it and then increase the size of the copy by 10% (Modify > Transform > Numeric Transform > Scale by 110%). In the layers palette, drag the larger rectangle below the smaller rectangle. We are going to punch the smaller rectangle out of the larger one so the smaller one must be above the larger one. Perform the punch as you have done previously. You should now have:

Select everything and align horizontally and vertically. Deselect everything by using ctrl-D and then select the punched rectangle shape and the cross shape. Make sure that in the layers palette the rectangle is above the cross, because we are going to punch the rectangle out of the cross. Do that now to get the following:

We need to break apart the green shape so that we can change the colours of its component parts. While the central green shape is still selected, click Modify > Combine Paths > Split. Although the design doesn’t look any different, the green shape has been broken into 5 parts.

Select the central cross shape and change its colour to #EEEEEE. Then, select the 4 remaining green rectangles and reduce their opacity to 25%. The opacity setting can be found in the property inspector:

You should now have something that looks like this:

All that remains is to add some text. I used a font of Vibrocentric: