caughtinthefire.com

Creating A Logo Using Primitive Shapes

by admin on 04/03/09 at 10:16 pm

Although the pen tool is a good tool for creating vector artwork, getting perfect curves and symmetry in your shapes can be difficult. Often it is easier to combine basic shapes to produce the desired shape. The following project uses basic shapes in this way.

Create a new document with the following attributes:

The dimensions of the finished image will be smaller than the ones we have specified here; the ones we are using are to give us enough space to work in.

The resolution you specify here is redundant for screen images as the image is always rendered at the resolution of the viewer’s monitor. You will get the same quality whether you specify 1 pixel/inch or 300 pixels/inch. For this project, simply leave resolution at the default of 72 pixels/inch.

If the magnification of the document is not set to 100%, double click the zoom tool to set it to 100%.

Select the rectangle tool (see above) and drag out a rectangle anywhere in the document with the following properties:

Select the pointer tool by pressing V. With the cursor over one of the rectangle’s sides hold down alt. The cursor should change white. While holding down alt, drag the cursor to the right and down to copy and move the rectangle. You should now have something like this:

Select the pointer tool by pressing V. With the cursor over one of the rectangle’s sides hold down alt. The cursor should change white. While holding down alt, drag the cursor to the right and down to copy and move the rectangle. You should now have something like this:

First of all remove the stroke and then use the scale tool to increase the shape’s size so you can see what you are doing (drag the corner handles to constrain proportions). Give this shape a linear gradient fill with a starting colour of #ffffff and an ending colour of #009900. Change the gradient direction like so:

Copy and paste the shape, and rotate the new shape by 90 degrees counter clockwise. Position both shapes like this:

To get both shapes aligned like this, select them both and click Modify > Align > Bottom.

We will now incorporate a complementary colour to make the design more visually appealing. The colour that we will use is #961373. Select the shape on the right and edit its gradient. Make the end colour of the gradient #961373 and adjust the direction so you get the following:

We will now add some depth to the design by applying an inner shadow. Select both shapes and add an inner shadow with the following properties:

Feel free to experiment with your own settings. Applying the inner shadow gives us the following:

All that is left is to add some text to the logo. For my text I chose the Steelfish font and used the two colours already in the design: