When launching a new business, one of the important tasks you need to tackle is creating a logo. If you don't have a graphic design background, making a logo can be daunting. Luckily, a fellow graphic designer has made your life a little easier. Cory Romeiser of Golden Press Studio walks you through how you can make your own unique logo by using elements from the Screen Printers Branding Starter Pack.
First step — download the Screen Printers Branding Starter Pack.
Once you have downloaded the pack, you have two options to creating your shop's logo. One way is to use the pre-made logos provided in the pack. All you have to do is input your shop's name in the editable text.
The other way is to use some of the elements to design your own logo.
DESIGNING YOUR OWN LOGO
Open up Illustrator and open a new document. Copy and paste the design elements you want to incorporate in your logo. Cory uses a squeegee and a paint smear from the pack.
Write out the name of your shop. The pack comes with the Plant Shop Font, which is a bold, edgy font. Select the font that you want to use.
Now it's time to have some fun with the type. How you manipulate the type is up to you. In the video, Cory does a few things. He makes the first and last letter of the shop's name larger than the rest. Next, he warps the type to create an arch (to do that, click "Object," "Envelope Distort," and "Made with Warp"). Once you like how the type looks, make the type a shape by clicking "Object," "Expand," and "OK."
Next, Cory places the copy over the design elements and plays around to discover the best placement. After that, he inputs the ink smear and adjusts it to fit the words "print shop."
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The squeegee is a rad design, but with the text over it, the logo looks busy between the words and the lines on the squeegee. To fix it, Cory moves some of the lines around and deletes others. Some the streaks cut into the other design elements. There's a way to get rid of that issue. Select the streak you want to resize. Hit "N" on the keyboard to pull up the pencil tool. Draw where you'd like the streak to end. When the line connects, it'll redraw it, making the streak look the way you want it to.
Notice how some of the letters overlap chips in the squeegee? To make it look more realistic, hit "P" to bring up the pen tool. Draw where you'd like the letter to be cut off. Ungroup the text. Hit command 8 to make it a compound path. Select the shape and the letter. Go to Pathfinder tool and select "Minus Front." It'll cut out the shape you drew on the letter, therefore making it look more natural.
Want to have an outline around the whole logo? If so, select the main element (in Cory's case, it's the squeegee) and ungroup it. Select the element, click "Object," "Path," and "Offset Path." Illustrator will draw an outline across the whole design element. Hit "A" to switch to the direct selection tool. Delete the inside anchor points to fill in the whole design. Click on the design and flip the colors around from fill to stroke. Boom, outline created. Delete any outliers that do not fit with the logo. If you'd like, click on the stroke and increase the weight on it to make it more bold. Once you're done, select the stroke, click "Object" and "Expand" to make it a shape.
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ADDING COLOR
Not everyone wants a black-and-white design. Highlight the whole design. Tap "K" to switch to the live paint tool. Select the color you want to implement and tap the areas that you want to be colored in. You may have to go in and color in some small areas.
When you're done, highlight the whole design and click "Group." You're done! You now have a shop logo for your website, t-shirts, social — you name it. With a few steps, you have now made your own shop logo. Congrats!
