From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

761 Designing a vector-based logo in Photoshop

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

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761 Designing a vector-based logo in Photoshop

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- Hey, gang, this is Deke McClelland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques. This week, we're going to take a look at developing a logo. So, this is a logo that I'm really working on, along with this group called Design Your Basement, which helps people design custom basements, as you might imagine, and it features this negative space door that's opening to reveal the outside world, and I want to keep things really flexible so the client can switch out the outside world with an actual photographic image. I want to be able to animate this logo, as well, and so instead of developing it inside of Illustrator, which is the standard approach, I'm creating it inside Photoshop using entirely vector based objects, as we're seeing right here, which is a totally reasonable approach, by the way, as you're about to see. We'll also be working with a so called variable font, and this guy happens to be Acumin Variable Concept, which is built in to Photoshop CC. Here, let me show you exactly how it works. Alright, here's the entirely vector based logo, as created inside Photoshop. We're going to be creating it entirely from scratch by going up to the File menu and choosing the New command. Now, I happen to be working in the legacy version of the New dialogue box, which is less clunky and it does mask, so, in other words, it's better. If you want to be working in this dialog box, as well, then just press Control + K, or Command + K on a Mac, to bring up the Preferences dialog box and turn on this checkbox right here, Use Legacy "New Document" Interface. I'm going to cancel out, because I've already done that, and then I'll press Control + N, or Command + N on a Mac. Notice that I'm working in pixels, and so I'm going to tab my way down to the height value and change it to 2500 pixels, so both width and height are the same. I've set the resolution to 300 pixels per inch, which is going to make a difference because we're working with type. The color mode is RGB, the bit depth is eight bits per channel, I've got my background contents set to white, and the color profile is sRGB, at which point, I'll go ahead and click okay in order to create that new document. Alright, now we want to create a big vector based rectangle using the rectangle tool which is available here in the Shape Tool flyout menu, and so, just go ahead and click any ol' place inside the image window and set the width value to 1800 pixels, and set the height to 1700. So, very nearly a square, but not quite, just to allow room for the text, and now I'll click okay. Alright, I want this rectangle to be blue to represent the sky, and so I'll double click on its thumbnail here inside the layers panel, and I'll set the hue value to 210 degrees, and then I'll set both the saturation and brightness values to 100% and I'll click okay, and now, I'll go ahead and rename this layer sky. Alright, now I want to center the rectangle with respect to the canvas, so I'll press Control + A, or Command + A on a Mac, to select the entire image, and then I'll switch to the Move tool up here at the top of the toolbox, which you can get by pressing the v key, and then notice up here in the options bar, we've got some alignment icons. I'm going to click this guy first, align horizontal centers, and that's going to center the rectangle horizontally, and then I'll just go ahead and make it flushed to the top of the image by clicking align top edges, like so, and we're not going to leave the shape there, we'll come back to it, and now, let's add a couple of vertical guides by pressing Control + R, or Command + R on a Mac, to bring up the rulers, then I'll drag from the vertical ruler, over on the left hand side of the screen, in order to create a guide that aligns with the left side of the rectangle, and then I'll drag out another one that aligns with the right side of the triangle. Alright, now let's create some type using the Type tool, and so I'll go ahead and select that tool, or you can press the t key, then I'll click some place down here, and I'll go ahead and enter the text, which is, design, then carriage return, your basement, like so, and I want the text to be centered so I'll press Control + A or Command + A on a Mac to select all of it, and then, I'll either click on a center text icon up here in the options bar, or you can take advantage of the keyboard shortcut, Control + Shift + C, here on a PC, or Command + Shift + C on a Mac. Alright, now I want to be able to see my text a little better, so I'm going to raise the type size to 48 point, and then, notice the font option here. I'm going to click in it to make it active, and I'm going to switch to one of the variable fonts that ships along with Photoshop CC, specifically, Acumin, which is A-C-U-M-I-N, and then, I'm going to locate this style right here from this very long list of styles, incidentally, and it goes by the name Wide Medium, which very likely is going to automatically bring up the properties panel, and notice right here we have a leading value, and so, I'm going to go ahead and set that leading to 44 points so that the letters are a little tighter together, and notice, if I expand this panel by dragging down on this bottom edge, I can see these specific style sliders, which are going to vary from one variable font to another, and I'll see this Advanced button. If you click Advanced, you'll bring up the character panel, which I don't know if I think that's that advanced or not, but still, here it is, and I do need access to it. So, I'll go ahead and click on the all caps icon right there and then, notice this kerning option, I'm going to change it from metrics, which is how it's set by default, to optical, which will help to tighten up the text a little bit. Alright, now I'll double click on the word design and I just happen to know that the type size wants to be 109.5 points, and that's going to make sure that it fits exactly below this blue rectangle, and then, I'll triple click on the word basement, and you don't need to click very quickly, you can just click three times in a row, one, two, three, and that'll select that entire line, and now, we want to return to the properties panel, which you can also get by going up to the Window menu and choosing the Properties command, and now I need to modify these specific values, here. I'm going to take the weight value down to 350, and then I'll tab to the width value and I'll take it down, just by pressing the down arrow key twice in a row, to plus 113. Then, I'll press the Enter key, or the Return key on a Mac, to accept that change, I'll hide the properties panel, and I'll press the Escape key in order to accept those changes. And you know what, that's not quite right. I'm going to go ahead and triple click, one, two, three, on the word basement again, or you could do so on the word your, in order to select that entire line of type, and I'm going to take the weight value up to 360. I want it to be a little heavier, and then I'll press the Enter key in order to accept that change. I'll press the Escape key in order to accept my text, and now, I'm going to zoom pretty far into this text right here and I'm going to switch to my move tool, up here at the top of the panel, and I'll go ahead and drag this guy down so that the top of the I is in exact alignment with the bottom of the blue rectangle, and then I'll press Control + zero, or Command + zero on a Mac, to zoom back out, and I'll press Control + A, or Command + A on the Mac, to select the entire image, and with my Move tool still selected, I'll go ahead and click on align horizontal centers up here in the options bar, and that goes ahead and nudges the type a little too far to the right, so I'll press Control + D, or Command + D on the Mac, to deselect the image, and I'll press the left arrow key a couple of times in order to nudge the D, specifically, so it's right up against that guideline, and then, I'll check out the placement of the N, which is looking pretty good. Might want to press the right arrow key in order to nudge it back a little. I just want to make sure the letters look as centered as possible below that blue rectangle. Alright, just a couple of more changes. I'm going to move this text down 40 pixels by pressing Shift + Down Arrow four times in a row, so, one, two, three, four, that's Shift + Down Arrow, once again, and next, I'll go ahead and center everything vertically, not by Shift clicking on sky, and then going up to the options bar and clicking on this guy, align vertical centers, 'cause if I do that, I'll center each one of the layers independently. Instead, what I need to do is group the two layers together just by pressing Control + G, or Command + G on the Mac, and that'll put 'em both in the same folder, doesn't matter what the folder is called. Now, you want to press Control + A, or Command + A, to once again select the entire image, and then, click on that icon, align vertical centers, and that will center those two layers together. Then, press Control + D, or Command + D on a Mac, to deselect the image and ungroup this group, we no longer need it, by pressing Control + Shift + G, or Command + Shift + G on a Mac, and that is how you begin the creation of this 100% vector based logo here inside Photoshop. Alright, now, so far, all we have is one big blue rectangle, which is why if you're a member of lynda.com/linkedinlearning, I have a followup movie in which we create all these other shapes based on the blue one, and so we're going to create the green shape using the properties panel, the black shape using the white arrow tool, and this white door using four point distortion, which is a function of free transform. If you're looking forward to next week, we're going to replace the background with a photographic image. Deke's Techniques, each and every week. Keep watching.

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