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How to Create a Logo

gusanitoverde

gusanitoverde

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 12, 2003
283
0
Northern California
Please advice.

I am trying to make a logo for an organization. The basic description, is that I am trying to mix a ladscape with a lighthouse and somehow place the map of the world, all whithin the shape of an oval.

I could draw the whole thing, as I could try to mix some photographs.
Now, lighthouses are not easy to find free of Copyright limitations. Even in clipart.com, they tell you that you may not use any of their pictures for any type of logo.

Please help.
 
You can Google around for images to give you ideas (looking is free) if you have no funds for this.

But the organization has more options if they pay for pre-existing images you'd be able to work with. For that, you can check out stock photo sites like Getty Images and Corbis.
 
What will they're logo be used on? Will it ever been blown up big on the side of a car, etc? Logo's should not have actual photograph images in them, since photographs are bitmaps and do not stay crisp and clean at larger resolutions. For a Logo you need to stick with vector shapes so it will look good at any size. Look around, Logo's are always shapes, never pictures. Your best bet would be to make a lighthouse custom shape in Photoshop and use that as part of it....
 
gusanitoverde said:
I have photoshop elements. Do you think it will suffice?
Click to expand...

Not really unless you work at a very high resolution.

If I was forced to create a logo in Photoshop only, I would start with a canvas of about 120-150mm wide and at 1200ppi, working only in black and white, no greys. Colour or halftones would come — if at all — only after I got things more or less right with the black and white version.
 
My advice:

Think of the most obvious, most "logical" symbol. Spend some time designing a logo incorporating that idea.

Once you've got one you like, destroy it immediately.

Your first and most obvious ideas are most often the worst, and by doing the above, you'll get out of the habit quick.

Now that you've got all the obvious ideas out, creativity will start to kick in.
 
Thanks for the advice

I really thought that i could use pictures, and some of my friends created the logo with clipart, which looks horrible, rather like a cartoon. I thought of creating the logo with just strokes, or something abstract. I have now a more solid idea of what a simple and recognizable logo should look like.
 
If you can reduce a picture to some simple brushstrokes, then that could be a viable idea. Me I have never got the hang of it. Must be something to do with having no talent or education in art.

Listen to BlueVelvet.

If it doesn't work the size of a postage stamp in black and white, then it doesn't work as a logo. Go back and simplify.
 
What you could do is create a composition of the imagry you want the final logo to sort of look like in photoshop, then bring that image into illustrator and retrace it, but do it more simplified.
 
bowzer said:
What you could do is create a composition of the imagry you want the final logo to sort of look like in photoshop, then bring that image into illustrator and retrace it, but do it more simplified.
Click to expand...
thats my first idea when it comes to logos, just modify the work slightly and its a whole new image. a simple lighthouse on a horizon would be simple enough for a logo, think of After Effects 6.5 logo, just done much simpler.
 
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