Designing a logo involves deep analysis of the company, their products, and values. One of the best ways to learn something is to do it yourself! In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a simple, professional looking logo in Adobe Illustrator. In fact, I’m going to create two versions of the logo, so you can choose the one you like best.
The company name I’m going to use as an example is Design Cats. It’s a small team of young and enthusiastic creatives passionate about fresh, somewhat funky, but still elegant designs. I’ll keep this in mind during my work to make sure the logo reflects the company’s spirit and identity.
I’ll use some simple actions to help you improve your Illustrator skills. Let’s roll!
Round Vintage Logo
Go ahead and open Adobe Illustrator and create a new file. I’ve decided to create two artboards with the following dimensions: 1,000 x 1,000 px.
The first logo version has a trendy, vintage look. I’ll use two elements from this set of badges. Copy the following designs to your file.
You won’t need all the elements here, so ungroup them by selecting them and choosing the Ungroup option from the Object menu. Now delete the text and the illustrations. I really like the ribbon on the white badge, so I’ll take it and apply to the black one.
As for the fonts, I’ve decided to mix it up by using three different ones. If you want to go with your own combinations, here’s a couple of helpful tools that will help you combine typefaces: fontpair.co, font-combinator.com, typegenius.com, and typ.io http://typ.io/. You should also check out these super helpful practical tips from Aaron Draplin.
For the word ‘CATS’ I’ll use the Seaside Resort font and for the word ‘DESIGN’ I’ll use Silverfake font. For the small details, I’ll use the minimalistic Caviar Dreams.
Select the text and transform it from type to outlines. You can do so by clicking on Type > Create Outlines. Now your text can be easily manipulated.
To add some warm but vintage looking colors, I’ve decided to go for yellow, orange and brown but of course you can modify them. My choices are yellow #EDB21E for the main part of the ribbon; orange #D95926 for the back part of it and brown #592B1D for the main design.
To add a little spark and fun to the logo I’d like to feature some cat elements. I’ll use one of the designs from this vector set. Copy the cat and make it white. Also place the ribbon a bit lower, just make sure its corners fit the badge.
You can now start placing the elements on the badge. First, move the word ‘DESIGN on top of the ribbon and make sure its angle is the same as the ribbon’s. I slightly adjusted the text height to make it a bit taller and moved it above the ribbon.
Now move the main word ‘CATS’ and place it on the left side of the yellow ribbon. Make sure its angle is aligned as well. There is some space on the right side where you can put the cat. You don’t have to transform it, just change its size so that it fits the design.
Select the words ‘EST.’ and ‘2015’, make them smaller, and align their angle. Put ‘EST.’ at the top of the badge, centered and ‘2015’ at the bottom, centered as well. You can decide to align them by eye but you can also decide to draw a line from the upper corner to the bottom and align all elements around it.
Voila, the first logo version is ready!
Text-Based Logo
The second design is much simpler, but could be a great fit for a company’s website. I will use one of my favorite fonts called Coolvetica to type the word ‘designcats’. 160 pt is a good size for this design given you’ve used the dimensions we’ve started with.
Select the text with the type tool and select the word ‘cats’ only. I will change its color to a nice yellow that will be in contrast to the black parts of the design. Use the following color: #F9A21A.
Now select the pen tool and starting from the top part of the last letter draw a tail-like line. Make sure to select the width profile 2 from the width panel and use a stroke of 18pt.
Zoom in to the letter ‘C’ and using the pen tool once again draw a stylized cat’s ear on top of it. Once you have created a shape that you like select it and from the Object menu select the option Transform > Reflect. Use the option Vertically and press Copy.
Now you have 2 cat ears. Place them on top of the ‘C’ to make it look cute and more personalized. That’s it!
Finished!
Congratulations! You now have two different logos for one company and based on what you’ve learned today you can create many more. Here are few of my favorite creative resources to help you create stunning, professional looking logos:
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