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Adobe PhotoshopI will be using Adobe Photoshop CS2 to design this logo. Many swear by illustrator, but I believe for thepurposes of making a tutorial, it'd be best to use photoshop as it will cater to a wider audience. Morepeople have used photoshop than Illustrator. Besides, I've created 95% of all my logos in Photoshop, sotake what you will.Let's Start : The ProjectA buddy of mine runs a gaming website, bluelaguna.net, and he has wanted a new logo for some time, soI agreed to do it for this tutorial. So let's take a look at the current logo:

(Note:The image above isn't a logo, it's an entire header. The actual name bluelaguna.net along with theslogan is the actual logo. I thought it would be a good idea to show the entire header though to see how itreacts with the overall design.)One of the most important things this logo lacks is readability. When a user visits a web site, or visits anymedium in which a logo is displayed, the first thing that hits them should be the logo. And for somereason or another, the first place us humans look is the upper left hand corner of a site. The current logois placed in the middle of the header and the small font and the dark blue in "BLUE" is hard to read.There's also nothing exciting with this logo. For a logo to be effective, it has to "brand" an image, it needsto stick in your head. All this logo is is times new roman on caps lock.

Now that we've gone over why their current logo is not suitable, let's begin with the actual tutorial. Gathering InformationIt's important to always know the specifics of what you or the client is looking for before you start.Generally for most projects, I only need to ask the client 5 questions:

1. Name of the service/product: BlueLaguna.Net2. Any slogans to use?:

"Your #1 Source for RPG Media"

3. Any specific color schemes in mind?: Match the current design4. What are you trying to convey through thelogo?: Serious game-related site.5. Any other specifics: You don't have to use the current header design. Get

crackin'Pretty straight forward, now we know what we have to work with.

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1. Setting up your Document in Photoshop Once you have photoshop open, go to File -> New. Then specify the name of the logo, and a

width of 600 and a height of 500.

Then click "OK" (Refer to the screenshot below).

After you click "OK" Your setup should look like this:

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(I'm on a 1600x1200 resolution.) For the menus on the left, I have the layers view, and the Characters in

view.)2. Experiment with Font SelectionsAs a starting point, I always experiment with a font that I think will work well with the logo. You have todevelop an eye for what font will or will not work, with the specifics of the project in mind. Since forbluelaguna we're trying to focus on a serious yet gamer'ish feel, a serious font selection might be the bestbet. Having yourself an arsenal of fonts is very important. I have several thousand myself.

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Select the Text Tool on the left menu: (As shown on the image to the right) Adjust the settings on the Text Properties at the top to match these settings:

In the character window to the right, set AV to -60as shown below: (This simply shortensthe space between each separate character, I like starting out with this setting, I don't knowwhy :)

Type "BLUE LAGUNA" in the document space (First, be sure that the background is white,you can use the fill tool for this. And I've decided to go with all caps to start out with, since allcaps is generally deemed more serious).

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With the type tool selected, and layer 1 selected, select the font list menu (where it says

Arial):

You can do this next section in either three ways. - Hit the "Down" arrow to change the font view of "BLUE LAGUNA".- Hit the Down Arrow of the Font List to see the list of available fonts with a tiny preview of thefont.- Download a font viewing program.

I personally just use the first method, although I sometimes use a font viewing program. Ourgoal here is to find fonts that might work with the logo.

Once you come across a font that looks like it could work, you should Duplicate the layer inthe Layers Window to the right, and then hide the previous layer (The layer you right clicked

and selected "Duplicate" from. This way, you've saved that font selection (the hidden layer),and you have a new layer to find more fonts from):

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3. Good and Bad Font SelectionsSince our goal with this particular logo is to be serious, we need serious looking fonts. It simply takes timeto develop an eye for what is serious and what isn't.

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Here are a few examples of bad fontselections for this project:The first logo (the top), has a very laid back, fun /unprofessional tone to it.The second logo is simply "goofy" looking, andit's generally always bad to select a logo that hasan inherent shadow.The third logo is way too "ragged" with its frills allover the place, definitely a no go.Calligraphy logos are generally outdated,especially ones with weird "drops" coming fromthem.The last logo you can hardly even read.

Remember, a logo should be easily readable.

Here are a few examples of good fontselections for this project:All of these logos with the exception of 4 and 6are pretty much similar.

#1, 2, 3 & 5 are all very simplistic and serious inappearance.Logo 4 still appears "serious" even though it issignificantly different from the rest. I chose this

just in case I want to experiment with piecingtogether fonts for the word "Blue" and "Laguna". Logo 6 is a very bold / italicized logo that saysnothing but serious.

4. Finalizing a Font SelectionOnce you have some possible font selections, each in their own layer, you further analyze them and seewhich works. With logos that have more than one word, most of the time it is good to separate theappearance of the words from each other. Since this particular project has two words, "Blue" and"Laguna", we're going to want to separate them by possibly choosing two different fonts. You can alsoseparate words from each other by keeping the same font, but changing the color. So I'm going toexperiment with the 6 good font selections above.

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This is what I've come up with:Although I didn't use one of the 6 fonts I selected initially for the word "blue", I simply used an unboldened versionof "LAGUNA", which keeps a consistent feel but also allows for separation of the two words.

5. Adding in a symbolSometimes logos work well with only the use of fonts, but most times adding in a relevant symbol of somesort will really make a logo stand out. When I say "symbol", I mean any part of the logo which isn't actualtext. So let's start with the first font selection from above:

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Now here is where having an eye for design and experience is a really big help. We need to begincontemplating ideas of what exactly we can add to this logo to make it awesome. So, the first thing I do is

just sit there and stare at the font selection and think of what exactly the product/service/site is all about.Well, BlueLaguna.Net is about gaming, more specifically speaking, it's a site that offers RPG media (RolePlaying Game) media. Therefore, we have two things to work with: RPG and Media. What exactly can weassociate with both RPG and Media? Well, we don't necessarily have to convey both RPG and Mediathrough the logo (if you try to get too complex, the logo will become cluttered). We can choose one or theother if we want. I think it'd be most logical to focus on the whole RPG aspect, as you can find media allover the place and it isn't an entirely unique concept.

So let's do some research on Role Playing Games. We need to figure out a symbol which can really

represent RPG. The current BlueLaguna.Net features a 3d female, perhaps that has something to do withRPG? Well, let me do a search on images.google.com for "RPG". The results turn back a few differentfemale characters, Hmm! The first few results, keeping in mind the 3d female character on the currentheader of bluelaguna.net, seem to suggest that depicting a female in the logo might be the best bet. Italso seems that weaponry / mystical environments are associated with RPG as well.Now that I know what I can associate with RPG, I can come up with some possible ideas for a symbol. Ithink maybe featuring a face of one of these RPG'ish females with maybe a hint of mysticism.

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The Pen Tool is your FriendThe most important tool when it comes to logo design is the pen tool. If there is one tool to thoroughlyunderstand, it should be the pen tool. The pen tool allows you to create any shape(s) you want, andmaintain vector format (which is very important if you ever want to size your logo up n' down (forprofessional print or whatever.)It's always good to draw your logo by hand without copying over a picture (vector tracing), but if you aren'tvery talented and don't have much experience, it might be your only option. So for the sake of making thebiggest impact on this tutorial, I will teach you all an awesome technique for creating great lookingsymbols for you logos.Finding a suitable pictureIf you're going to trace, I always suggest using a site like istockphoto.com to find the image and pay for it.This way you won't be using copyrighted images to trace over. Or taking your own picture to trace over.Unfortunately though, istockphoto has nothing with RPG or "anime". So I just went on images.google.comand found a picture which I think is suitable, here it is:When I came across this picture, I got the idea that I can vectortrace over her face and hair to create what I want, and thenintegrate it along with the font selection in some unique way.

So once you've found the picture you want to trace (if not the sameone), save it to your hard drive, open it up in photoshop, CTRL-A,CTRL-C to select it and copy it, and go back to your main logodocument and CTRL-V.

Now you've imported this picture into your logo document. Once

you've imported it, with her layer selected, you can cut off thebottom half of her body. (Select the first tool in the upper left cornerof the tools menu, Rectangular Marquee Tool), select the bottomhalf of her body and hit the delete key. Your screen should looksomething like this by now (You can hide the text layers behind it).

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Vector TracingNow select the magnifying glass in the tools menu and select around the girl, it will look like this zoomedup to about 400%:

Now select the pen tool in the tools menu:

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Make sure that the foreground color (the black square at the bottom of the pic to the upper right ---^) isthe same dark blue color of the text we specified.In the layers window to the right, select the little round circular > icon on the upper right corner of thewindow, and click on "Create New Layer" in the window that comes up. Hit "OK" and then in the layerswindow, with the new layer selected, change the Opacity to 0%. We do this because once we start tracingover the image, we don't want the dark blue color hiding the picture of the girl below.And with the pen tool selected, click a point somewhere on the outline of the hair (at the top), and thenclick to make another point somewhere on the hairline where the line will begin to form. You can holddown and "direction" the angle of the line to create a certain type of curve. It takes awhile to get the hangof, but it's very easy once you get the hang of it. After plotting points of an entire section of hair, yoursshould look similar to this: (Note: I've lightened the opacity of the girl to illustrate what your lines shouldlook like so far)

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(opacity 100%)

It's not perfect, but for now it's a good start.

Now I'm simply going to continue creating more shapes, like the facial features. After 15-20 minutes or soof creating the different facial features and the face itself, here is what I have come up with:As you can see, I specified a different color for the face (light blue).And by now I have around 15 different layers. There's a separate layerfor the top portion of each eye, the bottom portion of each eye, themiddle, and the small glare. There's also a layer for the facebackground, and the ear.

So let us continue and add some shading...

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After about 20 more minutes of shading, this is what I've come up with:

There are a total of 3 different layers for the hair. It's somewhat of atedious process to do hair shading simply because there's a lot ofstrands of hair! But you have to just condense them and get the

general idea of the shading and it will work out well.

Then I did some light shading work on the face and the neck.Now I consider the actual draft of the symbol complete. Let's make ourinitial text layer visible and see what we can do to integrate the symbolwith the text.First, you will want to select the very last to the very first vector layer that you created (you'll have acouple dozen or more), hold down the shift so you can select them all. Then in the layers window click thelittle circular round button and select "New Group From Layers". This will put all of the layers of the girl,into one easily manageable layer group. This way, you can move around the one group and it will keep allof their positions together so it won't break up her face.

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Now this actually doesn't look too bad, in and of itself. But the proportion of the anime head is too big, inrelation to BLUELAGUNA. So we will want to scale down the head. Let's try moving it over to the left, andadding the slogan + the ".net" text. This is what it looks like:

Now it looks pretty damn good eh? The only other thing I did, was with the pen tool, I added a whiteshape over the "B" in "BLUE" so that the face doesn't collide with the B.

Unfortunately I messed up and didn't design this over the dark blue'ish background that thebluelaguna.net has. So I'm going to change the colors of the logo to fit a background of an appropriateheader for the site.

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As you can see, simply changing colors around can really change the look and feel of a logo. I'd considerthis logo a winner.

6. ConclusionI can pretty much guarantee you that if you're a first time user of the pen tool or photoshop for that matter,it won't turn out so pretty like mine did. It takes some time and patience to really get the hang of it. It's allabout getting a little creative and working at it for awhile.