Dragon of Ice — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 21:40:34 +0000

I see.

I have most of my stuff on vector. The only thing that's not is the shield and the two lines that make a banner.

cordedpoodle — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 21:13:48 +0000

Paths are also sometimes called vectors.

cordedpoodle — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 21:12:47 +0000

Unlike pixels paths resize with no loss of accuracy.

I'm working from PHP 7 on a Mac so it may be slightly different but not too much.

Open up your Layers/Channels/Paths dialogue box.

Go to Windows>Paths

From your tools palette (the skinny one with the magic wand etc) select your pen tool. Use the pen tool to plot a closed path something like a circle. When you select on of the points keep pressing on your mouse as you drag away from the point you just selected. You'll see you are creating a curved line with "toggle handles".

You can go back later and move points and manipulate the toggles to change the sharpness of the curve.

Now look at your paths dialogue box. You'll see something like "work path" or "shape" rename that to make it permanent.

Now save your file as a .psd and the path will be saved. You can reshape the path later if you like using the points and toggles.

Now you can use the path to make a selection and fill or stroke your selection.

Paths and toggles are a little tricky to get used to but are also a very good way to make complex selections as you can change them easily to tweek them.

Illustrator is ALL about paths. It's sort of the paths dialogue box on steroids.

Dragon of Ice — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 18:59:06 +0000

I'm afraid I don't know what "paths" are.

cordedpoodle — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 18:48:50 +0000

Best then to set your design up with paths and save the paths. Then save the file as a .psd file to retain the paths. If you need to resize or change the logo later you should be able to do so.

It will of course require you to delete the existing art and then make selections using the paths and fill them.

However it might not be worth it for this project. We do our best with what we can depending on how much they pay us, right?

Good luck.

Dragon of Ice — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 18:25:01 +0000

I'm currently using PSP 6, and I received it as a gift a long time ago. I'm working on saving for a new computer, so until then, anything else is out of my budget.

I came up with something quickly. Definently not my best work, but just wondering what you thought.
http://www.freewebs.com/basskickin/demobrauorangecat.gif

Link won't seem to work
the site is.
freewebs.com/basskickin/demobrauorangecat.gif

cordedpoodle — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 18:08:59 +0000

It's best to use Illustrator (or Freehand) to construct a logo. As Sultan says you keep the images simple. Outlines, fills, simple gradients. Since Illustrator uses vectors you will be able to resize the logo with no denigration of quality. If you use a pixel based editor like Photoshop you will not be able to resize the image without damaging the quality. For instance a business card is small but an advertising brochure might need a bigger logo.

Photoshop does have some rudimentary tools (paths) which will resize but Illustrator is better.

Sultan — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 19:40:16 +0000

Thats great that you made it yourself. Good job.
I assumed you just used clipart or something.

Logo's such as the one you displayed and others like Uncle Ben's Rice, are very old school. They use images that look like art to become a symbol for their company. You have cat there, which is fine, but instead of using a real picture, maybe use the artistic effect in photoshop to make it look as if its drawn. Usually real pictures are not used in logos. Its mostly something that be used as a symbol, an icon.

Post up your next draft, I'm curious to see what you'll come up with.

Dragon of Ice — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 18:52:00 +0000

Also, do you think that the shield looks "OK" considering I freehanded and mirrored all the curves? I'm just a bit proud of my self:)

Dragon of Ice — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 17:01:32 +0000

I tried to make the top one somewhat interesting, but have multiple, simple, elements. It has to serve as both a label (the thing around the bottle) and as a small recognition. If you search for st pauli girl on google images, you get the logo:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=st+pauli+girl

When you go to their website, they use just the name (on the chalk board).
http://www.stpauligirl.com/main.php

That's why DemoBrau has a unique font for it's name that can be used when you need to get the point across quickly, or only have so much vertical space.

Though, just the outline of a cat may be a good idea. I'll look at that.