How to Design a Logo using various Tools & Effects in Adobe Illustrator

1. Course Trailer: Welcome to the course on 'How to Design a Logo using various Tools and Effects in Adobe Illustrator. In this course, we'll have a look at some of the amazing tools and options available in Adobe Illustrator and how a combination of two or more of these tools can be used to create some amazing logo designs. After an intro on setting up the Artboard in Illustrator, we'll have a look at the usage of different tools. Starting with the basic tools like Shape, Pen tool, Pencil tool, and then gradually moving on to Shape builder tool and Width tool. Apart from the tools, we'll also have a look at the use of options like Align, Pathfinder, and Transform to manipulate multiple shapes. Towards the end of this course, we'll explore designing a little more complex logo designs using the various options available in the Effect menu of Adobe Illustrator. Do check out the resources shared along with the course. These would be very helpful for understanding the course well, and, also as a reference guides for projects that you would work on. 2. Setting up the artboard: This is the main screen that pops up once you access Adobe Illustrator. For those who are unaware, Adobe Illustrator is a vector design software that is considered as the industry standard for any vector graphics, especially logo design. To begin with, we click on the 'Create New' button and then set the required dimensions, as well as the units in terms of millimeters or pixels or points. Then move on to choosing what color mode should we work in and what is the resolution that we want. Since this course is for getting you accustomed to the logo design tools, let's just set this at 1920 pixel width and 1080 pixel height. Then hit Create. You can change these dimensions even while you working on it as per your requirement. So, now what you see here is the artboard on which we work. This combined with the rest of the gray area, is called the 'workspace'. The panels on the right can be accessed from the 'window' menu and can be arranged as per your liking. This is how I have arranged the windows that I use the most. The section on the left here is the 'toolbar' where we have all the tools that we are going to explore in this course. Also, in order to keep zooming into the artboard while you're working on it. You can use Ctrl in case of Windows users, or Cmd in case of Mac users, along with the '+(=)' key. Similarly, using Ctrl or Cmd and '-' key for zooming out of the artwork. And, while you're working on it, If you need to move the whole workspace, then instead of using the scroll bars, press and hold the space bar to get the hand tool. Use this tool to click, drag and shift the workspace, as per your convenience. 3. Shape tools & Pen tool: The tool that's already been selected here by default is called the Selection Tool, which is just used to select and move any object that we're working on. Coming to the first basic tools. These are the shape tools which are used to create certain regular shapes, like rectangles, circles, and polygons. The Rectangle Tool, which you can either click on it here. Press the letter M on your keyboard to access this a tool used to create custom rectangles. You just have to click on any point of your workspace, hold it, and drag it to the desired location and release it to create the rectangle. If you press and hold the Shift key while doing this process, the proportions will remain the same, It will remain equal on all sides, and it'll create a square. Another amazing thing is if you press both shift and the Alt (Windows) or Opt (Mac) while using the tool, it'll create a square emerging out of its center rather than the corner. Also. In case you're aware of the dimensions you need, then, directly tap on the artboard with the tool. Then, set the required dimensions to create the shape. All these rules work the same with almost all of the shapes. We'll quickly take a look at all the different shape tools here. After the rectangle tool. The next tool is the Rounded Rectangle tool, which is used to create a rectangle with rounded corners. In this, the roundness of the corners can be manipulated in the Properties window here. If you click on this, it'll open up the Properties window. Then after clicking on the Properties window, we'll click here and then change the value here. If we tap on this, this icon, then the link will be removed. And now each of the corners can be manipulated individually. This window is also where you can manually enter the dimensions, the rotation angle, and other stuff related to manipulating the shape. Now let's go back to the selection tool by pressing the letter V on the keyboard. Knowing these keyboard shortcuts becomes very handy in the long run, especially when you're working on large projects. Now, let's right-click here to see the other shape tools available. The next one after rounded rectangle is the Ellipse tool, the shortcut L, which is used to create an ellipse, or a Circle when Shift key is pressed along and held. Now, the next tool is the Polygon tool. In case of the polygon tool, it creates a hexagon by default. But you can change the number of sides by tapping on the workspace, using the tool and then changing its value. In this way, you can also create a triangle. This triangle here is equal on all the three sides. But what if you wanted to change this? Here comes the direct selection tool. You can also select this tool by pressing the letter A on your keyboard. The direct selection tool is used to manipulate the shape by selecting each of the anchor points of the shape, which are essentially the Vertices of the shape, for a better understanding. Place them as per your choice. This is different from the selection tool, since the selection tool selects the object as a whole. Now in case of a Star tool, the default setting is five legs. But you can also make a Ninja Star by tapping and changing its value to four. After these regular shape tools, what if you want to create a custom shape on your own? This is where the Pen tool comes into the picture. Click on the letter P and access the tool. With the pen tool, you need to begin by tapping it on the artboard and then move to a different location and tap it again to create a straight line. And repeat this process in such a manner to create the custom shape with straight edges. In case of curved edges, start with tapping it first. Then when you move on to the different location, then instead of releasing it, hold the second point and drag it to create a curvature. And repeat this process. If you need a mix of both straight edges and curved edges, then click and start. Make the curve, then go back to the curved point and then tap on it to get back the straight-line version of the pen tool. And then tap on the next location. The pen tool is actually considered to be one of the most useful tools for any kind of graphic designers out there. 4. Pencil tool & Smooth tool: Here we look at something called the Pencil tool. The shortcut of which is the letter N. Like pen tool, the pencil tool is also used to create custom irregular shapes. But unlike pen tool, It's much more organic, without all the tapping and dragging, like the pen tool. Using the pencil tool is much more freehand. And this is really useful, especially if you're, if you're good at illustrations. In the same menu, we have something called Smooth Tool, which is often used in combination with the pencil tool. Because of being very organic the pencil tool tends to create some unwanted and extra anchor points in the shape, and the Smooth tool is what smoothens out the shape by reducing the anchor points, then you draw with it over the shape in this manner. So, this is how the shape of the object drawn using pencil tool stays intact, while there is a reduction in the number of anchor points, making it a little less complex. 5. Align options: We now have the Align window open here. The align options are used to arrange multiple objects on the art board. Let me create a few shapes for this one. Now, one interesting option to make a copy of a shape is to select it, then press Alt (Windows) or Opt (macOS), and then drag it to a different location to make a duplicate copy of the shape. You may continue the same process of duplicating to the same distance by pressing Ctrl or Cmd plus D, the letter D to repeat the duplication process. Now, we have the arrangement of these blocks of very different sizes arranged in a very unorganized manner. We will use the align options to arrange these. As you can see in the visual representation of each of the align options, the selected option gets set arranged in horizontal left, horizontal center, vertical center, and vertical top, and many other ways. Now these options here are used to distribute three or more objects equally with equal spacing in-between them, either horizontally or vertically. Here, you can also set the key object to guide the other objects' alignment by selecting all the objects, then clicking on one of them to make it at a key object. Now this object remains constant while the other objects are aligned according to it with respect to the selected object. Now, if we change the alignment to option to art board, then the same alignments now happen with respect to the artboards edges, instead of the other objects. For this course, we won't be getting into the Distribute options. as It'll be a bit confusing. And I find it not very useful when it comes to logo design. 6. Pathfinder options: We'll now look at the Pathfinder options, which are very interesting and useful when it comes to logo design. For this, Let's create multiple shapes and place them as groups of two overlapping shapes. For copying and pasting the shape, you must be aware of using Ctrl or Cmd C and then Ctrl or Cmd V But what this does is it places the copied object elsewhere on the artboard. But if you want to place the copy of the shape on top of the origin, you can do that by using Ctrl or Cmd C to copy, and then Ctrl or Cmd F to place it on top. Now let's look at what each Shape Mode does to the overall shape. Here the first option is the 'Unite' option, which merges the two overlapping shapes into a single shape. Next is the 'Minus Front Shape', which cuts out the shapes overlapping portion from the shape placed below it. Here, you also have the option to change the arrangement of the shapes by selecting the shape and right-clicking it, and then selecting 'arrange' and choosing the relevant option. You could also do this using shortcuts mentioned or also from the Object menu, and then clicking on the Arrange options from the Object menu. Now the third option here is the 'Intersect' option, which leaves only the overlapping part of the shape, deleting the rest. And the last and final option, which is the 'Exclude' option, does the exact inverse of intersect by deleting just the overlapping portion and leaving the rest of the shapes as a single unit. Also, it would be a good time to mention the 'Group' option, which is used to select multiple objects and make them a group. This is particularly useful when you're working with different shapes and elements which cannot always be, you know, United or merged together. But you need them to be carried together. You can do this by going onto the Object menu and clicking on group by pressing Ctrl or Cmd G to group the objects, all the selected objects. And then Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + G to 'Ungroup' them back into the individual objects. The next section here in the Pathfinder window is the Pathfinder section. Let's explore those too. The first option here is the 'Divide' option, which breaks the shape into different parts. Here you notice upon ungrouping the resultant, we get these two broken pieces. Now let's place two objects overlapping. Then select this 'Trim' option, which is used to create or sort of delete out the overlapping portion from the below shape to create such shapes. Now the next option is the 'Merge' option, which is exactly similar to the Unite option that we've seen already. The fourth one is the 'Crop' option, which creates the shape out of the overlapping portion and creates an outline of the top object. The next one is the 'Outline' option, which creates the outlines of all the objects along with the overlapping portion as well. The final option here is the 'Minus back', which is the opposite of Minus Front in the shape modes. This essentially deletes the overlapping portion along with the object on the back, leaving this final shape. Let's just quickly look at a time-lapse video on how these options can be used to create some interesting shapes and symbols... 7. Transform options: Let's now look at the Transform options. Let's create multiple shapes and keep them ready for the exploration. Now let's go to the Object menu and go to transform and select different options. To start with, let's see what 'Move' does. It's pretty straightforward. It just moves the object to a different location. Click on the Preview checkbox to see what happens to the selected object in real-time. Now let's look at the 'Rotate' option. This is used to select the object and rotate it by a certain angle. Now for the 'Reflect' option, you could either reflect the object like this - horizontally, vertically, or at a certain specific angle, depending on your application. Now coming on to the 'Scale' option, this is used to either enlarge or shrink the shape proportionally - when this option of Uniform is selected. If you select the Non-Uniform option, it is scaled up or down in unequal custom proportions. In the last option, the object's Shear angle can be changed to, or sort of convert a rectangle into a parallelogram, for example. And have similar effects on the other shapes as well. 8. Shape Builder tool: The next tool here is the Shape Builder tool, which is a very useful tool when it comes to logo design. This is one of the favorite tools of a true logo designer. To have a look at what this does. Let us just place some random shapes in such a manner. Now this is what the shape builder tool looks like in the toolbar. You can also access it directly by clicking Shift and the letter M. For using this, first select all the shapes and then select this tool. By the way, when you using a particular tool and you quickly want to shift back to the selection tool. You can just click and hold the Ctrl key on Windows or Cmd key on Mac to temporarily go back to the selection or direct selection tool, whichever was used recently. As we've selected all the shapes, Let's hover the shape builder tool. Then we observe that the overlapping portions here are shown as individual shapes. This is just a representation and are not individual shapes yet. If you just run the tool through the shapes, you'll be able to merge these shapes together as one single shape. Now if you wanted to deliberately delete the overlapping shapes, just hold Alt for Windows or Opt for Mac. And follow the same method like this. This is a very satisfying and fun tool for manipulating different shapes. Now let's just quickly look at the time-lapse video on how this tool can be used to create some interesting shapes and symbols. 9. Width tool & more: Let's now move on to the Width tool. This can be accessed by pressing Shift and the letter W. This is what it looks like on the toolbar. As the name suggests, this tool changes the width of the path of the object that has been selected. In case you have a simple curve and you want to turn it into the Nike Swoosh. This is the tool you would use for using it. Just select the path, tap on the section of the path where you want to change the width and drag it outwards or inwards to change the width of the path at that particular point. There are some other interesting tools below the width tool. Let's have a look at what each one of them does to the shape. This is what the Warp tool does. Now let's look at the Twirl tool. The next one is the Pucker tool. Then comes the Bloat tool. Next, let's use the Scallop tool and see you what it does to the original shape. Now, let's use the Crystallize tool. Finally, let's go for the Wrinkle tool. 10. Effect: Distort & Transform: Now, after looking at the amazing tools and options, Let's move on to the Effect menu and see what we can use for creating some interesting shapes and designs. The first set of options here is the 'Distort and Transform' option, in the effect menu. Let's just create about eight or so different shapes for each of the options under it, and explore what each of them does. The first one is the 'Free distort' option, which is used to sort of manipulate the position of each anchor point to create such a shape. It's not very interesting. Just a mere placement of the anchor point, which could be replicated with the direct selection tool as well. The next option is the 'Pucker and Bloat' option, which is used to create some interesting shapes like this. Similarly, this is what the 'Roughen' option does to the origin and shape. Let's now jump to the 'Tweak' option and look at what this does to the shape. This is how the 'Twist' option changes the look of the original shape. This can be used to create the whirlpool sort of look. Next, let's look at the 'Zigzag' option. This is what this tool does to the original shape. That's actually a really cool design. And finally, we look at the 'Transform' option. I had left this for later because this is a very interesting option. Now let's move the original shape horizontally and vertically in such a manner, and then rotate the angle of the shape. Now let's make copies of this with the same relative settings to make this amazing design. Now, here are some of the interesting designs that can be created using these options. 11. Effect: Warp: Now let's look at another option in the Effect menu called 'Warp'. The same can also be accessed under the Object menu - then going on to Envelope Distort and then Make with Warp. Now, here, Let's have a look at how each of the option changes the shape of the original object. The first option here is the Arc option, and this is what Arc does. To keep one sided same as the original shape. We can choose the Arc Upper, and Arc Lower options to create these two shapes. Then comes the Arch option, which is similar to the Arc, but with the other two opposite sides, or edges being same as the original. Now these are what the Shell and Bulge options do to the original shapes. The rest of the options, as their name suggests, are used to replicate the shapes similar to a Flag, Wave, a Fish, and a Rise. This is what the Inflate does to the original shape. The Squeeze tool has the exact opposite effect on the original... It squeezes it. Finally, this is what the Twist option does. 12. Effect: 3D: The final set of options here that we are looking at found in the Effect menu under the 3D options. These are actually quite amazing. The first option under the 3D window is the 'Extrude and Bevel' option which sort of converts a 2D shape into 3D by extending the area of the original 2D shape into the third axis, in this manner. This is a really cool option that could be explored way more. The next one is called 'Revolve' which creates a 3D shape out of the 2D shape by making one full revolution or a complete revolution of the 2D object with one edge just acting as stationary axis along which the revolution takes place. The final option here is the rotate option, which rotates the 2D object as a 2D object, but in the 3D space. It's like placing a 2D object in the 3D world and then just changing its position or the orientation. These are some of the cool designs that one can make using these 3D effects. 13. Class Project: As we have reached the end of this course, I'd like to give you a project to work on. I've made these symbol designs using only the tools that were explored throughout this course. These would be great for getting used to. So you may start with recreating these designs and then eventually, create your own amazing designs using the discussed tools and share them with the world. 14. What Next: Do share your class project and feel free to reach out to me either here or through my website or any social networks that I'm active on - I've mentioned all of those links on my profile. I love teaching on topics like Branding and Logo Design. So if you're interested, please check out all the courses that have published already and do follow me to stay updated about all the new course releases. This is a really great platform to learn any amazing skill. No matter if you're a beginner or an experienced professional, do check out all the amazing courses taught by extremely talented people. I'll see you on a different course. Till then, Bye-bye. And, happy learning.