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Designing a logo

sam86ni

Member
Messages
86
I can't post this in the Marketing section for some reason, so will post it here instead.

Here are a few resources on creating a vector logo. You do not need to pay someone to do it for you, it is very easy, and it also means you can make adjustments anytime you want. It will inherently create a healthier business because you have full control of it. I will do one as well on how to create a website using wordpress when I create mine, again creating a website is easy because coding is a thing of the past, now mere mortals like us can create one with relative ease, and we are talking about high quality, not low graded muck that I see online, and again you will have full control because you have the knowledge to make changes. Anyway, here are the resources below for creating a logo.

Freepik - Free Graphic resources for everyone

Download Free Vector Art, Stock Graphics & Images

google

Now on these various vector sites, they will try and sell you premium ones, don't do it, there are tons of really good free vector images. Now so what do we do with these images, bring on the juggernaut, the poor mans version of adobe illustrator. Because we are not designing from scratch, we do not need professional software, we just need something that can chop, change, do a few minor things, and save things in different formats. The beauty of vector is that you can take a bit from one vector and combine it with another vector, there is so much free stuff online that you can practically make anything you want using inkscape to modify it.

Draw Freely | Inkscape

Okay so, now we have a few starter pack resources and we have our program.

A few tips:

What is a vector image: All you need to know is that a vector image allows you to scale up resolution without losing quality, simples. So this is useful for various applications: van, website, uniform, marketing materials etc etc, as these will all be in different sizes for the purpose, van being the largest; or maybe billboard if you go national /emoticons/biggrin.png To make it clearer, imagine trying to make a 200x200 pixel image larger, it will distort, if you have one on your computer, zoom in on it using windows photo viewer, you will see it looks horrendous when you zoom in, but nice and clear when you zoom out to default.

Vector image file type: You will not download these images in jpeg or png etc. You will download them in .eps or .ai. You are only interested in .ai.

What do I do with the .ai vector image file. You open up inkscape and choose file, import and locate the .ai file. It will load the file, and now you can do alot with the file, you will see that the image is now clickable at individual portions to create the graphic.

Saving the file: There are few different ways to save the file. You only need to worry about two, .png or .svg. .png is for the actual image, ready to go for whatever purpose, .svg is the file association for inkscape, so it is basically like the .ai file type, only now it is tailored for .svg - so just say you make changes to the .ai image file, maybe you are taking a piece of graphic from it, or you have made changes, you can export these into a brand new inkscape association file. Now one important thing to remember is that you cannot make changes to a jpeg or png file, once that file is either of these, that is that, that is jpeg or png if that makes sense. Only the .ai or .svg (and other file types which are irrelevant) file types are vector.

The last paragraph sounds complicated, but this is merely tinkering about with it and you will see what I mean.

Lastly, setting the resolution: Very very important part. So you have made your graphic in inkscape, now it is time to start using the logo for whatever purpose, this is when you want to turn it into .png which is an image file that is accepted by websites etc etc, universal image file types that are supported by all operating systems. So say the first thing we use it for is for facebook, this application in this case will be a different resolution to what you would want it for your van signage which needs to be alot higher. So lets go with the facebook example. Notice that when you are on facebook and you see the profile pic and cover photo, but when you click in them they might show more. Now obviously you want to see your full logo on facebook without clicking on it, it is going to look stupid if you can only see a small portion. So far I have worked out that 600x600 px works well for facebook profile pic. I will at some point do cover photo, but this is a higher resolution, so the settings will be different. A quick and easy way to find out resolution, is to go to a professional company's business page and download their photos, profile pic, cover photo, and post photos. Right click on these photos, go to properties, go to details and you will see the pixels; now you have the tried and tested resolution to work with.

The above is just a simple introductory. If you want to save a few quid on a logo, and want to have full control over changes, I highly advise to create it yourself. The only way to learn it, is to sit down for an evening or two and tinker about, and you will get the hang of it, the most annoying part is working out the resolution for a particular site.

FYI - The avatar on this site is best set to around 200x200 to see the full image without clicking in on it /emoticons/smile.png

As usual nothing is set in stone, and there are plenty of ways to accomplish the same task. Have a look about, and share if you have any recommendations. I would just advise that we shouldn't be paying for tasks like this. Maybe website, as it is a bigger task, again though the advantages of learning to do it all yourself outweigh the menial amount of time it takes.

 
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@daveyboy your a wealth of experience on here. I think of you as one of the lads and therefore forget your one of the boss men lol..although in no way am I promoting 'pub chat' on the site haha.
 
Just an update guys. I was wrong about saying that you cant turn jpeg or png into vector, which may be useful for people that already have a logo, but not in vector. so therefore you can increase the resolution say for your van. You import the image file and then click on the image and go to path and click trace bitmap. This tutorial may be of some use.

How to Vectorize in Inkscape | GoInkscape!

 
This should actually be a resource. I will see if I can move this to an actual resource in the resource section of the site.

 
Just an update guys. I was wrong about saying that you cant turn jpeg or png into vector, which may be useful for people that already have a logo, but not in vector. so therefore you can increase the resolution say for your van. You import the image file and then click on the image and go to path and click trace bitmap. This tutorial may be of some use.
How to Vectorize in Inkscape | GoInkscape!
If you have a decent resolution raster image (jpg/png etc) and you don't need to scale it up extremely, this will work out ok, but often it does require some manual editing to get a perfect result. It can't make gold from stone.

Source: been using inkscape at least weekly for more than 6 years, it's an awesome tool!

 
Just wanted to point out you've referenced freepik as a source of graphics, not sure about vecteezy but most if not all stuff from freepik you'd need to attribute the author ie: on a logo add on it courtesy of yada yada or on a website link to them and if you don't you're infringing on the copyright and that could mean conscequences.  Always check.

Inkscape don't use it much I do most stuff in photoshop but yeah it's as good as you say.  If I need to trace a shape I find it easier in inkscape then export it high res png to use in photoshop and if I need to convert to vector I use it.

PS eyup chaps not been on for a bit.

 
Just wanted to point out you've referenced freepik as a source of graphics, not sure about vecteezy but most if not all stuff from freepik you'd need to attribute the author ie: on a logo add on it courtesy of yada yada or on a website link to them and if you don't you're infringing on the copyright and that could mean conscequences.  Always check.

Inkscape don't use it much I do most stuff in photoshop but yeah it's as good as you say.  If I need to trace a shape I find it easier in inkscape then export it high res png to use in photoshop and if I need to convert to vector I use it.

PS eyup chaps not been on for a bit.


Hell not seen you about for a while @Dodger!

And yes your right a lot of places like this want credit for their work and rightly so. 

 
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Hell not seen you about for a while @Dodger!

And yes your right a lot of places like this want credit for their work and rightly so. 
Pop in once in a while Gav but post even less, seem to be always busy with something these days.

Looking almost like the old days again though so all good..

 
@Dodger i might remember my earphones on friday so you can hear my lovely "cockney"lol voice :4_joy:

Ain't seen you on here for ages

 
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