One design technique you might want to consider is using negative space in
logos and in this lesson you'll learn how to use Illustrator to create this effect
of negative space. So if you're familiar with negative space already, you
probably are familiar with Edgar Rubin's vase. It's one of the most well known
examples of negative space. So you see either a vase in the middle are you
see two profiles of people looking at each other. And in logo design the
purpose is not just to see the negative space or the space that is not negative
space, but just really both spaces. A couple more quick examples and
we'll jump into using Illustrator to create negative space and some
techniques to do that. So FedEx is a corporate example that you're probably
familiar with. If you see it, is just a typographic logo of course, two different
colors but in the negative space between the E and the X, there's that arrow meaning
getting from point A to point B and that's what FedEx does of course
And another example Safari into Africa logo. It was created over in the UK at a graphic
design consultancy called Glad and they were doing this for a client called
Safari into Africa. Just a safari operator based in Zambia in the southern part of Africa.
And so you see this and you see an elephant probably first and then their name and then
the negative space between two of the elephant's feet is the continent of
Africa. So that's pretty cool. And this was really well done. This was for a book
cover design by Alexander Johnson over in Leeds in the UK and you can look at this and
you can see the M of course for Moby Dick, the great American novel and you can also
see the whale's tail right there but you there's also the harpoon right there
above it. So that's an effective method of negative space there. And another well
known example is this one for the Bronx Zoo. This is actually by Caroline Madigan
while at the Pratt Institute. This was a student project and it looks just as good if
not better than a lot of the
actual logos out there that are used by companies. So this one you can see in
the negative space, just the cityscape, the Bronx and then you've got two giraffes
and three birds. I think it's balanced pretty well and so I think that's really well done.
Creative use of negative space. And finally two more examples real quick.
The Guild of Food Writers. This one was by 300 Million, the design firm
and you can see there obviously a pen like an old-school pen that you would, almost like
dip in ink and then the spoon for eating in the negative space and it's
symmetrical there. You can tell. And then one more example, Spartan Golf Club. This one
was from Richard Fonteneau, graphic designer in Lexington, Kentucky and so you can see
the golfer there swinging, almost like in video games, you'd have that little level
thing there up at the top,
the radial pattern and then you can see that as the head dress of the Spartan as
well as the person there, the golfer is also the face. The negative space is between
the arms is also the eye of the Spartan soldier. So let's get started using
Illustrator to create negative space. Now if we wanted to do something like the FedEx
example, right. I'll just type in FedEx with the Type tool, click and drag the
corner here. We probably need a thicker font so for this example, I'll just go with Impact
and you'll notice right away it's not making an arrow so all you have to do, you
could distort it a little bit but depending on what font you have it's going to be
more difficult or more work at least but regardless, you just want to right
click over it with the Selection tool and then go to Create Outlines or
CTRL-click if if you're on a MAC. If I click on the X here, notice how it
selects everything else. What we need to do is go to Object, Ungroup so now I can use the black
arrow, this section will just be editing this one letter, now that I have outlined it.
So what I want to do is click and drag the top down so it's flush with either the
middle of either, bring it down a little bit more. That's probably close enough.
I'd zoom in if I was doing this actually, there you go. And you notice it's not
symmetrical so you'd want to fix that. You could use the white and hold SHIFT if you don't want it
to move it except in certain ways. So you really just detail that with the white
arrow and move it over to make it really customized, alright. So this, I could actually
bring over so it's flush. So we're getting there so you get the idea. So that's
a simple example of just having a negative space between letters, but for some of
those more complicated ones that were still simple enough to be a good logo.
What you could do for those is just use the Pathfinder panel. So if you have
some kind of shape, I'll just use the Ellipse tool.
I'll just draw out a shape here and I'll give it some kind of color. And so the
difficult way to do this would be to use the Pen tool, add anchor points along here,
and then bring them in with the white Direct Selection tool and try to create
some kind of negative space or whatever, right. We don't have to do that though.
With the Pathfinder tool, if you don't have it, just go to Window and then Pathfinder and that
brings that up and what you want to do is, I'll use the Pen tool and just create some kind a custom
shape here, almost like a spoon. It won't be symmetrical but I'm just doing the technique.
So we have that on top and then the one below, I'm going to make it a different
color just so it stands out, so you can see. So you have one shape on top, one shape below.
You just need to select both of them. Click and drag around both of them with the Selection tool and
if you hover over on the Pathfinder panel, you get Unite, Minus Front etc etc,
What you can do is click Minus Front and then it cuts that part out where the top part
was and then leaves the bottom part so there's some negative space. So I would
say practice with this by just creating different things. In another lesson I
show you how to use custom shapes from Photoshop and bring them over into
Illustrator. You could try that as well. Customize at first after you bring it into
Illustrator and then put it above another simple shape. There's a lot of different
possibilities like if you want to just draw, you know, some kind of wave here, right.
If it was a surf company or something like that and you notice it
doesn't curve enough. So go back to the white arrow,
bring that curve down a little bit more,
over there.
Same thing. Click and drag around
both of them and then Minus Front, alright. So that's negative space, the technique.
The principle though is you just want to create something in the middle or, it doesn't
have to be in the middle but often times it is, that has some kind of recognizable
shape that you might not see right away but you should be able to see it.
The average person should be seeing it and it obviously relates to the theme or
the branding of the client. Like for example, this one I made in literally
just about 4 or 5 minutes. It's got the negative space. You can tell those are just
you know, a fish and a bird. These are actually from Photoshop, those custom shapes.
So you would not want to use them in an actual logo. I'm just showing it as another
example again. You'd want to bring it over from Photoshop and then customize it, move the
paths and point around and then use it if you want. This is just another example. I mean
since the other one was a zoo example. This one is not that complicated but done with the
Pathfinder panel. In another lecture I do go over the Shape Builder Tool, the
Live Paint Bucket tool which can be pretty useful. But if all you really want to do
is take one shape and subtract it from the shape below it, it's so much easier and
faster to just use the Pathfinder panel and just use Minus Front. So have fun with that and
save it as some kind of raster file if you want and share it in the discussion board
for critique from me and the other students.
Alright. Thanks.