We've drawn a lot of shapes just using a pen or pencil and paper and that is
important in the logo design process but I just want to go over some free form tools
tools that you can use in a logo design context to create custom shapes like
this. So this is just one of many examples. So go ahead and create a new file in
Illustrator and if you use the Pencil tool, a lot of times this is overlooked. Now you can of
can of course use some kind of tablet but even if you're using a mouse,
it can still be pretty useful. You can create custom text like let's say I
was creating an S here and drawing it out. What's neat about it is that you can
go back and then customize it even more. So I have the white Direct Selection tool.
Let me add a Fill here and then you can click and drag and move these things around.
If you have too many points, you can zoom in
and we can delete those and move them around. And if you click and drag around
two of them and again, Object, Path, Join or CTRL or Command J, it will join them.
You can customize them after the fact
for some custom text in a logo. So if you are doing some kind of surf company, surf
shop you can use this to create custom text so it just doesn't look generic like
you're just typing something in with the common font. Or you can use a font of
course and then customize it as we've gone over in another lecture. So with
this you can also use the Pen tool, right. If I just click, click and drag, just
free-form drawing is pretty useful like so.
And that's a little bit large, I'm just showing you the technique
So the Pen and Pencil tools, don't underestimate them when you're drawing
in Illustrator. You can also use the Pen and Pencil tools to create custom shapes.
Like for example, I'll just do the one I showed earlier. With the Pen tool selected, just
click and let go, click and drag. I'm going to reset that angle there so I'm going click on
this again to reset the angle and then click and drag over here. So now we have
a custom leaf shape, right. So one of the main things we could do. We can go to
Object and then Transform, Transform Each and then we need it to be divisible by
360 so I'm going to rotate it by 30 and you want it to rotate from the center, so
make sure this is in the center here and you can toggle Preview to see what it's going to
look like. But we want to do is click Copy and then you press CTRL D on the PC or command D on the MAC
and then you got a nice little shape here. So that's pretty cool. You can tell
it's not perfectly symmetrical because it is a custom shape that I wasn't using Reflect
tool or anything like that to be perfectly symmetrical but it looks
pretty cool I think. So if I click and drag around all of it and then up here
where it says Opacity,
we can bring Opacity down, say to 60% or so or, maybe 70% something like that
and then you can see wherever it overlaps, it's a little blit stronger.
And then if you just want to try different hues, you can just ALT on the
PC or OPTION on the MAC and just click and drag and then just choose a different
color here and it's going to have the same effect. So they're many different things you can do
when you're trying to draw some shapes for logos using just free-form drawing
and then you add effects to it after the fact.
So they're many things you can do with free-form drawing. So with the Pencil
tool again, let's just draw something almost like a rounded rectangle but not quite. Bring that in
in there. So even something as simple as this. Let's resize it a little bit so you can see
and you can really personify this if you had... You combine it with the
use of some premade shapes and then use the Pencil tool as well. You're making some video game
company where you want some kind of personified character. Very basic but it
kind of looks better I think as just this more custom shape rather than a perfect
circle. You can also use free form tools with the shape tjhat you've already used. So I can
use the Ellipse tool and then I use, say the Pencil tool over here and I'm just going to add
a little bit of personality to it there. Select them both then go to Window, Pathfinder
and then we can just unite them and it will create this custom shape.
So you can use these custom shapes in different logos. It's all about just
experimenting and seeing what you can come up with. If you're looking for a similar look.
Let's use some free form drawing here with the brush,
and then I'm going to use and then put that out there and give it a little bit of
texture along the edge without it being too busy, and you could unite that. So hopefully you can see
a lot of these cool shapes that you can come up with that are pretty simple. A lot of it is
just going be you know, junk you're just creating. Like if you're just drawing with the
Pencil tool and kind of experimenting, you know, that's great. Just some experiment and see
what you can come up with. And then if you want to have it a little bit more guided as
you want to make something not too busy for a logo but we've got to sit there and
experiment and see what custom shapes you can come up with, alright.
And again just keep in mind you want some of these to be recognizable
shapes almost just like a character or something like that. So if you're doing
some kind of, say this was like a surf company and you've got this kind of radial flower
pattern here and you just want a surfboard around it, you might think, how about the Pen
tool? That would be pretty easy. Just pull it over there, reset the angle, start over here.
We're not worried about it being symmetrical for this example, right, and
then you would want to put that in the back,
Object, Arrange, Send it Back and then the cool thing is is if you think it
looks a little off, you know, you want it a little more symmetrical, you can always change
it and adjust the anchor points and the paths in between where they're all located
and also the angle like right here for example. There are a lot of different possibilities
with free-form drawing so don't think that we just want to draw things on
paper then scan them in and trace them over. We can actually free form in
Illustrator and just add some effects after the fact, whether it's other tools
or options up here like Object, Transform Each that we can then start
to create custom shapes that are both recognizable and distinct.