Creating a logo in Inkscape in 15 minutes

let's create a logo with the open-source vector graphic editor Inkscape you can get this terrific program from WWI Inkscape org slash n if you're going for the english version of the program just look for the download button and there you can get versions for linux for windows or for mac OS x as well if you're going to install the Windows version I would recommend the Installer version if you want to proceed without an installation you can also settle on the portable version by the way under wwth comm you will find a 64-bit version for Windows of the program just download and install the version of your choice it's free this is the logo when we are finished the company is called we care a service to provide handicapped helpers and also help for older persons let's get started then on first run Inkscape usually launches in a small window resize the window according to your needs if you want to save the windows appearance once and for all check the programs preferences under file escape preferences here you have to look for the section windows and under the section you can check on remember and use last windows geometry first let's check our document properties you'll find the properties of the current document under file document properties I'm going to develop my layer go in a standard a4 landscape format and I'm changing the default units to millimeters here returning to the interface I'm going to activate the grid a very helpful asset while drawing and designing view and grayton or as a shortcut the pound sign on your keyboard finally I'm activating ink scapes color panel controlling the color of fill and strokes of the graphic objects under object fill and stroke you can use the zoom tool to bring the artboard into view now all is set and we are good to go I'm going to start with a logo type the company's name is B care and in my sketches I decided to catch the we threw a shape representing a person without stretched arms surrounded by a caring dynamic circle while care itself is at an ordinary text here I set out on a specific type face Colibri bolt in uppercase letters choose the text tool in Inkscape click anywhere on your artboard and just type in uppercase letters care you then can change the text appearance from the menu bar above and here I'm looking for the specific typeface Calibri in a bold version and 144 in size to begin with you can move the text around by choosing the selector tool here clicking on the text and then you can just grab it and relocate it according to the grid you can also up-and-down scale by grabbing one of the handles surrounding the text object if you hold your control key down on your keyboard while scaling you will keep the objects aspect ratio this is a bit tricky while the grid is activated because you can only upscale and down scale by the grid if you would like to make this a bit more fluently you have to deactivate the grid first a typical design problem in logo design is to control the exit distance between all letters of a logo type the so-called kerning logo design is a very very precise craft look carefully at all letters and the distance between them computers aren't really that good to create a pleasant overall distribution of type often you will need manual adjustment in our case here I'm going to correct the distance between a and C here just a bit I think the computer generated automatic kerning is not satisfying here at all click into the text object double click place the cursor now between C and a as I did here and if you hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and press left or right arrow at the same time you can adjust the kerning manually I'm going to adjust the kerning manually by two steps here I'm going to activate the grid again under view grid because now we are going to have a complicated drawing job we are creating the we formed shape using Inkscape s-- pen tool the pen tool is able to draw straight lines and curves in the beginning make sure that you have no fill activated so that you can concentrate on the strokes themselves so you take the pen tool click anywhere on your artboard and then click at another point if you hold your mouse key down and move your mouse you can drag the so-called BG handles out and you will create a curve point then if you just move down you will be able to create a more or less straight line and upwards again dragging the handle out to form a smooth curve and proceed and closing the form you can at any point edit a shape you create it by its anchor point if you choose the Edit path by nodes tool then the anchor points you created are appearing and you can just grab them and relocate them after your own preferences if you are done you can always apply a full fill by if Phil is activated just picking a color here down below from the color banner and the stroke I'm setting to zero so this is the shape after I am made all adjustments the final form for the figures head I'm going to use one of in scapes geometric drawing tools the circle tool shortcut f5 just grab the circle tool and open an elliptic shape until you reached the desired dimensions you can also edit those objects by um taking the selector tool this would be arm the the scaling transformations if you click once more in it you will also be able to rotate it and then we can grab it and place it where we want now let's create the circular calligraphic like form surrounding the figure we are actually going to do this by separating two circles from each other so a complicated path operation I'm going to deselect the current active form and then I'm grabbing the circle tool again and then anywhere on my artboard I'm going to draw a perfect act black circle holding my control key down then on top of this circle I'm going to create another circle a bit less in size this circle I'm going to set to white so that I actually can see the difference and then by selecting it I'm going to find a nice intersection here and I'm also going to rescale it until I have reached the desired dimensions so probably like this a dynamic shape created by two circles what we are going to do now is to make a kind of compound path out of these two forms the upper circle is still selected now with shift clicking I'm selecting both forms and then I can from the path menu choose make a difference here and voila I have a nicely shaped calligraphic brush like form I cannot just grab the form and using the handles and the shift key I will be able to scale it into the right dimensions sorry control key down probably like this and then I'm going to push it into place probably also the logo type so that the a is continuing the line formed by the brush stroke here and I can also upscale and relocate my how the logo parts here moving them around using the arrow keys on my keyboard finally I'm going to add some more dynamic to my logo type just by up down scaling it a bit as a metrical II in order to do so I have to deactivate the grid so that this is more fluently probably like this finally let's save our file from the file menu save or ctrl + S I would recommend that you save your file in SVG format you can also save in Inkscape native ink for meit but in order to make you file compatible for other applications like for blender subject of our add-on lesson creating a 3d level it's a better idea to save into the open SVG the scalable vector graphics format for the quality of your file this would make no difference give the file of course an appropriate filename we care logo and save it from the same dialog you can also directly publish your file in PDF format the file formats SVG scalable vector graphics EPS encapsulated PostScript and PDF are professional graphic exchange formats if you deliver your file to a customer you should always create versions in the named formats in the last step we need to convert our text you can't rely on that your customer has the typeface you created your logo with available if you save your file as PDF in most cases the funds necessary to display your logo are already embedded in the file there can be exceptions though you therefore should always convert alt text included in your logo into vector graphic shapes so that would make your file independent from fonts installed on any system you need to select the text object and from Inkscape Spath menu choose object to path and then you can see that it's not text anymore if you double-click into it it's a group actually but if you double click into it you can select the various parts so everything is converted now I'm going to save this again ctrl s and then we are done with a black and white version let's add some colors then for this week a logo I settled on the color scale gray representing security reliability intelligence maturity on a beige pastel shade for the human factor unification pleasantness and turquoise and a pesto shade as well for calm and sophistication applying those colors in Inkscape can be difficult though due to ink escapes known problems in handling CMYK color still an unfortunate flow of the program a good idea is to start in RGB or color information is actually stored in RGB values and then using the fill and stroke panel to grab and CMYK values from there let's start with the circular shape surrounding our figure select it and then from the fill section year of the color panel choose RGB I settled on well use 234 the red channel then 144 for the green Channel and the blue Channel 85 and enter to confirm the corresponding CMYK values you would get from here now I'm going to select both parts of the figure by shift clicking on the head and the figure itself the RGB values are here 131 172 189 enter to confirm you can see that the we shape form has still a stroke attached I'm going to correct this right away no stroke for my figure finally I'm selecting the text this is going to be a grayish feel like 61 69 and 64 equal values always generating gray in RGB and enter to confirm our finished logo in Inkscape let's have a look at how this is going to look like as a PDF file file save as from the drop down menu choose Portable Document format PDF and save your file so this would be the PDF version of our logo plain and simple hope you enjoyed this tutorial take care

Channel: Gopher Proxy

Views: 95,207

Keywords: Inkscape, logo design, graphic design

Id: mX7Nbj1xFco

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 11 2014