Illustrator type technique using shapes
2009 at 08.48 am posted by Veerle Pieters
One of the questions I often get from readers is if I could write a tutorial on how to create a certain logo. It’s something that I think is not very good material for a tutorial because it’s so very specific. The hard part is not the execution in Illustrator, it’s the design itself, the creative process. Then again I think certain parts are explanatory e.g. a logo made of letters you draw yourself using circles, simple shapes and lines of equal thickness. The technique I have in mind is something that only works for logo’s that contain only a few characters, ideally not more than 5. It also stands or falls with the characters at hand e.g. if o’s and other circular shapes are involved, than it can get interesting to try this technique out…
Here is what we'll be creating:
As you can see, 4 letters, 2 o's, a lot of roundness, ... First thing I often do for a type design is analyzing the letters I have to work with, try to find certain patterns. If there are double letters (2 o's, 2 t's , 2 l's etc.) can I create something fun with that? Can I create a ligature? Can I transform one of the letters a bit an integrate it with a symbol etc. There are many more ways than only this, but the typographic part is often one of the mayor routes you want to try out. The word 'loca' seems ideal for this type of execution. Lets get started :)
Draw 2 horizontal guides
Start by placing 2 horizontal guides that represent the height of the logo. Turn on Smart Guides (go to View > SmartGuides or hit Cmd/Ctrl + U).
Draw a circle
With logos like this one, everything starts with the circle of the 'o' and then you derive the other letters from the 'o'. Select the Ellipse tool. Click somewhere on the top guideline (as shown in the left image above), start dragging diagonally down right, now hold down the Shift key. Release the mouse, then the shift key, once you've reached the bottom guideline, as shown in the right image above.
Add thick black stroke
Give the circle a thick black stroke. I used a 40 pt thickness, but the value depends on how big your circle is.
Duplicate the circle
Select the Selection tool, select the circle (grab the bottom left segment), start dragging to the left, now hold down the Shift + Option/Alt key. Once you've reached the intersection as shown in the image above, release the mouse and then the keys.
Delete unnecessary segments
Select the Direct Selection tool. Click the top and right anchor point of the circle. Hold down the Shift key to select the 2nd point. Hit backspace to delete the selected path segment.
Drag horizontal guide for the letter L
If you know the basics of typography, than you know that round letters like an 'o' are always slightly bigger. Because they are round, they appear optical smaller (vertically) then straight letters like an 'l' for example. Because of this, we'll add another horizontal guide right on the spot as shown in the image above. This is where the anchor point of the top of the letter 'l' will end.
Draw the letter L
At this point we only have the rounded corner of the 'l'. Select the Pen tool and click in the top anchor point of the curved corner. Hold down the Shift key go to the intersection point of the guideline you've just drawn and click again. Now hold down the Cmd/Ctrl key and click somewhere outside the drawing area to end this path. Click in the right anchor point of the curve, hold down the Shift key again and click at the intersection of the bottom anchor point of the letter 'o'.
Adjust the kerning
The letters 'o' and 'l' are connected, but the letter 'l' looks way too wide, or the kerning (if you can call it that, in this situation) is too wide. Select the Direct Selection tool and drag a rectangle to select the 3 anchor points of the letter 'l' as shown in the left image above. Start dragging this segment to the right a bit (as shown in the right image above) while holding down the Shift key.
Duplicate the letter O
Select the Selection tool and select the letter 'o'. Start dragging the circle to the right while holding down the Shift + Option/Alt key as shown in the image above. Just like before, release the mouse first, than the keys.
Duplicate the letter O again
Repeat the previous action.
Create the letter C
Select the Direct Selection tool and click the right most anchor point of the circle. Hit the Backspace key to delete the path segment.
Select the Pen tool and click in the top right open anchor point. Hold down the Shift key and click again a little bit to the right (as shown in the image above). Now hold down the Cmd/Ctrl key and click somewhere outside the drawing area to end this path. Click in the bottom open anchor point, hold down the Shift key again to draw a horizontal line just like before, and click where you intersect the bottom point of the last circle (as you can see in the image above).
Adjust the kerning
Just like before with the letters 'l' and 'o' (which will change into an 'a' later), we only guess the spacing between the letters. So we have to adjust the kerning a bit again here to get this perfect. We do that by selecting the Direct Selection tool again and by dragging a selection around the 'o', making sure we also select the anchor point we drew to connect both letters. Now grab the path, hold down the Shift key and move the segments to the left a bit (for another reference of how far, see the next image to the left below).
Create the letter A
Now we'll turn the 'o' into an 'a'. First of all, add another horizontal guide to the bottom of the letters. This time you can aim for the very bottom, because we have already lines in place connecting the rounded letters and so we need to give the leg of the letter 'a' the same height. Select the Pen tool and click in the most right anchor point of the circle. Though, make sure you're not adding an anchor point. So make sure your Pen cursor has an x and not a plus sign. You can always temporary lock the circle by hitting Cmd/Ctrl + 2 (don't forget to unlock later via Cmd/Ctrl + Option/Alt + 2). Hold down the Shift key and click on the intersection below with the horizontal guide (see image below on the left).
Duplicate the layer
Grab the layer in the Layers palette and move it onto the Create New Layer icon to duplicate the layer.
Apply smaller white stroke
Select all paths in the duplicated layer by using the target circle icon in the Layers palette. Go to the Stroke palette and select a value that is about 1/4 of the size of the back stroke. I'm using a value of 10 pt. Now select the Stroke option in the Color palette and select white at the bottom right of the palette.
Expand to fill
With the white stroke still selected, go to Object > Expand... and click OK. The stroke is now turned into a fill. Now select all paths of the layer containing the black stroke by using the target circle icon in the Layers palette and do the same: go to Object > Expand... and click OK to turn the stroke into a fill.
Unite the L and O, then unite the C and A
Select the letters 'l' and 'o'. Go to the Pathfinder palette and choose the Unite option to merge the paths of both letters together to one object.
Now select the 'c' and 'a' and do the same: go to the Pathfinder palette and choose Unite.
Now we'll make the logo transparent, meaning the white lines will become transparent holes instead of a white fill. Select both the white part and the black part of the letters 'l' and 'o' and choose Minus Front from the Pathfinder palette. Do the same for the letters 'c' and 'a'. We're almost there now. Only one last tweak left...
Move the letters CA into place
To create a more perfect and balanced connection between the letters, select the 'ca' part using the Selection tool and move them to the left, holding down the Shift key until you intersect and overlap the left most part of the letter 'c' with the most right part of the letter 'o' as shown in the image above. You should end up with a similar result as shown in the image below.
The final result
Hope you enjoyed the exercise and you can put this to good use for your designs.
Try out different things
Make sure to try out different stroke widths. You could try out an extra stroke and achieve this effect for example.
Want to learn more?
A good and not expensive source to learn more about Illustrator, Photoshop, or web design is by joining the Tuts+ sites. You get access to the source files for just $9 a month. So your ONE membership gives you access to members-only content for ALL the Plus sites. I've written a tutorial for the Vector Tuts section.