The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simpicity…
Walt Whitman
In this tutorial, I want to share with you a simple and effective strategy on how to design a very appealing letter logos. This project requires two free scripts from Hiroyuki Sato’s collection. I will show you how to set up your own circular grid, make most of these scripts and take your Adobe Illustrator’s workflow to the next level. This is how our final result would look like:
So make sure your Adobe Illustrator Application is up and running and let’s get started.
Step 01. Set up a New Document
Create a New Document of any size. I am working at 1470x1024px.
Step 02. Set up a Grid
Use shortcuts Ctrl/Cmd+" and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+" to Show the Grid and Snap to the Grid respectively. I am working with a distance of 60px between the gridlines.
Step 02. Create a Circular Grid
Create a 60px circle with an Ellipse Tool. Make a pair of duplicates by dragging the original circle while holding the Alt/Optkey. Select all circles with a Selection Tool and duplicate them in a row as shown in the picture below.
Step 03. Create a Cassini Oval
Cassini ovals are the special case of polynomial lemniscates when the polynomial used has degree 2
Wikipedia
I have a strange feeling, that what we are going to build might not be the case of Cassini Ovals, but we need to somehow call them, right? So to create the Cassini Oval we need a Metaball (Arc) Script Installed on your PC:
C://Adobe/Adobe Illustrator/Presets/En_Us/Scripts
Relaunch your app after installation, select two circles, that are highlighted with a red color in the picture below and head over the File/Scripts/Metaball (Arc). In the opened dialog box set a value of Angle to 50px and click OK to combine your circles.
Select the pair of circles on the opposite side of the Grid and repeat the steps to create one more “dumbbell” shape.
Clear other circles except one in the middle.
Step 04. Create Tangent Lines
Select two circles on the left and head over to File/Scripts/Common Tangents. This script hasn’t any GUI because it simply creates lines to connect the sides of the circles. Select the opposite pair and move on to the Common Tangents again.This script also creates straight lines we don’t need.
Step 05. Finalize the Shape
Select the first Cassini Oval with diagonal lines inside and grab the Shape Builder Tool. Combine everything underneath one of the diagonal lines.
Combine the rest as shown in the picture on top. Repeat the same for our second oval.
Congrats, guys. We have the skeleton and ready to add some colors.
Step 06. Add the Gradient
Select the bottom part of the circles, swap fill and stroke, and head over to the Gradient Panel. Apply a Linear Gradient as shown in the picture below. Set a direction to the top-left to bottom-right.
Select the top part of the circles, swap fill and stroke, and head over to the Gradient Panel. Apply a Linear Gradient as shown in the picture below.
Select the circle in the middle and sample the gradient from the top part of the dumbbell using Eyedropper Tool. Head over the “Recolor Artwork Tool” and lower the saturation and brightness.
Step 06. Add the Text
Grab a Text tool and type a word HELIX. Select the “Open Sans” as a typeface for the title and set font weight to “Light”.
Good job, you’ve created a professional logo with a matter of minutes. It’s time to share your work with friends and teammates.
If you want to receive more of these tutorials in your inbox, feel free to subscribe to my twice/weekly newsletter. If you want to really master in’s and out’s of the professional workflow of vector artist, feel free to pick up my course on Udemy.com. It’s free due to the 8 of March.
