JamieRose Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 Well I have been a member here for quite some time, and I've been making designs for even longer. One of my glaring weak points in designs have been my wordmarks. I don't know why it has been a problem for me, but I know it has. Almost every one I've done has been very basic and often generic. Well I'm finally taking a stand and I want to know how to make good looking wordmarks. So for starters, I made a Warwick wordmark for my hometown. I put in some crappy beveling and a thick outline (both of which I'd never done before). I have no idea what to do or the steps to take to improve upon it. I am here as one designer looking to all you other designers for some guidance. I'm using Adobe Illustrator, so I would LOVE to hear any tricks you guys may have. Anyway, here's what I've got so far.Please help me find a good direction for this and all future wordmarks I make. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chestnutz Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 Honestly it's not too bad. I think changing the accents to white could help it stand out a bit, but there's nothing wrong with it now really. I think something you need to take into consideration with the wordmarks for the teams you do concepts for is what type of team they are. Is it traditional, modern? What's the team name? A name like Conquistadors could have a sleek, edgy font while a team called the Grizzlies could have a rough edge to it. Just study a bunch of wordmarks some of the more talented designers on here have done, see what they did to spice them up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamieRose Posted September 3, 2009 Author Share Posted September 3, 2009 What's a good technique for making the accents? I made a separate outline layer within the letters and then dropped a shadow from there. That works for this but if I were to make them white as per your suggestion, there would be white marks outside the letters. I'm not 100% on how to resolve this.And for the sake of concept, let's call this a wordmark for the Warwick Wizards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chestnutz Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 Some people know how to do the beveling a quick and easy way. I, unfortunately, don't. So I have to manually make each beveled shape, which is a pain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slapshot Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 I think there was a tutorial here on how to make the simulated bevel.Here's what I do (using Illustrator, but the principal should be the same in any vector program)...1. Set up the basic wordmark shape, and convert the text to outlines.2. Object -> offset path, select a negative amount (-4 pts, for example).3. Fill this new smaller shape with a different color, black for example. (keep the black filled shapes grouped together)4. Copy this new smaller shape and paste in place.5. With this duplicated copy selected, fill with the same color as your original wordmark (and keep it grouped separate from the black and other filled objects).6. Still with this duplicated copy selected, move it slightly down and to the right (or up/left, depending on where you want to show the shadows).You should end up with something similar to your Warwick mark. Just play around with the offset path amount and colors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamieRose Posted September 3, 2009 Author Share Posted September 3, 2009 Thanks, slapshot, this is what I made using that technique. It could probably use some adjustments still, but I just feel better knowing how to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bohob Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 It would probably help to close is the space between the R and W. It's looking a little wide. Otherwise, I think (as might have been stated before) you need to think about the type of team it is. I don't necessarily get a wizard feel from this, and ITC Machine (I assume that's what this is) does come off as generic at times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elliott Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 Thanks for that slapshot, that's pretty helpful, I've attempted to use the offset path for a bevel but I never thought about copying the smaller shape like that. Pretty well rendered wordmark nutini, it seems very collegiate to me but that could be what you were going for (not that it's bad to be collegiate). If you are having trouble with wordmarks and want to see some examples, I would suggest davidson and Aao, davidson uses some cool underlines, and aao is really good at beveling and outline effects, and both use some sweet custom fonts. Logoman also has some examples of great beveling and font choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamieRose Posted September 3, 2009 Author Share Posted September 3, 2009 Last one I'm going to add to this thread, and then I'm going to move on with new concepts and whatnot. Just wanted to say thanks for all of the help, guys. I have a much better idea of what I'm doing now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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