If you’re thinking of designing a logo – perhaps it’s for your business or just for your own personal hobby – it’s likely that the first piece of software that comes to mind for designing it is Photoshop.
Photoshop is probably the most popular piece of Adobe software out there, used by professionals and amateurs alike.
Since its creation, it’s become the standard piece of software to use in the digital art industry as a whole.
It has loads of different features, and you may not know how to use all of them, but that doesn’t matter.
The great thing is that it’s accessible and super easy to use once you get the hang of whichever individual feature you require.
So, even if you don’t have experience of working within the digital art industry, you can easily create a simple logo using Photoshop.
We understand that designing your own logo may at first seem like an intimidating task.
But keep on reading and in this article we’ll give you some tips on what makes a good logo design, and then we’ll move onto guiding you through the steps to creating your own basic logo using Photoshop.
What Makes A Good Logo
Now that you’ve decided to create your own logo, before getting down to designing it, you need to think about what exactly it is that attracts people to a logo.
Therefore, you can make absolutely sure yours will stand out.
The most important thing to remember is that you need to make sure that it’s visually enticing.
This could mean using vibrant colors, using lines that are either curvy or so straight and rigid they create a peculiar effect, or using eye-catching fonts within your logo.
Here is a rough list of the five main things that make a logo great:
- Eye-catching.
- Memorable.
- Timeless.
- Conveys something about your brand (whether that be personal or professional).
- Works well no matter what size it’s displayed in.
Steps To Making A Logo Using Photoshop
Before starting to create your logo on Photoshop, you may want to consider sketching out the base idea for your logo on paper so that you already know roughly what your design will be when you come to making it on Photoshop.
Once you’ve done that and are ready to start producing it on Photoshop, follow these simple steps below.
These will help get you started on your way to making a simple logo for you or your business/brand.
Step 1: Create A New Document
The first thing you need to do is start with a blank canvas, so click the Create New option on the left-hand side of your screen.
Then click on the Art and Illustration section. Select the size to be the 1000 Pixel Grid and enter a title for your project.
If you wish for your grid to be either smaller or bigger, you can customize the size and enter whatever height and width you want it to be.
If you want to also add a background color for your logo to go onto, then click on where it says ‘Background Contents’ on the right-hand side and choose your color.
Finally, click Create.
Before we move onto the next step, remember to save your project frequently as you’re working on it!
Step 2: Add A Grid
Adding a grid helps you structure your logo design in a more precise and efficient way.
Right before you add your grid, you might want to enable smart guides by going to View > Show > Smart Guides.
This will be a big help when it comes to aligning items as it makes it much easier for you to carry out with precision.
Once you’ve done that, add your grid by going to View > Show > Grid.
Step 3: Draw Or Select A Shape For Your Logo
To draw your own shape, choose the pen tool in the toolbar on the left, but make sure it’s set to Shape instead of Path in the options bar to the left.
Once you’ve done this, draw any basic shape you want, using the grid lines as a guide.
To add an already existing shape straight into the document, choose from either Rectangle Tool, Rounded Rectangle Tool, Ellipse Tool, Triangle Tool, Polygon Tool, Line Tool or Custom Shape Tool from the toolbar on the left.
Step 4: Add A Color
Once you’ve chosen what shape you want, now you have to select a color for it.
To do this, select the shape layer on the right-hand side and choose the Fill icon to change the color to whatever you want it to be.
Step 5: Add An Image Or Text
Usually when designing a logo, you’ll want to add an image or some text – or both – to really make your brand stand out and let people know what your logo is advertising.
To add an image as a layer, simply download whichever image you wish to use onto your computer.
Then, in Photoshop, go to File > Place Embedded, choose an image from your files and then click Place.
To resize the image, hold down the shift key, so it doesn’t distort, and drag the corner of the border to make it smaller or bigger.
If you’re adding text to the project, click on the T on the tool panel on the left and click anywhere on the image to insert your text.
There will then be a T on the top toolbar as well – if you click on that you can then change your text font, color, size and alignment.
Final Thoughts
Designing a simple logo using Photoshop is quite an easy task.
As long as you have an idea of what you want your logo to look like, you can get started creating one that stands out and entices people to whatever you or your company’s brand is.
Simply follow all the steps in this article, and you should have your logo done in no time!
