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Logos for the Design Challenged, Part XVII

Going Around in Circles

I'm sure I've covered this before, but maybe I can add some new wrinkles to this month's subject, Circles. Those round, perfect shapes whose diameter has no beginning and no end--if you want to get existential about it. Circles. One of the easiest shapes to create in CorelDRAW-even for design-challenged persons such as we. So this month, we'll revisit the common circle and review a few tricks for turning this common object into an uncommon logo.

Create two circles and center align them vertically and horizontally. Select the two circles and Combine them (Ctrl-L or press the Combine button on the Property Bar). The result? A perfect O shape. Vary the size of the smaller circle and you can create an entire series of O shapes, each with its own personality. Heavy O shapes are solid and industrial-strength. Thin O shapes are elegant and stately. Apply different fill colors and the personalities change again. Send mixed messages by using a soft pastel color with an extremely heavy O shape. In short, experiment. Offset the center circle and create an interesting O shape. One that's non-symmetrical and just a little mysterious. You get the idea. And all these variations with just two circles. What could be easier? And if you're creating a logo for a product or service that has an O in its name, you're on your way to a powerful and effective logo.

OK, you say, what if the product, company or service name does not begin with an O. What then? Well this won't work for everything, in fact it won't work for most characters, but consider taking a circle-sized bite out of a larger circle. You can make a C or a U or an H. If you're clever, (and I know you are, or else you wouldn't be reading this article searching for free ideas--you'd be struggling on your own) you'll think of other letter shapes. If you're real clever, you might even be able to create your own font.

How about a button? With minimal effort you can make a button with two fountain-filled circles. Apply a simple 2-color Conical Fill to a circle, make a smaller circle and change the fill to linear. Instant button. Reverse the light and dark portion of the conical fill and the button appears to be depressed. Add text and you have a button, or a button logo.

A Simple Emboss

There are several ways to create an embossed effect, like the one on the button in Figure 3. The easiest way is to make three evenly-spaced copies of the object to be embossed. Align the three objects diagonally (use the Align Distribute Spacing horizontally and vertically (Arrange | Align and Distribute). For an emboss, make the top object (the highlight edge) lighter, the center object darker and the bottom object (the shadow edge) darkest. Select the center object and bring it to the front (Shift Page Up). To create a debossed or recessed effect, reverse the highlight and shadow with the highlight edge on the bottom and the shadow edge on top. In addition, make the center object slightly lighter than the background for an embossed effect, and make the center object darker for a debossed effect.

Adding a few colors to the Interactive Conical Fill is easy and can produce golden results. I've used three colors, Gold, Pale Yellow and Walnut arranged as shown. Adding colors is as each as dragging the color from the screen palette and dropping it onto the fill path. Once on the fill path the colors can be dragged to new positions.

If we create a same-size circle, send it to the back and move it to the left a bit, change the fill to white, and apply a 50-step Blend, the result is a motion blur. A logo for a clock company?

Make two smaller duplicates of the golden Conical-filled circle and apply a 50-step Blend to produce a golden bar. Cool? Select the Blend and Select New Path and use a larger circle for the path to create a golden O shape. More cool? Selecting the Counterclockwise Blend to create this sleek rainbow-colored O shape. Way cool? Of course, there is no reason why the blend has to be on an O. What about a J shape, or a P shape, or…

Two circles and an Interactive Distortion effect creates a whirling circle effect. The Interactive Distortion Tool requires a little experimentation to see what the various settings do. What better way to see what they do than to modify a few circles by applying different amounts of Distortion effects?

The Spiral Tool (in the Polygon Tool flyout menu) was used to create a 5-revolution spiral. The control handles were dragged to resize the spiral horizontally and vertically to fit the shape of the circle. Changing the spiral's outline to 4 points and changing the outline color to white changes the green circle into a green spiral. If you remember from last month, a spiral was used to create a stylized lowercase a for the Airia logo project.

Using two rectangles, and the Trim button on the Property Bar, this circle has been changed into a circle T. Breaking the circle apart (Ctrl K) allows the individual sections to be filled. The Interactive Drop Shadow Tool makes adding a drop shadow a snap. (Be sure to group the three objects first). Just drag from the center of the object and a soft, transparent drop shadow appears. Changing the Drop Shadow Perspective Type (DRAW 9) changes the drop shadow to a Perspective Shadow. And the shadow doesn't have to be black. You can change the shadow color to any color you wish. Darker colors do work better, however. Centering the drop shadow and making the shadow color bright while changing the logo to white, creates a magical glowing effect.

This circle reflects the application of an Interactive Distortion Tool - Zipper effect with the Local Distortion option selected from the Property Bar to create this speedy-looking circle. A duplicate was created by dragging the left vertical center control handle to stretch the shape and the clicking the right mouse button to drop a duplicate before releasing the left mouse button. (You'll know it's the right mouse button if it works). The duplicate's fill was changed to white with no outline, and a 20-step Blend created with the original Zipper-distorted circle. The Clockwise Blend option was selected producing a series of colored speed lines. Placing a white Avant Garde Medium letter G on top creates an effective logo. Especially if the logo is being created for a company, product or service related to timeliness or speed.

Revisiting the golden Conical-filled circle blend for a moment, if we make one of the Control Curves (the first or last object in a Blend) much smaller, the result is a golden pointed cone. Selecting another circle for a path and using the Blend Along Full Path option gives us an arresting O shape.

I copied the Blend to the clipboard (Ctrl C) and then selected the Blend, Separated (Arrange | Separate) and Ungrouped (Ctrl U) all the objects. With all objects selected, the objects were Welded into one shape by pressing the Weld button on the Property Bar. (NOTE: This is a time-consuming operation and should not be attempted unless you have a lot of RAM and a reasonably fast computer). The resulting shape was simplified by using DRAW 9's Curve Smoothness slider. (Select the shape with the Shape Tool and move the Curve Smoothness slider until the number of nodes has been reduced but the shape retained). A green fill was applied to the shape, a copy of the Blend pasted from the clipboard (Ctrl V), and sent to the back (Shift Page Down). The green shape was selected and an Interactive Transparency applied, Uniform, amount 0, type Difference. I'm not sure what we have here but it was a lot of fun to create.

Did you learn anything? Did this inspire you to create a new effect? Did any (or all of this) makes no sense what-so-ever? Contact me in the Graphics Unleashed Forums and I'll attempt to clarify as best I can. I try to answer every e-mail message I get and there are no dumb questions. Well your question might be a little odd, but don't let that stop you from asking it!

Tutorials by Gary Priester

Read more articles by Gary Priester along with a short bio.

_{Last Updated November 21, 1999.}

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Logos for the Design Challenged, Part XVII

Going Around in Circles

A Simple Emboss

Tutorials by Gary Priester

Logos for the Design Challenged Series

Vector Studio Series

Son of Makeover Maven Series