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© 2000 by Gary Priester. All Rights Reserved.
This column marks the return of the Makeover Maven, a column I wrote for several years for Corel Magazine, a magazine for which I no longer write. The Makeover Maven articles were among my very favorites and I have been searching for a new home for the series for some time. So long, in fact, that I'm calling the new series Son of the Makeover Maven, as Mr. Maven has long since retired. I'll do my very best to live up to the standards set by my predecessor.
Jim was the first to send in a makeover request and so he is the first makeover candidate. Jim writes:
I'd like to accept your challenge. I am a consultant and writer - for non-profit organizations, of every kind from aids agencies to food banks, to schools.
I write appeals and other materials, do on-site consulting, and seminars. Since it all stems from communications I have used an old wood cut of a writing hand with the text printed in Palatino and using teal as my color scheme. Other than the color, everything else is very tired. I would like to stay with the "writer-communication" theme but think my attempts are pretty boring. There seems little "stock" art available. I appreciate your help.
Here is Jim's current logo. It's a bit pixilated because I had to resize it. But I think you get the idea. While I have always had the greatest fondness for old line engravings, I think we all agree that in this case, old is the operative word. I don't think anybody, except pretentious people with Mont Blanc pens write with ink any more. And I suspect Jim doesn't either.
Jim had complained of the lack of stock art. Maybe I know where to look after doing all those Logos for the Design Challenged articles, because I was able to come up with a bunch of "pre-designed" logo material without ever having to leave DRAW.
For openers there is DF Calligraphic Ornaments. These ship with the last few versions of DRAW and are found in the Symbols roll-up/docker. Now if Jim was unable to find the new Symbols docker, that's another question. I always have to do a bit of searching in DRAW 9 before I can find it, and then I always have to remember to press the little arrow and disable Show Special Characters Only so I can see all the symbols. What a bother! Anyway, there are some very interesting, contemporary, and nicely designed images here.
Then of course there are always the Zapf Dingbats. In this symbols library I found a pen and hand, a splendid pen point, and a stumpy pencil. I'm sure that we can find a way to make something useful from one of these symbols.
Keystroke is a font on the Corel CD that is useful to folks who write articles and need to insert keystrokes into the text. But the symbols themselves are also fun and invite further exploration.
Another source of "pre-designed" logos is the Wingdings symbol library. In this library, I found another hand with a stylus of some sort. I think it might be a pencil. What do you think? I also found two fountain pens (Mont Blancs?) and another less stumpy pencil.
There are several fonts that bear exploring as they communicate writing. One of these fonts is American Typewriter Medium BT (the BT stands for Bitstream, the foundry that created the font). There are a variety of weights and styles of American Typewriter on the Corel CD ROM disc #1. There is always something fun and attractive about this modern adaptation of the old typewriter fonts.
Finally, I looked at another font, Courier New. Courier is one of those fonts that appear on web sites when a fixed font is called for. Courier New was designed by Monotype and has a bit of the American Typewriter look to it. But is also has a contemporary styling and is a font I associate with electronic words, which is what writers and communicators create when they use a computer as a writing tool.
Of course all I had up to this point was some raw materials. The next step was to find the logo waiting inside each of these symbols and fonts. Or as Monty Python observed in their sketch Novel Writing at Wembley, all the words are there, we just have to get them into the right order! And with any luck, there will be a winner in there somewhere once we get the elements into the right order!
For my first logo candidate, I used the key symbols from the Keystroke font. I selected the symbols and broke them apart (Arrange | Break Apart). When you break apart a symbol in DRAW, DRAW places the largest object in front, in this case the round-cornered squares. I sent these to the back, and colored the different sections with colors that resembled the ubiquitous tan color that most computer components possess. I inserted an ampersand using the elegant script font Liberty BT and added a light drop shadow. I gave the JC and the A an embossed look by creating a lighter and darker version of the letters and offsetting them up and to the left (the dark tan version) and down and to the right (the pale tan version). The original black letters were brought to the front. I used Courier New for the text.
TIP: When you break a symbol apart, DRAW stacks the elements in the reverse order that they should be in. Add an outline to the symbol before you break it apart. After breaking the symbol apart, and before you de-select the elements, select Arrange | Order | Reverse Order. Now all the elements will be stacked in their proper order.
I selected the quill pen and ink bottle image from the DF Calligraphic Ornaments symbols library, and as with the key stroke symbols, broke them apart and re-colored the sections. I used DRAW's Interactive Drop Shadow tool to add the soft drop shadow. When you break a symbol apart, add an outline first. Breaking a symbol apart makes all the pieces the same color and it can be hard to distinguish the various elements.
I used another of the DF Calligraphic Ornaments symbols, one that comes pretty close to Jim's current logo for my next design. I thought it might be neat to create a glowing effect to transport the hand and quill into the new century. I accomplished this by placing the symbol over a black background, filling the symbol black, and then applying a soft drop shadow with the Interactive Drop Shadow tool. I changed the shadow color to Sky Blue to add the glowing effect. The text is Zapf Calligraphic, which as it turns out is Palatino, the font that Jim is currently using. Coincidence? You decide.
I've always liked the Zapf Dingbats (named after Herman Zapf) pen symbol. The design is very graphic and it is always makes a good pre-designed logo. I rotated it about 45 degrees. Next I created some text in a bold font, Bernard MT Condensed and PowerClipped the text inside the pen symbol. I added a flourish from the DF Calligraphic Ornaments. A soft drop shadow added the finishing touch. For the text I mixed Humanist 521 Ultra Bold Condensed with Zapf Calligraphic italic.
This next design uses two Zapf Dingbats hand and pencil symbols and a 16-pointed star created with the Polygon Tool. I broke the hand symbol apart and re-colored the elements. I filled the star with a rainbow fill that began as a Pale Yellow and white Radial Fountain Fill. The text font is once again, Zapf Calligraphic, Roman and italic.
I just couldn't restrain myself from trying a blend on this next candidate. Only it's not really a blend. I positioned the pen point on the right and rotated it counter clockwise. I clicked twice to toggle Rotate/Skew mode and dragged the rotation bulls eye to the tip of the pen. Next I dragged one of the rotation handles to rotate the symbol clockwise a bit and before releasing the left mouse button, pressed the right mouse button to drop a duplicate. I pressed Ctrl R (as in repeat) 33 more times to continue rotating and duplicating the symbol. All the symbols were selected and then the order reversed (Arrange | Order | Reverse Order) to bring the first symbol to the top and reverse the order of the symbols. The top symbol was selected and then the Tab key was pressed to cycle backwards through the symbols. Every other symbol was filled white. I love the topographic shape it creates.
These were all very nice designs. But none felt like it was any better than Jim's original line art hand with pen. So I thought I better try one more, just in case I get lucky! And I think I did.
I revisited the Zapf Dingbat pen point. By removing two sections and editing out the U-shaped space between the two sides of the pen nib, I was able to create a stylized J and C. I created a rectangular shape which I used to Trim out the two sections of the pen point. Sticking to Jim's palette of Teal, I broke the elements apart and applied two different shades of Teal to distinguish between the J and the C. I added a drop at the bottom to complete the mark. A soft drop shadow added depth to the final design.
Well, I think I nailed it. Do you? Let me know what you think by contacting me in the Graphics Unleashed Forums. And if you have a makeover candidate, send me a small file (like 30K or under please) with your logo and a brief explanation of why you'd like a makeover. And please keep in mind, these logo makeovers are for educational purposes only. Mr. Maven holds the copyrights to the designs but will gladly negotiate a fair price should you decide you can't possibly live without any of the designs. In Jim's case, since he does non-profit writing, the design is Pro Bono (free).
And finally, those of you who were followers of the Makeover Maven articles when they used to appear in Corel Magazine, when you used to have to pay the big bucks for a subscription that yielded a dwindling number of issues, remember you're getting it here for free. I say this, because your support keeps these articles coming. If you plan on making a purchase of a book or other training materials, try to buy it here first. If you plan on purchasing music, or videos or computer stuff, follow Foster's link to Amazon.com. If you make a purchase, Foster gets a few nickels which he drops into my cup. I thank you. Foster thanks you. Your fellow readers thank you.
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