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Create Your Own Clan Logo by Wes Fierce If you’ve ever been a clan leader or competitive gaming team member, and wanted to look rawesome, but no one could come up with any good ideas for your logo, here is some inspiration and guidance. Regardless of your theme, your main game usually involves some form weapons and war, right? So just look around for some related items, throw them together and polish them with this tutorial. |
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Final Image Preview
This is the final result of my quick and dirty experimentation with using random images to create a scalable vector logo in Photoshop. Illustrator is NOT required. Step 1 Create a new document, im using 450pxw by 500pxh 72dpi. Look around the web for the items you want to include in your logo and cut them out using the extract filter. The edges dont have to be extremely clean, as long as you will be able to trace the edges later without tracing the excess pixels. You might also want to apply some color overlay’s (right click on layer > blending options) to help distinguish between your layers. Step 2 Hide all the layers you’re not working with and select the rectangle tool. Draw a rectangle to get your vector shape going. Step 3 Turn down the transparency of the rectangle so you can see what you’re tracing, and select the Add Anchor Point Tool. Start adding anchors around the object you’re tracing and adjust the lines accordingly. Switching between the Add Anchor Point, Delete Anchor Point, Convert Point tools (under the pen tool menu) and the Direct Selection tool (white arrow cursor), you should be able to produce an accurate vector object that matches the object you’re tracing. Step 4 Repeating steps 2 & 3, create a vector shape of the gas mask’s visor. If you want this shape to be more symmetrical, create two anchor points an equal distance across from each other, then select the Direct Selection tool, click on one of the anchor points, then hold shift while clicking on the second. Click and hold the line in between the two points and you can move both at the same time. If you hold shift before clicking and moving, your movement will be guided vertically or horizontally. Step 5 Hide your gas mask layers and repeat steps 2& 3 for your gun layer. When you finish create the vector shape, right click on the layer and select "Duplicate Layer." Then, select all by pressing Ctrl-A. Goto Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontally, to create a mirror shape. At this point, you may want to keep your psd organized by grouping and labeling your layers. Click on a layer and hold shift while clicking on the layers you want to group (or use ctrl to select individual layers), then press Ctrl-G. |
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Step 6
After you have finished tracing and mirroring all your vector shapes, hide all of your reference layers. Add some color overlays and strokes to help set your layers apart. If you need to center your shapes, select all (Ctrl-A), select the group layer of the shapes you want to align, and select the Move Tool. Then, click either Align Vertical Centers, Align Horizontal Centers, or both, on the Options toolbar (located at the top of photoshop by default, under the File, Edit, etc. Menu). |
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Final Result
You now have a scalable logo that you can use for whatever your clan needs, without knowing anything about Illustrator. If your clan wants to make T-shirts, put all of your psd’s groups into one group and Ctrl-T. Hold Ctrl or Ctrl-Shift while dragging the logo to whatever size you need. The transformation will create clean hi-res lines instead of the blurry lo-res images created by scaling up raster layers. Just keep in mind that you will have to resize your canvas to a larger size and graphics created for print usually need to be submitted at 300dpi instead of 72dpi. |
