Photoshop Tutorial : How to create a simple logo using Photoshop
In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to make a simple logo. Many professional logos are created in Illustrator or Freehand or other vector drawing programs. However, it is possible to create logos in Photoshop either as a raster image or using Photoshop’s own vector tools including the Pen, Shapes and the Type tools. Vector tools are used most often for logo design because once the design is created there is no loss of quality when making the problem making the logo larger or smaller and so that’s what we’ll used.
A good logo has the following qualities:
1. Logos are simple. They need to be practical and work in both colour and black and white.
2. They communicate an idea, a principle or a description.
3. They are aesthetically pleasing.
That’s what we’ll aim for.
I’m going to create a logo for a fictional company called “The Iron Mongers” who create unique iron work gates. We’ll also add the words “Iron Boutique” as the tagline.
Start with a blank document size 5 in x 5 in with a resolution of 300 ppi. It’s important to have a high resolution document in case you want to print your logo rather than just use it on the web.
Select the Type tool 
and in the Control Palette, set the font to Bernhard Modern, size 36, set the anti-aliasing to Strong and the colour to Black.
Click on the document and add the text “The Iron Mongers”.
With the Type tool still selected, go back and highlight the word “Iron”. Click on the colour selector on the Control Palette and change the colour to red. (I used RGB values 204, 0, 0). Click on any other tool to commit the text.
Select the text tool again, and in the Control Palette leave the Font as Bernhard Modern but set the size to 14pt and the colour to black. Underneath the words “The Iron Mongers”, add the text “Iron Boutique”.
In the layers palette, select the Iron Mongers text layer and Shift + Click to also select the Iron Boutique layer.
On the Control Palette, select the “Align Horizontal Centers” button to line up the two layers of text. 
Click on the Line Tool
(it might be hidden under the Rectangle Tool) and in the Control palette, set the weight of the line to 2 pixels.
Draw a straight line (hold down the Shift key to keep the line straight) from under the capital T till it just meets the I in Iron Boutique. Draw another line on the other side of the Boutique to just underneath the small s. (See illustration below).
Lines are a very effective design tool and can elevate a design to another level.
Now we’re going to add a shape as an embellishment. Select the Custom Shape Tool 
(it will be hidden beneath the line tool).
On the Control Palette, click on the Custom Shape Tool drop down box. I chose a shape called Hedera 2.
Drag out the Hedera 2 shape. Drag the shape so it is approximately the same height as the letters in the “The Iron Mongers”. 
When you drag out the shape you are creating a path. You can see the outline of the work path on the image but to add actual pixels by filling or stroking the path, you must click on the paths palette.
Create a new layer, then in the paths palette, click on the workpath to highlight it. You will see the two lines that you drew with the line tool as well as the new shape you created.
Make sure the foreground colour is set to black (press D on the keyboard to set the colours to their default of black foreground and white background). Click on the Fill path with foreground colour button at the bottom of the paths palette. When you click this button black pixels are added to the new layer you created.
The new shape looks pretty fuzzy around the edges, this is only because the path is still selected, click anywhere on the grey area of the Paths palette to deslect the path.
Back on the new layer you created, click on the new leaf using the Move tool and drag out holding the Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) key. This will create a duplicate of the leaf. Drag the duplicate to the other side of the logo, then choose Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal to flip the leaf to the opposite direction.
That completes the logo.
Always save your file as a .PSD file so that you come back and edit it in the future if necessary.
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Comments
2 Responses to “Photoshop Tutorial : How to create a simple logo using Photoshop”
I'd love to hear your comments:
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About
Hi, my name is Jennifer Farley and I am a designer and design instructor based in Ireland. Read more about Laughing Lion Design .
Hire me for illustration work too!
view my portfolio:
coroflot.com/jennyrusks -
Connecting
thanks Jennifer - this was fantastic advice for creating a logo.
I knew how to perform some of the tasks, but I never could figure out what the best sizing and dimensions were for a logo.
I’m hoping this size works well in print as well as online.
thanks
Alex
Hi Alex
You’re very welcome. It’s generally best to create logos with vector tools because you can easily increase the size without any loss of quality. Hope your logos come out well for you!