All language subtitles for 6. Creating Your First Looks

All right in the last lesson we did just a really sky level overview of some of the tools that I use

a lot.

There's there's a few more tools in that panel that we could explore.

Feel free to explore on your own time but as far as the basics and getting a pretty comfortable foundation

to know what to do that's what we covered.

Now we're going to do is just quickly mock up a couple of different ideas.

And the purpose in this is so you can kind of see my workflow and then what we're going to do is push

pause.

We're going to take a step back from our logo maybe a model on or maybe go do the dishes or something

else step back and let your subconscious mind work a little bit on those logos you come up with some

new ideas in the process.

But in order for that to work we need to try and make at least one or two logos so we can kind of start

problem solving and letting our mind kind of fight through that a little bit.

So I'm going to delete some of this extra junk that we were working on in that last video.

I'm going to come back up here by Derek Mitchell text that I've already outlined I mean to drag a copy

or an alt click and drag and I don't know the first thing that comes to mind is doing like a monogram

so I'm going to zoom in.

Hit the letter A to get my direct selection tool and click once on the letter D command C to copy it

command via paste it.

Now the problem with that as soon as I de-select this and I go to move this this is all grouped together

.

Sometimes it is this time it didn't group it.

But sometimes these are all grouped together as one.

So then what I would do with that select hit command X to cut it so it removes it from that group and

then hit Command F to paste it back or it was ok.

Hopefully that made sense.

It might not have but just just trust me here.

Oh click one more time in the letter might command you to copy and paste and that pasted it right on

top so I can drag up a click off and click back there again.

That's what happens sometimes here.

That left it as part of the other group.

So to get rid of that are removed from the group there's a couple of things we can do.

One is does it command shift G and this is going to object ungroup and that'll ungroup all the letters

which I don't want to do that though I want to leave these still selected so that command Z.

So there's still one group a way to cut that out but still leave this group in my head or a click once

and here hit command X to cut it which physically removes it from that group it command to paste it

back oh that work.

And now we have these as one group still.

And now this is separated.

Hopefully you're tracking with me but it's just just the way it is.

Just how we do this.

OK.

So one idea I have is to reflect this letter D letter O to get my reflection tool and it's fine.

The middle is going to click from the left holding down the Shift key and drag to the right.

So now I just reflected that.

Now move this over and I'll kind of align these up together.

So there's one idea I'm going to drag this up hold on and a copy.

Zoom back in.

And I've got another idea let's maybe knock out this stem so it looks like the D is kind of coming off

of that letter M.

There's a few ways we can do this.

The first actually probably let me just see what happens here we're going to drain this right over the

top and I'm going to add the letter M to get another rectangle I'm going to draw right over the top

of this guy here.

Stick with me here and I'm going to use that to knock out this letter D.

So what I'll do is go to a window go down a Pathfinder.

And now with this window this is kind of like the shape builder tool but we can see what it's going

to do here.

So sometimes if you've got a lot of elements to work with or in this case I don't want to get mixed

up with the letter M.

Probably the best way to work would be just shift and command click on that and now I can hold on Allt

the C command shift click on that into the rectangle and the letter de-selected hold on Allt and I can

erase away from those and see how quick that was.

That works pretty good.

Most of the time.

Sometimes if it doesn't.

Again you could use this Pathfinder window and whatever's on top.

I can use this right here the mynahs front to subtract whatever's in front came.

So now but the problem with that is it looks like a C am instead of a D.M. which is not what I was going

for so that's not the greatest idea either I'll stick that back up here or bring this guy back down

into play like command g to group them together.

And now I can grab either one of these and they stay together.

So I mean that's not bad it's not a really good logo yet.

It's just pretty basic and nothing fancy about it at all.

So some things we can add to it and maybe would be let's take a look at some of our samples and see

if anything sticks out we could add an enclosure like this.

This kind of Crest look shape here or maybe do a two tone option and sometimes when you start adding

colors your logo will look better than it is.

So let me show you what I mean.

I just took a picture that came up here command you to paste

Scuse me so I'm going to do is almost like the word Derek Mitchell and then make it this darker color

and then the m m I had the letter H to get my direct selection tool the letter V selects everything

and since it was grouped it gets both of them but the direct selection tool gets just a letter from

eyedropper tool.

I'll click on the darker color then I'll direct select by holding on the command key click on that letter

D and click on that lighter color.

So I mean right away it still isn't the greatest logo.

But as far as like visual visually like I don't know it's better right but it might be a crutch it might

be a terrible form and we don't know that if we're trying to apply color and we like the color but then

if we're going to go put this into black and white we might realize that it really isn't a good solution

.

So in at this size it looks like oh and instead of a dmh.

So we have some issues that we need to work through.

So that's part of my process for creating a look.

And you know what I don't want to spend too much time here is going to drag a copy up commands you to

copy to a group both of these and other one group and let's play this a little bit further.

This time I'm going to draw a shape around it.

Hit the letter M to get the rectangle tool command shift left bracket to send that to the back that

we just did and I'm going to make my fill white X to bring my stroke to the front and hold on shift

and click on this color.

Another reason why if I just let's let's step back Manzi if even though my stroke is in front if I click

on a full color.

This is a full color not a stroke color it'll apply the fill color by having my stroke in front and

then shift clicking on a full color.

It'll force it to just fill the stroke.

OK.

So there's another look.

And even that even just putting in an enclosure makes it feel a little more like a logo.

And again that's probably a little bit huge and I'm just trying to show you my workflow.

I wouldn't suggest really this as a final logo but this is how you get there you kind of have to wade

through some trash before you get that aha moment and you get that idea you like.

So here's some of the things we could do to to add some visual interest I'm going to drag this copy

over here and highlight these hit command to copy and then come up to effect.

It's going to warp the bulge.

Let's just see what that does.

Someone to scale this back just a touch.

So that kind of bulges it up.

I like that.

OK.

That's kind of cool.

I'm going to direct a copy over here to Mangi to copy those two together.

Highlight that again.

And now this time instead of going up to a fact down to warp if I do this ill try and apply a nother

effect on top of this.

Instead I'm going to come down here to my appearance tab and click on that.

This is in effect being applied to it and you know that because if we look closely it still has the

original shape showing up here but it's showing the effect applied to it so I can double click on that

and come back in and dial in this effect.

So maybe you know maybe we we just kind of play at the vertical and horizontal scaling of this and that

could be a cool effect.

Now one thing is again this is an effect applied to it.

If we want to make this actually the shape we wanted to modify it let's say want to modify this inner

shape a little bit well to do that what you need to do highlight your work come up to object click on

expand the parents.

There we go.

And now it expands that appearance.

One other thing you'll notice though this is still a stroke right click once on that.

And this is still a fill.

So if you wanted the stroke to be editable as a fill what we need to do is come to object expand and

then expand the fill and stroke over time.

And now we have this white fill behind it change to green you can see it better.

And then on top of it we've got this other fill that's now this dark color here and I can change that

individually.

So you track it with me.

I hope so.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of what's possible.

So I want you to do is work through some of these ideas you have whether it's stacking the low on top

or to the left or maybe it's creating wings or maybe it's trying to you know fight your way through

how am I going to make this shape and trying to explore the pen tool the blob brush and making something

you like maybe come up with about three or four options and then I want you to push pause like I said

the beginning.

Go do your dishes or go mow your lawn or go do something maybe go to the gym but let your brain be at

rest don't do something that takes mental energy like your finances do something that your body can

do but your mind can think and that's how you'll start arriving at a good logo's it doesn't matter what

we do in this first phase it can be a bunch of garbage but what it does is it forces your brain to start

thinking about it.

Think about it in school when you had a project due the next day.

And inevitably the night before you ended up doing it.

Oh man if I only had one more day would be so cool.

And that's what we're doing here we're kind of forcing ourself to be in that final crunch like pretending

like it's do.

But then you can step back.

Oh OK.

And then create some some space for your mind to start solving problems with your subconscious so.

All right.

So there's your homework create about three or four more looks just I mean even if the garbage is kind

of play with it and just get them out here hit save and then step away for a little bit