Another project comes to an end friends! I’m so excited to share with you all my final logo design (a part of me cannot believe I created my own logo!). I created this logo using Adobe Illustrator, which was new to me and a bit of a challenge, but I’m glad I got to learn about it with this project.
This logo is for a dream of mine, an animal shelter I one day hope to own. I love animals and being able to help them, so this dream is something I have always had in the back of my mind. The name of the shelter would be ‘Pawsitive Rescue’ which serves as the words and inspiration for the logo. I wanted to use the word ‘pawsitive’ since it’s something I’ve been mentioning throughout my blog, and I thought this title would encourage people to think of rescuing in a positive way.
To start my logo design process I began by reading about logo creation, looking at examples, and learning about Illustrator. I took full advantage of our class materials and tutorials for this unit to complete this project. I then started drawing ideas; I drew paw prints, dogs, cats, played with the name, and consequently created my first draft.
About my draft:
My first draft was black, white and grey in color, had a paw print and the silhouette of the face of a dog for icons. I used the ellipse tool to create the paw. I first created one circle and used the direct selection tool to move in the top corners to form a paw looking palm, then created 4 smaller ellipses for the toes, and made sure everything looked proportional before grouping it all together.
I used the same tool to create the dog’s face; one big circle for the face, two smaller ones for the cheeks, and two rounded rectangles for the ears. I then created the eyes which were two white ellipses and two smaller black ones on top. To make sure everything stayed in place, I grouped everything together as well.
I used the text tool to create my text and used the appearance tool to add effects and different layers to the words. I went for a gradient and pointillize effect on the text, which gave the letters a two tone look and added lots of tiny dots, and plain black fill for the icons. I also added a light stroke to go around the words and icons. It was an overall good first draft, but it needed some improvements.
Changes:
I received feedback from some classmates, professor, my boss at work, sister, and husband (want to credit them all). The common suggestion between them all was to add some color. (I struggle with color, as I’m more of a black and white for everything type of a person ha). None the less, I went back to my draft and played around with different colors I could use. I decided to go with different shades of brown/tan.
I made the fill for the letters a light-to-medium tan color and the layer on top a pointillize effect with some deeper and lighter brown shades (but made the points on the effect bigger than they were for the draft version). Finally, for the paw I chose a deep brown color instead of the black it used to be.
Another significant change on my logo besides the color, was the removal of the original dog icon. I decided to remove it per some feedback I was given, as having both the paw and dog made them compete for attention. I believe this was a great suggestion that enhanced the overall look and professionalism of the logo.
As far as the text, I kept the original font called Impact and size 125 pt. However, I added more space in between the letters. On my fist draft they were too close together, so adding the space made them easier to read and to be able to see the effects better.
Finally, I made sure the logo would look good on both a light and dark background (which you’ll see both options below). So, while I was deciding on the colors and effects, I was going back and forth with the color of the background to make sure it would work on either one.
Overall, I am very proud of my final result. I’m also very thankful for the feedback I received, which helped me improve and design a better logo. I hope you like it!
