Final Logo Design

For this project I have decided to create a very simple design, giving off the implication of traveling. This relates to my course topic because the palm trees, pineapple, coloring, and the surf board are giving off the indication that you’re on vacation. I was mainly inspired by some palm trees I saw in an ad online for great vacations. I did not do a whole lot of research trying to come up with my design, most of it pretty much just came to me. The significance is how subtle, yet elegant, it is and how relaxed it makes you feel, which you should when you’re on vacation.

My design process was a little complex, but the tutorials really helped me out. I started off by using the polygon tool and turning that into a triangle. I shrunk it into the desired size to make the base of the tree. I then warped it in the effects category so it wasn’t just up and down. I managed to do this exact process to make the leaves. I copied and rotated the entire design to make the other tree. The surf board was created through the ellipse tool and I simply just stretched it out. The banner I made from the same tutorial from the logo tutorials. And the back ground I enlarged a circle, and pushed it to the back, and finally added the stars to the upper area.

I managed to create this project using the tutorials we watched earlier this week, and I spent a lot of time fidgeting with illustrator, coming up with new ways to create things. My process for constructing my project was to try and keep it simple, yet elegant. The main tools I used were the polygon tool, and the warp effect to give my pieces a better look and feel. The main challenge i had was coming up with a way to first construct the leaves. It took me a very long time to get the right shape, and I was unsure on how to even get that shape to begin with. I solved this by trial and error, going back and forth trying to get the perfect shape.

After receiving my feedback from my draft logo, I realized I needed to make quite a few changes. First off my whole logo looked very stale. With that being said, I decided to spruce it up. I added a warp effect to the surfboard, new texture, and drip marks by using the pen tool to create shapes and changing the color, then inserting it onto the board.  I added a gradient to the background to make it look for like a sunset, by putting a combination of yellow and orange and re-arranging it until I got a good sunset look. Next, I added a very detailed pineapple to show off more of the vacation vibes, using the ellipse tool and warping it into the shape I desired, and adding more warped lines and rectangles to get the leaves, and lines. I also realized I needed to take out my banner as it wasn’t quite fitting the style I was going for. I originally had the abbreviation “GTD” on the banner,  but decided to take it out as well and expand it so it is much easier to understand. I then gave it a chalk look, as it is similar to a tropical style. The last thing I changed was the stars color, because I changed the background, and it wasn’t popping as much as I wanted it to. I did not encounter any technical challenges on my final design, I just spent more time perfecting it.

Overall, I am very happy with the way my final logo project has come out. It is going to fit in very well with my blog, and is very pleasing to look at because the color schemes all go very well with one another.