How to create your own logos

Using Flash MX, Photoshop 7, Fireworks MX, Freehand 10 and dreamweaver MX

[unbeatabletechnology]

Hello,

I am looking to create several logos for my website. What are the best ways to make logos using the stated programs. Also do you know of any good resources online to do so? I have very little experience using these programs but since I have access to them I feel that it wouldn't hurt to learn how.

Thanks,

Mike

[xxxxxpp]

I find photoshop the best program to design logo's. I can't give you a way how to design in it ,though, since you have to use a lot of the program's features to make one. best way to go is buying a book that teaches you the basics and then to follow some tutorials you find on the web along side with a lot of practice. the best way to find tutorials is via google, btw.

[monkeythumpa]

If you are only going to use it on your website use Photoshop, but if you might put it into print use an Illustrator or Freehand. When creating it in those programs you can scale it as large as you want, I covered a bus with our logo!

[faltered]

unbeatable: I use both Photoshop and Illustrator. I find, depending on the kind of logo I'm creating and the type of effects that are involved, one program has advantages over the other.

You just have to try them and see which you like better. It's really a personal preference.

Good luck.

[rogerd]

While designing great logos requires a degree of artistic ability and creativity, often one needs a quick & dirty logo for a site, a project, etc.

In these cases, often choosing an unusual font will immediately set it apart from amateurish efforts in Arial or Times New Roman.

If it's an important logo, spend a few hundred dollars and have a real graphic artist do it. There are some very good designers who work in that price range.

[smokeyb]

Looking at your question, it looks like you're asking for a method rather than endorsments. If so, start by not turning on your comp at all, and get out a piece of paper and some felt tip pens. When you have a rough idea of what it should look like, either re-create it in Photoshop at at least 300dpi so you can print the image, and reduce it for web use too, or use Illustrator which is vector and not resolution based, and save the image for whatever purpose it needed.The techniques should be easy to find on tute sites, or of course this place will help you with specific problems you might have.
HTH

[jusdrum]

Ok, my design nazi and computer nazi side about to come out together and I mean no one personal attack. I just think an opinionated dissenting voice should be heard.

You can not design a logo in Flash, or Dreamweaver. I'm sure people do it, but that's like using a screw driver to pound in a nail. Flash is for vector animation and Dreamweaver is WYSIWYG HTML generator.

As a professional graphic designer, I would have to say Photoshop is the worst program to design a logo in. The problem is that Photoshop files, no matter how high res, are ultimately bit map images, which mean they can only be blown up to a limited size. Photoshop is meant for things like photos and rasterized art. The only way to go for a professional logo is vector, which means of the programs you mentioned, only Illustrator or Freehand will do. They are both excellent programs and have fiercly divided camps about which is better. I'm an Illustrator man myself because I enjoy the consistancy between Photoshop, InDesign and other Adobe apps I use.

Logos should be graphic and resolution independent. Ideally they would only contain 1-3 colors (easier and cheaper printing when you use a real press) and it should look good half the size of a penny and twice the size of a billboard, which means smart detailing. Keep it simple, but interesting.

Avoid using Photoshop to make logos. It will be difficult to impossible to print your cards with spot colors and that's the only way to go when printing business cards, letterhead, etc.

Only web designers use Photoshop to make logos and it makes the logos look amatuer. I mean that sweetly to those who use Photoshop for logo production. Especially run from using Photoshop's beveled edges and drop shadows when making your logo. :-)

[Paul_B]

<snip>"The only way to go for a professional logo is vector, which means of the programs you mentioned, only Illustrator or Freehand will do. "</snip>

... and Fireworks (does vector too).

[shigamoto]

I usually design the logos in Illustrator first and then I make a special version of the logo for online purposes in Photoshop.

Getting an unusual font is a good way to go when designing logos. Remember that most fonts requires you to pay for it if you are using it for commercial purposes.

Many logos have hidden or visible symbols inside them and that's the hardest part to come up with.