How to Create a Logo for Print in Freehand
Even with the Internet and television, print advertising is still one of the most effective ways to communicate with a customer. In addition, part of an effective ad for a business is having your company logo printed on it. If you do not have a company logo, you will want to create one. You might have thought that you would need to turn to a graphics artist to get a professional-looking logo, but if you have access to Adobe Corporation's Freehand vector graphics application, you can quickly create a logo yourself using the wide variety of tools and functions that are available in the program.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Sketch out on paper your ideas for the logo design you want. When creating your logo, you should consider the type of business you have and let this inform your design choices. For example, if you are a car parts business you might want to have an image of a car as part of your logo. On the other hand, if you have a bookstore, you might want a logo containing a book graphic.
-
2
Scan in the sketch you created for your logo and save it as a JPEG to your hard drive.
-
-
3
Open Freehand. Then select "File" and click "Import." In the dialog that pops up browse to the image you loaded and open it. It will appear on the background layer. Use the "Move" function to center the image on the canvas.
-
4
Go the corner drop-down menu in the "Layers" panel and select "New Layer." Select the new layer.
-
5
Use the "Line" tool to trace to logo image in the new layer. You can select the point of the curves you created and adjust their Bezier curves to produce smoother lines.
-
6
Trace in the inner lines of your logo design, creating new layers for each part. Using the car example again, you can draw in the shapes for the tires and windows. Continue this process to add the detail to your logo.
-
7
Use the "Paint Bucket" tool to fill the sections of your design with the colors of your choice. Use the layer "Properties" panel to add gradients to the parts. Save your work as a PNG file.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Adobe no longer is developing Freehand, but continues to sell the software, and offers technical and customer support. Adobe encourages users to migrate to Adobe Illustrator CS4.
References
- Photo Credit logo image by haruspex from Fotolia.com
