How to Create Football Logos

Show off your love of the pigskin with a football logo.

Whether you're rooting on your child in a Pop Warner youth football league or cheering for your favorite National Football League team, show your support with a football logo. Logos are graphic designs that create visible recognition, such as a team name, a mascot or even just a design. With football as your inspiration and using one of a couple of graphics programs (that may already be on your computer), you'll be "going long" to create a football logo that scores a touchdown.

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Publisher
• Microsoft Paint
• Adobe Photoshop
• Digital image

Instructions

Using Publisher

1. Score a logo in Publisher by taking advantage of the program's set of football-related clip art. Open Publisher and click "Blank Print Publication." A standard page of 8.5-inch by 11-inch paper opens. To design a logo on a smaller size page, pull down the "File" menu, click "Page Setup," click "Custom" and type in your preferred dimensions, then click "OK."

2. Pull down the "Insert" menu, click "Picture" and click "Clip Art." Pull down the "Results should be" menu. Check the "Clip Art" box for a cartoon-like logo, check the "Photographs" box for a realistic logo, or check both. Type a word or phrase, such as "football," "football player," "helmet" or "gridiron" into the "Search for" box and click "Go."

3. Scroll through the results and double-click a graphic, which appears on the logo workspace. Grab a corner and shrink or increase its size into place on the space.

4. (Optional) Click the "Insert WordArt" tool, which looks like a tilting capital "A" on the toolbar on the left side of the screen. Select a text style and type a word or phrase, such as "Go Maine Coons!" or "Jersey Players 2010" and click "OK," then position the text under or above the image to form the logo.

Using Photoshop

1. Use your own digital image to create a personalized football logo by opening the program, clicking "File" and clicking "New." Name the file "FootballLogo" and set your preferred dimensions, such as 5 inches by 5 inches. Pull down the "Mode" box and select "RGB Color." Click "White" under the "Contents" section and click the "OK" button.

2. Click "File" again, click "Open" and browse to a digital picture, such as a photo of your favorite player or a team photo. Double-click the file and it opens in the Photoshop workspace. Click the "Lasso" tool on the left side of the screen and draw an outline around just the part of the photo you want to use for the logo. When you see dotted lines, press the "Ctrl" and "C" keys to copy what you outlined. Click back to the "FootballLogo" box and press the "Ctrl" and "V" keys to paste in the copy.

3. Click the "Type" tool, which looks like a "T" on the toolbar, then select a font, size and color from the text toolbar at the top of the page. Position your cursor inside the "FootballLogo" box and type a phrase or team name, such as "Max's Football Training," "#1 Fan of the Tigers" or "Rose's Football Summer Camp."

Using Paint

1. Sketch your own football logo entirely from scratch using Paint. Open the program, click "Image" and click "Attributes." Type in your logo size, such as 4 inches by 4 inches, and click "OK."

2. Click the "Paintbrush" tool from the "Tools" palette and select the medium round brush head. Choose a brown paint color from the "Color Picker" at the bottom of the screen and draw the outline of a football. Click the "Paint Bucket" tool and then click inside the football, which fills with the brown paint color.

3. Click the "Pencil" tool and switch to a black paint color. Draw accents on the football such as stitching or seams. Switch to white paint and add more stitching and marks to the football.

4. Select the "Paintbrush" tool again, choose one of the slash mark brush heads and a new paint color, then draw by hand the words for your logo, such as "Ed's Jerseys and Uniforms."

References

• In Pictures: Microsoft Publisher
• University of Washington: Photoshop Type Tool
• Windows: Using Paint