Today we're going to play around with Illustrator's type effects to build a vintage style logo
design.
Modern logo designs tend to be quite minimalist with a single icon graphic or wordmark, but
this classic style is still popular when used for t-shirt designs or certain hipster brands.
Since this design style is almost entirely type based, it's important to have a good
selection of fonts to work with. There is a good selection of free fonts out there,
but they tend to be for personal use only. I'll be using three typefaces I've just picked
up from a fonts bundle that's currently on sale.
If you're watching this video within a week of it going live the fonts deal is still available,
so if you fancy grabbing these premium fonts yourself, along with a load of others with
a 99% discount, check out the link in the description.
So to begin making this vintage style logo design, open up Adobe Illustrator and create
a new document. I'm just working in a standard A4 artboard with Pixel units and the RGB colour
mode.
Select the Type tool and lay out your font choices in some empty space. I'm using three
fonts from that bundle I just mentioned, named Town 10 Black, Montebello Script and URW DIN
Condensed.
All three of these fonts have a classic style to them that reflects the lettering style
of those old logos from the early 20th Century.
A combination of a heavy geometric sans serifs, a nice flowing script and a narrow industrial
sans-serif all complement each other really well.
With the Selection tool active, hold the ALT key and drag a copy of Town 10. I'll show
you how to create my design for Spoon Graphics in this tutorial, so edit the contents of
this first type element to SPOON.
Click the Make Envelope button in the top toolbar, then change the dropdown to Arc with
a bend of 10%. These basic text effects are the key ingredient of vintage style designs.
They mimic the lettering styles of those old hand made logos.
Hold the ALT key and make a duplicate of the Montebello script font. Change the wording
to Graphics, then hold the Shift key and click the Spoon text element to add both to the
selection. Click the Horizontal Align Center button in the Align panel to centre them up.
Scale the Graphics word down while holding the Shift and ALT keys to keep it in proportion
and scaling centrally and nudge it into place with the cursor keys.
Make another copy of the geometric sans Town 10 font and edit the contents to say Design
Blog. Increase the tracking to 400 in the character panel.
Add one of the other type elements to the selection by clicking while holding the Shift
key, then give the element an extra click to make it the Key Object. When you click
the align button, the key object won't move out of place.
Add an Arc Envelope Distort to this Design Blog text, but this time with -10% so it bends
in the other direction.
Make a copy of the script font and edit the contents to the word The. Select the Rectangle
tool and draw a small square on the artboard, holding the Shift key to keep the sides equal.
Switch the fill over to the stroke in the toolbar, then increase the stroke weight to
3pts with the Round Corners option checked.
Switch back to the Selection tool then click and drag near the corner handle to rotate
it by 45 degrees, holding the Shift key to keep the angle constrained.
Go to Object > Transform > Scale, then change the Vertical value under the Non-Uniform option
to 50% to squash this diamond shape.
Align this shape up by adding an existing text element to the selection, make the element
the key object with an extra click, then press the Horizontal Align Center button.
Nudge this shape into place vertically to sit on top of the design with roughly the
same spacing as the other text elements.
Scale and position the word The into place to fit within the diamond shape. Give it an
Envelope Effect, this time using the Rise option from the Dropdown with a 10% bend.
Alongside the main brand name, vintage logos also tend to have additional tag lines and
other bits of information. Make another copy of the script font and change the wording
to Made In, positioned underneath the logo.
Align it centrally with the other elements, then scale it down slightly, holding the ALT
and Shift keys to keep it lined up.
Make another copy of the Town 10 font, enter Great Britain as the wording, spread over
two lines and set to the center aligned paragraph style, then adjust the line height to tighten
the spacing up.
Apply a quick Envelope Distort effect to the Made In text using the 10% Arc settings to
decorate it slightly.
Make a copy of the URW DIN font in order to lay out a shorthand wording ESTD for Established,
not EDTD like my typo you can see on screen!
Split the letters over two lines and tighten up the leading. To align the characters, set
the cursor before the letter T, then use the ALT and right cursor key to adjust the kerning
to line up the letters along their left edges.
Scale the full text element to the same height as the Great Britain wording, then position
it off to the left, holding Shift to keep it in line.
Make a copy of this DIN text element for the other side, then edit the wording to 2007,
which was the date my Spoon Graphics design blog was set up. Keep this split over two
lines.
Add both these DIN text elements to the selection, then make a Group. Grouping them together
will allow you to line them up centrally while maintaining the gap between them.
Find the star shape from under the Rectangle tool menu and draw a little decorative shape.
Position it above the DIN text and make a copy for the other side.
Add a couple more decorative text elements using the Montebello script, using the words
Tutorials and Resources. Align them either side of the diamond shape.
Make copies of the little star graphics and add them as embellishments to these text elements.
Draw selections around all these elements, then go to Object > Envelope Distort > Make
With Warp. Choose the Arc setting at 10%.
The logo looks great, but we can add some more decorative features to turn it into a
badge style graphic. Select the Polygon tool and draw a hexagon on the artboard.
Clear out the fill and add a black stroke, then scale it up and position it centrally
around the logo elements.
Bump up the stroke weight to 8pts, then go to Effect > Stylize > Round Corners. Enter
10px.
Squash the hexagon shape down in size from the top handle, while holding the ALT key
so the bottom edge is adjusted by the same amount.
Make a copy of the star graphic and scale it up slightly in some empty space on the
artboard.
Drag off a copy of this larger shape to one side, then with them both selected, head to
Object > Blend > Make.
Select the hexagon outline and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter 20px in the options.
Hold the shift key and add the stars to the selection, then go to Object > Blend > Replace
Spine.
These star graphic don't quite run all the way around the shape. To fix this, grab the
Scissors tool and snip the hexagon at the top point.
Head back to Object > Blend > Blend Options and adjust the settings to Specified Steps.
Check the preview option and adjust the figure to produce a nice spread of stars around the
logo. 41 creates a symmetrical layout in my example.
Draw a selection around the entire logo and hold the ALT key to drag a duplicate off to
one side.
Select all the original elements again, then head to Object > Expand Appearance and Object
> Expand to permanently set all the fonts, strokes and envelope effects. Click the Unite
button from the Pathfinder panel to merge everything into one element.
This final version is completely made of vector shapes, so it's totally safe to scale up and
down for other uses and export for print.
We can also add some finishing touches over in Photoshop to give the design the popular
aged look that works perfectly with these vintage style designs.
Copy the logo graphic, then create a new Photoshop document. Chances are the scaling will be
quite small, so enlarge the canvas with the Crop tool before pasting and scaling the logo.
Right click on the logo layer and select Convert to Smart Object.
Begin with a Median effect from the Filter > Noise menu. Enter a low figure around 5px
to subtly round off all the corners to produce a letterpress style stamp effect.
Go to Filter > Distort > Ripple and reduce the amount to around 20% to add a subtle bleed
effect to the logo.
A final cocktail of filters will add some great texturing to the logo to finish off
the vintage print effect.
Head to Filter and select Filter Gallery.
Begin with a Reticulation effect from under the Sketch menu. Configure the settings to
40, 0, 0.
Click the new icon at the bottom of the window to layer up another effect. Select Torn Edges.
Configure these settings to 37, 1, 17. Play around with the top slider to adjust the amount
of texturing this filter will produce.
A final subtle addition that finishes off the realistic letterpress style print effect
is an Inner Glow to remove this texturing from the edges, which replicates how the ink
is spread on a stamped print.
Double click the layer to apply an Inner Glow layer style, Configure the settings to Normal,
black, 100% opacity, zero choke, then alter the Size option to around 24px, or whatever
suits the scale of the logo without losing the texturing on the smaller parts of the
design.
So I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and find these tips and techniques useful for creating
your own vintage style logo designs. If you really love this Spoon Graphics design, check
out the link below to my t-shirt store if you want to own it for real.
Don't forget to subscribe if you want to be the first to see all my upcoming tutorials,
and as always thank you very much for watching.