Design a logo
Use vector shapes in Adobe Illustrator to create a logo that looks good onscreen and in print. The best part about vector art is that it scales to any size — from business cards to billboards — without losing quality.
Published
Typekit is now Adobe Fonts.
1 Set up your logo project
Create a new document and set up your workspace. Bring in a reference image to use as inspiration, and use the Layers panel to easily manage your artwork.
Welcome to Adobe Illustrator CC.
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a logo in Illustrator CC, and learn key features of the program along the way.
You'll learn how to deconstruct a reference image, such as a photo or a scan of a sketch, into simple shapes that you can use to design and create a successful logo.
Our example is a logo for a pizzeria, so you'll use this photo of a pizza slice as inspiration for the logo.
A logo identifies a business, so it needs to be simple, appropriate, easily recognizable and also memorable.
It also needs to work across a variety of media and sizes.
Illustrator CC creates vector graphics which can be edited and resized without loss of quality and is the perfect tool for logo design.
To get started with the logo, you'll create a new document.
So up here, choose File,
New...
In the New Document dialogue box, make sure the Print category is chosen You can then choose from a series of document presets here.
Make sure that the Letter size is chosen.
In the presets details on the right, change the name to side-slice-pizza-logo.
Set the units to inches, and change the Orientation to Landscape.
There are a lot of other options you could set for a new document, and even start with Adobe Stock templates you can see here.
But in this case, the default settings are what you need.
So click Create.
With the new file open, you'll save this design.
So, choose File, Save.
Save it on your hard drive and it should be named side-slice-pizza-logo.ai.
Make sure that the format or Save As type is Adobe Illustrator, and then click to save it.
Then click OK.
Reset your workspace
To start with, you're going to reset the panels and tools called the workspace, to their default positions.
So choose Essentials from the work space, which are here, if it's not already chosen.
Then choose Reset Essentials from the same menu to ensure that the workspace is set.
To make sure you can see the entire document area, choose View, Fit Artboard in Window.
This white area, called an artboard, is similar to a page in Adobe InDesign CC.
And it's where you'll put the content you want to print or export.
First, you're going to place an image to use as a reference for the pizza logo.
So you'll place it in the document.
If you want to recreate the logo shown in this tutorial, you can use the supplied assets or you can use your own image.
Place a reference image
So choose File, Place...
Select this image from the practice files you downloaded from the tutorial page, and then click to place it.
In the document, click over here to put the image on the artboard.
With the Selection Tool in the Tools panel on the left selected, drag the image over here so it's out of the way but you can still see it.
You only need to use this image as a reference, so you'll lock it in place using the Layers panel.
Open the Layers panel
Open the Layers panel by choosing Window, Layers or you can click the Layers panel tab over here.
Layers are very useful in Illustrator CC because they align to separate and organize content, change how artwork is stacked, makes selecting easier, and a whole lot more.
To rename the default layer, double click directly on the Layer 1 name, and name it Reference.
That'll make it easier to identify our content later.
Press Enter or Return to make the change.
Click here to lock the layer and image so you don't accidentally move it.
Now you'll create a new layer for the logo artwork you're about to create.
Click the Create New Layer button down here at the bottom of the Layers panel, to create a new empty layer above the original layer.
Double click right on the layer name and name it Logo.
Then press Enter or Return.
Click on the layer name once just to make sure that it's selected.
That way any artwork you create will be on that layer and is on top of the image on the layer beneath it.
To save what you created so far, choose File, Save.
With the document set up, your layer is ready to go, and the files saved, you can start creating the pizzeria logo using shapes, color, and more.
Learn how to create a new document, reset your workspace, place a reference image, and open the Layers panel.
2 Use basic shapes to create complex art
Combine rectangles, triangles, circles, and freeform shapes to build your artwork. Use Smart Guides to align the various elements.
Adobe Illustrator has a wide variety of tools and various methods to choose from when creating vector artwork.
With the document set up, you'll start your logo by creating a slice of pizza using shapes.
Enable Smart Guides to align artwork
But before you start, choose View and make sure there's a check mark next to Smart Guides.
If not, choose it.
Smart Guides will help you to be more precise when you draw and edit your artwork.
So let's start by drawing a rectangle which will become the pizza crust.
Select the Rectangle Tool in the Tools panel on the left.
Upon the document to the right of the image, click and drag to draw a rectangle.
Try to make it match the sizing in that reference image and know that you can always resize it later.
Most shapes you draw are live which means you can edit them easily after the fact without switching tools.
Manipulate a Live Shape
In the rectangle, you'll see a corner radius widget in each corner.
Drag one of them toward the center of the shape to round the corners of the crust.
Now you'll finish the slice of pizza.
Click and hold down in the Rectangle Tool and you'll see a variety of drawing tools.
Select the Polygon Tool.
Bring the pointer below the rectangle, click and drag to create a shape.
And as you drag, press the Shift key to constrain it.
Drag until your shape is roughly this size, then release the mouse button and then the Shift key.
Drag this little widget to change the number of sides on the shape, until you see three.
And to rotate it, move the pointer just off a corner, when you see this rotate arrow, press the Shift key and drag clockwise so that the triangle looks like this.
Release the mouse button and then the Shift key.
To resize the triangle, press the Shift key, and drag (unv.), looking at the pizza crust or the rectangle above, and makes sure it looks something like this.
Then release the mouse button and then the Shift key.
To move it into place, move the pointer over the center widget and drag it so that it overlaps the bottom of the rectangle a little bit.
You'll see magenta lines showing which are part of Smart Guides to help you align content.
Make sure it's aligned with the center of the rectangle, like this.
In the Properties panel on the right, (unv.) the Arrange button, and choose Send to Back to put the triangle behind the rectangle.
Next, you will reshape the pizza slice a bit.
After drawing shapes, you can easily edit them further.
Select the Direct Selection Tool in the Tools panel, come to the bottom corner of the triangle and click the point to select it, then release the mouse button.
Shapes in Illustrator are made of anchor points and paths which are completely editable.
Click and drag this point down a bit, but make sure it stays aligned with the center.
The magenta Smart Guide that appears will help.
Now you'll add some toppings to the pizza using a variety of other shapes.
Let's start with some bell pepper.
Select the Zoom Tool in the Tools panel here, and click once above the pizza slice to zoom in.
In the Tools panel on the left, click and hold down on the Polygon Tool and select the Rectangle Tool again.
Drag to create a new rectangle that's about this big.
This will be our pepper.
Now you'll create some pepperoni.
Click and hold down on the Rectangle Tool, and select the Ellipse Tool.
In the document, away from the other artwork, drag to make a circle.
Make sure you see these cross hairs which means it's a true circle, then release the mouse button when it's about this big.
To create an olive, you'll start by copying the circle for the pepperoni.
With the circle still selected, hold down the Option key on Mac or the Alt key on Windows, and drag from the shape from the center off the right edge of the artboard over here in the gray area.
Release the mouse button and then the key.
Choose Edit, Copy, Edit, Paste in Front to paste a copy of the circle right on top of the original.
With the pointer over a corner of the box around the circle, start dragging toward the center to make it smaller.
As you drag, press Option Shift on Mac or Alt Shift on Windows.
When it's about this big, release the mouse button and then the keys.
Select the Selection Tool in the Tools panel and drag across both shapes to select them.
Press and hold the Shift key and drag a corner toward the center of the shape to make it smaller.
Release the mouse button, and then the key.
Now you'll use the smaller circle to create a hole in the larger circle.
The Shape Builder Tool in the Tools panel lets you intuitively combine, edit, and change the color of shapes.
So select the Shape Builder Tool, press the Option key on Mac or Alt key on Windows, and click the center circle to remove it from the center of the olive.
You can see the gray color of the background through the middle now.
Select the Selection Tool, and drag the olive shape next to the other toppings.
To zoom in a little bit, press Command plus on Mac or Control plus on Windows a few times.
So far, you've been drawing simple shapes, but you need to create a mushroom which is more free form shape.
Using the Curvature Tool,
Draw a shape freeform
you can easily create free form paths and shapes.
In the Tools panel, click to select the Curvature Tool.
With this tool, you click to set points and create a path.
Click to set the first point here and release the mouse button.
Move the pointer and click again, releasing the mouse button, then move the pointer again.
You'll see a curve.
Click to add a few more points and make the top of the mushroom.
When you get down here, you need to make sure this point is a corner, not smooth or curved like this.
So double click this point to change it.
You can also create corner points by pressing a key before you click.
Press the Option key on Mac or Alt key on Windows, and click a few more times to make corner points, then release the key.
Move the pointer over the original point and click to close the path.
Know that with the Curvature Tool, you can always go back to this shape and edit it by dragging, adding or deleting points, or changing them from curved to corner points and back.
To save your file, choose File, Save.
In Illustrator, there are a lot of ways to create the artwork you want from basic shapes to complex paths.
You now have the artwork you need to make the pizza logo.
You can now take it a few steps further by coloring and assembling the pieces.
Learn how to enable Smart Guides to align artwork easily, manipulate a Live Shape, and draw a shape freeform.
3 Add color
Apply colors to all your logo components using intuitive controls that let you easily make edits. To keep the colors and shapes of your logo handy, simply add them to your Adobe Creative Cloud Libraries.
In this video, you'll apply and create colors and also explore Creative Cloud Libraries.
So let's start by adding color to the different parts of the pizza logo you've created so far.
So that you can see the whole artboard to start, choose View, Fit Artboard in Window.
Select the Selection tool in the Tools panel, and click the triangle to select it.
In the Properties panel on the right, you'll see settings and controls for the selected artwork.
Lots of these options can be found in multiple locations throughout the program.
The content in this panel actually changes depending on what's selected.
Now, artwork in Illustrator CC like this triangle can have a fill which can be a solid color, gradient, or pattern, and a stroke or a border.
Click the Fill color in the Properties panel to see either a series of default colors called Swatches, with this option selected, or the ability to make your own color with this option selected.
Make sure the Swatches option is selected so you can see these colors.
Every document starts with a series of default colors, called Swatches.
Edit a color
Select the yellow color swatch by clicking on it.
You can even see a tool tip that gives you a color name here.
You can easily also create a new color or edit color swatches in Illustrator CC using a variety of methods.
To create a new color, click the Color Mixer option up here, you can either drag in the color field down here to make it colored, or change the color values up here.
So we all have the same color, we'll change the cyan, magenta, yellow and black values, which are printing inks to cyan 7, you can type in the value, magenta 8, yellow 52, and black 0.
Colors made in here aren't saved to swatches by default.
Save a color to a library
To save the color you just made so you can easily reuse it later, you can save it as a swatch or in a Creative Cloud Library.
Open the Libraries panel by choosing Window, Libraries.
Creative Cloud Libraries are an easy way to create and store shared content like images, colors, text styles, text objects, Adobe Stock assets and a lot more, between Illustrator projects and other Adobe desktop and mobile apps.
To use Libraries, you need to be signed in with your Creative Cloud ID, which you should be.
And you can always get an Adobe ID if you don't have one.
You can use the default library called My Library or you can create a new one, which is what you'll do.
From this menu at the top of the panel, choose Create New Library.
Name it Side slice pizza logo, then click Create to make a new library.
Now, you'll save the color fill of the triangle so you can use it later.
With the triangle still selected, click the Add Content plus down here at the bottom of the Libraries panel and make sure Fill Color is selected, but not Stroke Color or Graphic.
Click Add to add the color to the library.
To change the name of the color, double click the color name and change it to pizza cheese.
Press Enter or Return to make the change.
For the rest of the pizza logo artwork, I'd like you to apply your own colors.
You can be creative.
We've got the pepperoni, crust, pepper, and mushroom to color.
You can use the method you just learned, applying an existing color or making your own, or you can use one of a series of default color libraries that come with Illustrator CC.
Access pre-made color swatch libraries
To see them, choose Window, Swatch Libraries way down here, Foods, Vegetables, to open a library of color you can use.
There are plenty of colors you can choose from in here.
If you want to check out other libraries, you can also click the arrows down here or you can choose the vegetables library again by clicking the Swatch Libraries menu here.
To apply one of these colors, select the shape with the Selection tool.
Make sure the Fill box is selected at the bottom of the Tools panel so it changes the fill of the shape, not the stroke or border, and click to apply a color.
I have got a Creative Cloud library with colors in it from a previous project that I'll use to color my artwork.
You won't have access to this, so be creative, and explore the color libraries, like vegetables, I just showed you.
When you're all finished applying color, click the X to close this panel.
Now that our artwork is colored, let's finish the olive.
With this Selection tool still selected, drag across just the olive path just to select it.
In the Properties panel on the right, change the Fill color to black.
Drag across all of the shapes to select them.
In the Properties panel on the right, change the stroke weight to 2 by clicking the arrow here. making the border a bit thicker.
You can leave the stroke color as black.
I think the pizza logo looks pretty good so far with color applied to the artwork.
As you continue to learn Adobe Illustrator CC, you'll see that there's much to explore when it comes to coloring artwork making it easy to realize your creative vision.
Learn how to edit a color, save a color to a library, and access premade color swatch libraries.
4 Fine-tune your logo
Now adjust the scale of your shapes and rotate them to assemble the toppings on your pizza slice.
In this video, you'll explore different methods for transforming artwork like rotating and scaling.
Transforming artwork is another important part of creating in Illustrator CC.
To start with you'll arrange the toppings on the pizza.
So first we need to resize the shapes to fit better on the pizza slice.
You'll resize them all at once to work a little smarter.
With the Selection Tool selected, drag across the shapes to select them.
Shift drag the corner towards the center of the shapes to make them smaller.
Pressing the Shift key means the artwork maintains its proportions.
Release the mouse button and then the key when they look something like this.
To deselect all the artwork, click somewhere in the artboard.
Or you can choose Select, Deselect.
Drag each of the toppings onto the pizza slice one at a time.
To make copies of the pepperoni, press the Option key on Mac or Alt key on Windows and drag this pepperoni shape.
When it's where you want it, release the mouse button and then the key.
Do this one more time so you have a few pieces of pepperoni.
Option drag in Mac or Alt drag in Windows the green pepper shape to make a copy.
Release the mouse button and then the key.
Rotate a shape
To rotate this shape, move the pointer off a corner, and when you see the rotate arrows, drag to rotate it a little bit.
Try selecting another shape and dragging to rotate as well.
You can move the shapes around if you want to make it look a little better too.
Now to cut off the toppings that are outside the pizza shape, you can use the Shape Builder Tool again.
Choose Select All, since you need to select all the shapes you want to affect. with the Shape Builder Tool.
Select the Shape Builder Tool in the Tools panel on the left, press Option on Mac or Alt on Windows, click in the fill of a shape, not the stroke, to remove it.
There, that looks a little better.
So that we can keep the pizza shapes together and transform them all at once, you'll group them together.
Click the Group button in the Properties panel on the right.
You'll see the word "Group" at the top of the Properties panel.
That means the shapes will now be treated as a single unit.
Select the Selection Tool and move the pointer off a corner of the group.
When you see the rotate arrows, drag to rotate it.
To finish the pizza slice, you'll add some cheese dripping off the corner.
So click and hold down on the Ellipse Tool and Tools panel and select the Rectangle Tool.
Starting at the corner of the pizza slice here, drag to create a rectangle below the pizza group that looks something like this.
To zoom into this a little bit, press Command and plus on Mac or Control and plus on Windows a few times.
To make a copy of this and paste it right on top of the original, choose Edit, Copy, and then Edit, Paste in Front.
Select the Selection Tool and drag to resize the copy from this corner to make it look something like this.
Now you'll make a copy of this new rectangle.
From the center of the selected shape, press Option on Mac or Alt on Windows and drag the rectangle to the right and snap it to the right edge of the larger rectangle.
Make sure the top edges are also aligned.
Release the moue button and then the key.
Drag the bottom middle point of the new rectangle up to make it a bit shorter.
Then drag across the rectangles to select them all.
Now you'll combine them.
Select the Shape Builder Tool in the Tools panel and drag through all three shapes to combine them.
The cheese should be rounded down here to look more like it's actually dripping cheese.
To do that select the Direct Selection Tool in the Tools panel, drag across the bottom points of the rectangles so you can round just those points.
Then drag one of the corner widgets you see to round the corners for all of them.
The cheese would definitely look better if it was connected to the pizza.
So it looks like it's part of it.
You can edit the shapes you just created to do this.
With the Direct Selection tool still selected, click the anchor point here and release the mouse button.
Then drag that same selected point up until it snaps to the pizza slice edge.
Reuse a color from a library
To match the cheese color of the pizza with the cheese group selected, go back to the Libraries panel and click the pizza cheese color you saved.
To save the file, choose File, Save.
The logo is almost complete after assembling the pieces and adding that dripping cheese.
The only thing it's really missing is some text, which you'll explore next.
Learn how to rotate a shape and reuse a color from a library.
5 Add text
Round out your logo by adding the business name using the powerful typesetting features in Illustrator. Creative Cloud members can choose from the vast library of high-quality typefaces from Adobe Typekit.
Illustrator CC has a really powerful set of type features that make it easy to add text and change the appearance of that text to match your design.
In this video, you'll add some text to our unfinished logo and see how to change properties like font, size, and more.
To start with, you'll add some text.
To ensure that you see the whole artboard, choose View, Fit Artboard in Window.
Select the Type tool in the Tools panel on the left.
There are several ways to create type in Illustrator CC.
You could either drag to make an area to type text into or simply click to type text at a point.
In this case, you'll simply click to add some text.
Add text
Click just below the pizza shape and type "Side Slice."
Drag across the text to select it.
The first thing you'll do to change the appearance of the text is make it bigger.
With the text selected, look in the Properties panel to the right.
You'll now see a variety of text formatting options available.
Change the Font size by selecting it in the Properties panel and typing in "62."
Press Enter or Return to make the change.
The next thing you'll do to change the appearance of the text is to change the Font.
Change the font
Back on the Properties panel on the right, click the arrow to the right of the Font family field.
This list shows the available system fonts and any Typekit fonts you've synced with your machine.
You could choose a font from your computer, or as a Creative Cloud subscriber, you have access to the Typekit Library of Fonts.
Add fonts from Typekit
You can select fonts from the Typekit Library by clicking the Add Fonts from Typekit button here.
After clicking the button, the Typekit.com website should open in your default web browser.
And you should be signed in with your Adobe ID.
Come to the search field and type in "leag".
You'll use the font League Gothic in this project.
So, click on the name in the list that appears.
On the next page click Sync All to sync the fonts with your machine.
You can then close the browser window if you want and return to Illustrator CC.
Back in Illustrator CC with the text still selected, in the Font Family menu, click the Apply Typekit Filter button to filter the font list only showing Typekit Fonts.
Click League Gothic to apply to font.
Now let's fine tune the appearance of the text.
With the text selected there are a lot of formatting options in the Character section of the Properties panel over here. for you to explore.
You can also click More Options here to see even more text formatting options.
I want to add some spacing between all the letters.
You'll use tracking to do that.
Add spacing between letters
In the Properties panel change the tracking value to 50.
I think the text would look better if it were all capitalized.
So, let's do that.
In the Properties panel on the right, click More Options to reveal more character formatting options, then click All Caps to easily change the text to uppercase.
To change the color of the text, you'll apply the reddish color of the pepperoni to it.
Select the Direct Selection tool in the Tools panel and click to select one of the pepperoni shapes.
Back in the Libraries panel, click the Add Content button at the bottom of the Libraries panel down here, this +.
Make sure that Fill Color is the only thing selected and click Add.
Select the Type tool again and select the text.
Click the pepperoni color in the Libraries panel to change the color of the text.
So that the text and the rest of the logo artwork stay together you should group them.
Select the Selection tool in the Tools panel, and first drag the text into position here.
Then drag across all of the artwork in the logo to select it.
Go back to the Properties panel and click the Group button at the button of the panel to group everything together.
And then to save the file, choose File, Save.
With the text in place, you're pretty much done with your logo.
Type can play a really important part in your design, and what you've seen so far is just a small but important sampling of what's possible with Type in Adobe Illustrator CC.
Learn how to add text, change the font, add fonts from Typekit, and add spacing between letters.
6 Preview and save your logo
See how your logo looks on mockups of everyday items, like t-shirts and business cards. And learn how easy it is to save your logo artwork for printing, sharing as a PDF, posting on the web, and more.
Illustrator CC offers a variety of ways to share a design by printing, making a PDF, optimizing for a website, and a lot more.
To give you an idea of the type of formats you can choose and why, in this video I'd like to take you through how to save your logo in some common formats.
The Illustrator CC file side-slice-pizza-logo.ai you saved earlier in in this tutorial as what's called a native file format.
The .ai at the end there stands for Adobe Illustrator.
This format will preserve all of the layered content, the effects, type, pretty much everything you did so you can always go back and make changes.
When creating artwork like you did, it's really important to preserve this master of the logo.
To save the logo so you can add it to other documents within Illustrator CC or others like InDesign CC and Photoshop CC, you can add it to a Creative Cloud Library.
In the Libraries panel on the right, make sure your Side slice pizza logo library is chosen.
If you don't have this library you created earlier, you could choose your own or simply use My Library.
Save your finished logo to a library
With the Selection tool, drag the logo group into the Libraries panel.
When you see a plus appear, release.
The artwork is now saved in the Library.
Double click the name at the bottom of the thumbnail and type "Side Slice Logo." and press Enter or Return to accept it.
You'll create a new document that you can put this logo into.
That way we can discuss saving a PDF file in a document with just the logo in it.
To create a new document, choose File, New...
In the New Document dialog box, make sure to select the Print category at the top and then select Letter if it's not already selected.
Change the name on the right here to "Pizza Logo.", then click Create to open a new document.
Now you'll save it.
So, to save it choose File, Save.
Save it to your hard drive, then click OK.
Come to the Libraries panel and drag the Side Slice Logo into the document.
Then click to place it.
This artwork is linked to the library item which means if you edit the original library item artwork, the logo you see in the document will be updated.
Now, in order to hand this file off for review to someone who doesn't have Illustrator CC or to send the design to a print provider, you could save your artwork as a PDF.
To do this, choose File,
Save the logo design as a PDF
Save As...
Choose Adobe PDF (pdf), save it somewhere you can later find it then click Save to save it.
In the Save Adobe PDF dialog box, you can leave the settings at their defaults unless you're sending the file to a print provider who specifies other settings for instance.
Just click Save PDF.
This PDF copy to file can be open using a PDF reader like the free Adobe Reader.
If the file is open in Illustrator CC, its content and layers are still available.
Now, if you need to output the entire design or parts of the artwork in the design for use online or maybe in a presentation, you can export that content in a variety of appropriate formats.
To do that choose Window,
Save the logo design to use it on a web page
Asset Export.
In the Asset Export panel that opens you can add assets you want to export by dragging content in.
Since the logo is a group of content you can drag it into the Asset Export panel and it will generate a single asset.
Before you drag anything into the panel you can read some helpful tips here.
So, drag the logo into the top of the panel and release.
The artwork is now ready to export.
You can choose a format that best suits your needs to optimize the artwork, formats like PNG, JPG, SVG or PDF.
Make sure SVG is chosen to save it as an SVG file or Scalable Vector Graphic file, probably the best format for this vector artwork if you want to use it in a website for instance.
Click Export at the bottom of the panel and choose a location and click Choose to export the pizza logo.
With the logo saved in the library, you can also add it to other projects you're working on.
And since it's vector, you can scale it as much as you need.
Next, you'll take a look at what the logo might look like in different projects, like a business card and a T-shirt template.
Know that the business card and T-shirt artwork you are about to see is only a mock up and not intended to be printed as is.
So, to open a file, choose File, Open...
Select the 2-sample-assets.ai file from the practice files you downloaded from the tutorial page and click to open it.
I've already got it open, so I'll click Cancel.
All of the artwork in this file was created using the tools you've learned so far in this tutorial.
So, you can see all of the artboards in the document Choose View, Fit All in Window.
Come to the Libraries panel on the right and drag the logo onto the business card artwork.
Then click to place it.
Then drag the logo from the Libraries panel again onto the T-shirt shape.
Click in to place it.
Because the artwork in the logo is vector, you can resize it and know that it will print properly.
Shift drag the corner of the selected logo to resize it to fit better in the T-Shirt.
You can release the mouse button and then the Shift key and drag it into position if you need.
Try resizing the other logo using the Shift key and then reposition it.
In this tutorial, you've created a logo for a pizzeria and I don't know about you but I'm hungry for pizza now, so I guess it's working.
Let me open a few more logos just to inspire you.
These logos were created using the same method you just learned.
Creating artwork in Illustrator CC can be really fun.
Learning the basics of the program is enough to get you on your way, but this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the creative power of Adobe Illustrator CC.
Learn how to save your finished logo to a library, save it as a PDF, and choose other options for general web use.
Learn more about Creative Cloud for teams and business logo design.
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