Design your own logo

What a logo needs to work

A logo is seen at every size, from a sign to a browser tab, so it pays to plan a few versions:

• The full logo: the mark and the name together.
• The mark alone: for profile pictures, app icons and favicons, where words are unreadable.
• One color: for stamps, embroidery, engraving and faxes; a logo that only works in color is fragile.

Draw each version on its own artboard: the Artboard tool (Shift O) drags out new ones beside the first. Export then offers All of them at once, in a .zip of PNGs or SVGs, or one PDF with a page per artboard.

Test it small. Zoom out until the logo is a few millimeters across on screen: if the mark turns into a smudge, simplify it before you go further.

Tools for the job

• Pathfinder: Unite, Minus front, Intersect, Exclude and Divide. They are live: the shapes stay editable underneath until you choose Object › Expand.
• Shape Builder (Shift M): drag across overlapping pieces to merge them, Alt-drag to delete them. The quick way to build a mark from circles and squares.
• Live shapes: a rectangle keeps a radius for each corner, and polygons and stars change their sides or points with the arrow keys while you draw.
• Offset path… in Object › Path draws an even outline around a shape, for an outline version or a badge's rim.
• Align and spread evenly, smart guides that snap to other shapes, and rulers and guides keep things straight.
• Document colors in the Properties panel change a color everywhere it is used, so trying another palette takes seconds.

Coming from Illustrator? Its tool keys work here, and the command search (Ctrl K) finds commands by Illustrator's names too, such as “pathfinder” or “expand appearance”.

Text in a logo

The Type tool uses every font installed on your PC. Pick one, set the weight and the spacing between letters, and adjust it until the name sits well with the mark.

When the lettering is final, Type › Create outlines (Ctrl Shift O) turns the letters into shapes. Then the logo looks the same on computers that do not have the font, and you can reshape single letters with the Direct Selection tool (A), for example to join two of them. Keep a copy with live text in case the name ever changes. Export can also outline text in the exported file only, with Text as outlines.

Fonts come with licenses. Before a logo goes on products or into a trademark filing, check that its font's license allows that use.

Exporting for every use

PNGs are drawn from the shapes at the size you ask for, up to 32,767 pixels a side, so every size is sharp. The line at the bottom of the Export window shows the size in pixels or units and about how big the file will be.

Colors are RGB, which screens use and most print shops accept, converting them for print themselves. CMYK and spot colors are not in the Vector Editor yet; ask your printer if exact brand colors matter.