What if I told you that you could make an amazing logo with just a few simple steps in Illustrator, would you believe me? Scroll down to find out more…
1. Type the word POP (all caps) using Century Gothic Bold, 100 pts. If you don’t have Century Gothic find another font in your system that has very round letter forms.
2. Select the text with the Black Arrow and go to the TYPE menu > CREATE OUTLINES.
3. Select the outlined text and go to the OBJECT menu > UNGROUP
4. Select just the O and change the height to 72 pts in the measurements bar – the measurements bar appears below the menu when objects are selected with the Black Arrow.
5. Select both Ps and change the height to 72 pts in the measurements bar
6. Select the O and go to the OBJECT menu > COMPOUND PATH > RELEASE – this separates the O into its two components the inner and outer circle. Delete just inner circle.
7. Select the Star Tool (associated with the rectangle tool on your toolbar), click on the screen and enter an outer radius of 30pts and an inner radius of 15pts, 5 points.
8. Select both the Star and the Circle. Open the Align panel from the WINDOW menu. In the Align panel click the Horizontal Align Center icon to center the star inside the circle.
9. Select the Star with the Black Arrow – using the up or down arrow key on your keyboard move the star up or down to balance it inside the circle.
10. Select the Star and the Circle and go to the OBJECT menu > COMPOUND PATH > MAKE this now makes the hole in the center of the circle a star shape.
11. Select all the objects and in the Align panel click on the Vertical Align Bottom icon
12. Go to the VIEW menu > SHOW GRID and VIEW menu > SNAP TO GRID
13. Select all of the letter forms and using the arrow keys anchor the bottom left corner into the intersection of a major grid square.
13. Select each letter and using the right and left arrow keys tighten the space between letters, balance the O in between the two Ps making sure the round part of the 2nd P touches a grid line.
14. Draw a rectangle over the entire word shape – the rectangle should just cover the entirety of the letters and not extend beyond them.
15. Open the Pathfinder panel from the WINDOW menu. Select everything with the Black Arrow and click on the Divide icon in the pathfinder panel.
16. With the divided up shapes still selected change them to the default colors (black stroke, white fill) by typing D on your keyboard.
17. Go to the OBJECT menu > UNGROUP to separate the objects
18. Assign new fill colors to all of the shapes, change the stroke color to none.