Using Photoshop for Logo Design

There is no fixed rule or formula for designing a wining and appealing logo. Designers can make good use of their creative skills and achieve great results in logo design by using various design apps.

Typically, designers resort to using vector graphics based page layout programs and apps like CorelDraw for making logos, since it gives designers greater flexibility in editing and modifying design. However, at times, designers may have to use apps like Photoshop for making a logo captivating and adding special effects to designs. This is because Photoshop, despite being a raster based app, contains a huge number of filters and tools. A logo design company using Adobe Photoshop for logo making needs to be careful about using this app properly for their work.

While Photoshop does offer options to create vector paths and shapes with its tools, its vector design capabilities are pretty limited when compared to dedicated vector apps like CorelDraw or Adobe’s own, Illustrator. Designers must use Photoshop to create logos when absolutely necessary. For making text based logos, standalone vectors apps can be used without any problem. In any case, designers need to export files to formats supported by vector apps prior to printing. Photoshop can export files to various formats that are used in printing.

A logo designer needs to remember that his client may need to use logos in various sizes and resolutions. As a matter of fact, a company may need to use logos on various mediums like paper, web, and billboards and so on. A logo may also be printed in greyscale version in some cases. Hence, a designer needs to check how his logo looks in lower resolutions while working in Photoshop.

Photoshop offers support for various commonly used and trendy fonts but a logo design professional needs to be careful about a font he selects while using this app. Opting for a stylish font in Photoshop that is not supported by the app used for taking printout of a logo, does not make sense. Using fonts that are supported across OS and apps is advisable for this purpose. Same can be said about choosing color palettes in Photoshop for making logos. However, Photoshop does offer generous color palettes and lets users work with spot colors.

A logo needs to stand out midst competition and appeal to target users. For this, a designer needs to ensure that the design looks symmetrical and every element is used in it in a balanced way. Photoshop offers grids and guides for achieving pixel precise control in any artwork and this applies to logo design as well. A designer can also customize grid display type to suit his needs while making a logo. He can also use Photoshop’s Smart Guides feature in this regard.