Art Portfolio Project: "Amalgamation" Band Name Creation Process

 In this post, I will showing all the steps of me creating the logo of my band name which is "Amalgamation". The software that I am going to use for this creation is Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. 

Since I have it as my sketch, I want to use this to transform it into vector logo that I can use it digitally. I want to distinguish the background and the font, so the first ever thing that I did is I open Adobe Photoshop. I clicked on File > Open and a new windows will pop up, from there I locate the picture of my band name image, then I click Open. 

Now I have my canvas as my picture of my band name typography, I want to delete the background and just leave the typography. Before I move on into the process, I like to be cautious by just duplicate the layer by going to the Layers windows, the I right click the layers and click on Duplicate Layers and click OK. Also, I make the base layer invisible by click on the eye icon. Now I can work on the duplicated layer by make sure the duplicated layers which name Background copy is highlighted. Now, I want to separate the background by click on Select>Select and Mask. 

Now I am in Select and Mask edit section, I want a good view mode to distinguish it clearly by going to View Mode and change the View to Overlay. Now it become red which is easy to distinguish and red also mean deselect. To select the typography, I did rough selection of the typography first using Brush Tool with Add to selection mode where I just brush roughly following the typography, then I use Refine Edge Brush Tool to refine the edges of the typography in Expands Detection Area mode. The process of this is meticulous and it took quite some times. This is how it end up with.

After I have clear selection of the typography that I wanted, I click on OK. Now, the selection should be in Selection Mode, so first thing that I did was I click on Rectangular Marquee Tool first, the slide my cursor on the selection, right click on it and click Layer Via Copy. This will make another copy of layer that only selection that I made. To save the layer, I went to Layers windows and right click the new layer that my typography was selected, and I click on Duplicate Layer, on Destination, I chose the Document with New, then I click on OK. Now I have my selection layer that distinguish with transparent background. I save it by go to File>Export>Quick Export as PNG. Then I save it to my desired location. This is how it look. 

I chose PNG as a file because for the transparent background. Now I can use this picture for Image Trace feature in Adobe Illustrator. That is the reason I decided to remove the background so Adobe Illustrator won't trace the background. 

The next step is to make is as a shape of a vector that I can use in Photoshop as my logo. To do that, I use Adobe Illustrator. When I open Adobe Illustrator, I went to File>New then a New Document windows will show up. For this one I am going to do a custom preset, which is kind of unnecessary for Adobe Illustrator but I did this for a good practice. I set the title as "Amalgamation" with 12×12 inches width and height. The Color Mode I set to CMYK Color with High (300 ppi) Raster Effects. This is my canvas:

Now I want to trace the picture that I edited in Adobe Photoshop. I open the picture by going to File>Open and a new windows will show up, there, I located the location of my picture and I click Open. The picture is way too big for my canvas, so I resize it by using Selection tool, and drag it from the corner. If I freely drag it, the picture is freely resize which can be distorted, and that is the thing that I want to avoid. So, while dragging it, I hold Shift button so it can resize without it get distorted. Then I properly resize it into appropriate size that I feel comfort to my eyes.

I noticed that the picture was opened on another canvas. So I Copy the picture and Paste it into my main canvas with my customized preset.

Now I want to trace the typography. There is a features in Adobe Illustrator that I will be using it call Image Trace. To use it, I went to Selection tool and click on my image, there will be windows pop up and there will be an options of Image Trace. 

I click on the Image Trace and this is the results: 

As I can see here, the results is not bad and not good either. The tracing is not perfect, which is required me to do a little bit of a touch up. I want to clean all the white dots by removing it. First thing first, instead of it being in Fill, I want to make it Stroke so I can see it better and remove all the excess Stroke. The Stroke can not be edited, so to edit it, after clicking the Image Trace, on the top bar, click on Expand. Now all the Stroke can be edit. Now to turn it into Stroke, using the Direct Selection tool, I click on the outer of the Stroke, then, on Swap Fill and Stroke tool, I change it to Stroke. I did this to all of the letters. This is how it look:

Now I can see properly all the excess Stroke that should be deleted. There is no other way but to select all of it individually, so I used Direct Selection tool, and select the excess stroke individually. However to make it faster, I press Shift button to multiply selection or I can drag with the . After select the excess stroke I click on Backspace on my keyboard to delete it. I did it to all the excess stroke, this is how it look: 

The typography here is still imperfect as there are still rough like which are very uncomfortable to my eyes. To smooth it out, I try to use Direct Selection tool and click on the letter and I try to remove the unnecessary anchor to smooth it. Also, I try using the Smooth Tool by click on the letter by using Direct Selection tool first, then i click on the Smooth Tool and draw over the line and it smoothing. 

Now, it look smooth and no rough annoying edges. My band name typography should be filled. For future proof, I am going to make 2 fill colour which is black and white. Just in case that the album will look too dark, I will be using white instead of black. To do that, I use Direct Selection tool and click on the letters individually, then I go to Swap Fill and Stroke, and swap it into Fill colour with black. 

Then, I go to File>Save As and save it with PNG, Ai and PSD with black version. This is how its look:

Next, I want to change it to white colour. To do that, in my canvas background its already white, so I need to change it to avoid confusion. I change it by clicking on File>Document Setup and a new Document Setup windows show up. In Transparency and Overprint Options, there is a colour boxes, I click on the top colour box, and new Colour windows show up, I chose red as my colour of my background but it doesn't matter since it won't be visible when the logo finish. Then I click on OK. Then I make sure to Tick Simulate Colored Paper, then I click OK. The colour of the red is still not visible, to make it visible, I click on View>Show Transparency Grid, then I click on it back Hide  Transparency Grid. This is my canvas now:

Although the background in the canvas is red, when I save it, the colour will be gone. Now to change the colour white, I use Direct Selection tool to all the letters and I click on the Fill, double click and a Color Picker windows will show up, I slide it to white colour. I do this to every letters and this is the results: 

After finish making my band name typography, I will be using this typography in my album/vinyl design. To use it in Adobe Photoshop, I will save these file as PSD. so I can open it like how I show it in recent post.