The Designers Yard Logo Design Process – Photoshop Tutorial

Recently I have registered a new domain, “TheDesignersYard.com” and with this I have been developing the site over the past weeks. To date I haven’t had time to focus on the creation of a logo due to my concentration on the general site design and coding, however this morning I decided to sit down and create one – as you can see the final product is below, I have gone for a ‘grass & soil’ design with some nice texture within the logo. Here I have created a step by step tutorial on how I managed to get the end result.

The Step By Step Tutorial

Create yourself a new document with the dimensions 600x315px, colour mode RGB Color – 8 Bit and set yourself a white background.

Download and Install the font HandVetica. Type out the text “TheDesignersYard” at 70pt in black with the anti-aliasing method of crisp.

Next, go and grab yourself a high res grungy paper texture from Bittbox, I have used the last one on the page. Drag the paper texture onto the canvas and shrink it vertically – this will add a little more ‘crinkle’ texture and lay the layer over the text.

With the paper texture over the text layer, head to the layers palette, make sure the text and paper texture are next to each other in the palette – hold down the “alt” key whilst clicking inbetween the two layers. This will now overlay the paper texture right into the text. Nice and easy with no fuss.

Go ahead and grab yourself another grunge paper texture from Bittbox this time I chose the first one. Bring the texture onto the canvas and again shrink it vertically however this time down to the same height as the text.

Once you’ve positioned the texture where you want it – shut the visibility of this layer off and lock it up. Switch to the magic wand tool (W) – on the text layer select the area outside of the text and the centers of the letters i.e. ‘e’ ‘d’.

Switch back to the second texture layer unlock it and turn the visibility back on, now cut the pixel that you have selected (CMD+X). Now you should be left with the text “TheDesignersYard” in the texture you had. Next, desaturate the layer (CMD+SHIFT+U).

Next, change the blending mode to overlay and whack the opacity down to around 70% – this just adds extra texture to the text.

Find yourself a cracked ‘ground’ texture or use the one I have from TextureVault. Duplicated the texture over the text or if the texture is high res shrink to fit. Next desaturate the layer (CMD+SHIFT+U).

With the layer desaturated set the blending mode to overlay and change the opacity down to 90%.

Open yourself up a new layer and select a soft edged brush, set the colour to white and paint over the top half of the text.

Select the outside of the text layer and delete this from the white overlay layer so you are left with just the top portion of the text in white.

Change the blending mode to overlay and drop the opacity all the way down to 15%, to give the effect of light coming from above.

Next, start to make the grass – use the file above by duplicating the different varieties of strands to make your layer of grass.

Now that you have perfected your grass and are happy with it, switch to the eraser tool (E) and select yourself a soft brush. Lightly soften the bottom edge of the grass, also erase some of the grass that covers the letters – for example you can see where I have made the ‘g’ visible, this will help add more depth.

Next, take my pre-made soil texture and position it under the grass. I achieved the soil look through a variety of different textures and colours. It’s just the way I want it, feel free to experiment with it.

Switch to the eraser tool (E), change to a soft brush with a texture and start to shape the soil – whilst doing this remember that the effect you are trying to achieve is soil, so make it look crumbly and realistic.

Now the soil is shaped and you’re happy with it duplicate the grass layer, flip it vertically and change the opacity down to 40%. Next shift the duplicated layer behind the soil leaving the tips showing. This will just finish the soil off and give it a more realistic feel.

Now to finish off that soft edge we left on the grass earlier. Duplicate the grass layer and again flip in vertically, erase the majority of the grass leaving the tips. Next, shift this layer up to the soft edge to really add realism to the grass.

Next, Grab yourself a bird and place it in the top right corner of the text and add a white 1px outside stroke to the layer effect.

Finally open up the layer style panel for the text layer and add yourself a #87a20e 1px stroke to help blend the grass and text together whilst added a definitive line between the background. You can also go around the layers with the burn and dodge tool to make the image have some depth.

There you have it, a step by step tutorial on how I created TheDesignersYard Logo, granted I’m not sure if this will be the final logo, therefore it’s open to suggestions. Let me know if you like it, hate it or have a suggestions. Any feedback will be appreciated.

**Please do not steal this as your own and if you do make one with your own text be sure to give a link to this tutorial as it maybe the final logo for The Designers Yard. Thanks.

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