So, how do you learn to create logos that are similar and just as memorable as the ones I just mentioned? Well, one of the best ways is to look at what others have created in the past. As long as you don't infringe on any copyright laws there is no harm in looking. I will get to more on that later, but first let me go over the steps I use to create a logo.

First, I meet with the company owner or executives and I discuss with them what it is they're looking for in a logo. This may or not be useful at times. Sometimes, in fact, it can just lead to several useless arguments over details that are really not important at all as it turns out so make sure that you, as the designer, lead the conversation from going astray. In other words, if the company insists that the initials F.B.I. should be included somewhere in the detective agency's logo, you might want to urge them to consider some common sense about the misunderstandings this may create. As designers, the reality of the job is that from time to time we are forced to create things we don't like to please the customer, but one way to get around this is to create several of your version of the design mixed in with theirs and nine times out of then, the customer will forget all about their idea once they see yours. However, when meeting with a company regarding logo design, you should be able to learn a great deal about the company's mission and their goals for the future in this meeting. In an essence, what are the key symbols that might represent that company? Get creative here and try to think of anything that might work. Symbolism is very important in logos.

Next, start making some thumbnail sketches. I usually create about 50-60 different sketches by pencil on tracing paper and narrow it down to about 10 or 15. If you are not very artistic, you can also create these on the computer in an application such as Adobe Illustrator™ with a drawing tablet. But, you don't have to be Picasso to do these sketches, they're just rough outlines and should not be considered final pieces of artwork. If you are not very familiar with typography there are several good books on this to use as reference. It's important to keep the typography in mind when starting out. Sometimes the type alone makes the logo. For example; you might not want to have a thin font such as Times for a company called fat burgers. But, then again, sometimes it can work to be different, it just depends on whether or not it works. Remember, the goal is to stand out in a crowd.

As I mentioned earlier, you can learn a lot from the logos other designers have already created. Once you narrow down the thumbnail sketches, try obtaining a copy of a logo book such as The Big Book of Logos. There have been several different volumes of these wonderful books published in recent years and I personally own and use a few of them often. You should be able to obtain a copy of this or similar books on amazon.com or in your local public library. Your local bookstore's art section should have several good logo books as well. I find these and similar books with logos indispensable because they are a great reference to what has worked and will continue to work with logos. Some of the logos will be familiar to you, some of them not. You may or not like all of them, but they are a great place to start. Find a logo or logos that are similar to your client's business and see what the designers came up with. Does it work? Does it stand-out? What is so great about it? Can you create something similar? If you can borrow some elements of the logo without breaking any copyright laws, such as a similar typeface or a color, do it. You can also learn a lot from the style of the logo. It's important to note that this should not be considered cheating in any way and should be a good tool for getting the creative juices flowing.

Try not to over complicate things, keep it simple. The logo should be readable and recognizable. Remember that some folks may have trouble seeing small letters or light colors, for example. Avoid things like cheesy clipart, star-bursts and type effects such as shadows unless they're used in moderation. These elements also reek of inexperience. Generally, I try to not use any type effects unless it's unavoidable. Take a look at the design books mentioned earlier and you will see what I mean. If you can pull it off and it looks good that fine, but it's just a general rule. Rules are made to be broken, however, and those that do it and pull it off make the best designers. The last thing you want to do is copy the latest style just because you think that's what's necessary. Go with your gut and create something unique, your own style. Also, avoid intricate details in a logo and be bold with the lines. Your logo should stand out on a quarter-sized sticker as well as a billboard.

Next, take your final sketches and scan them into the computer. Personally, I prefer to use Adobe Photoshop™ to do the initial scan resizing and formatting, but ultimately I will put the sketches in Adobe Illustrator™ as a background layer at an opacity of about 30%. Then I will trace over the lines using the pen tool and create my type as similar to the sketch as possible. Some designers I know prefer to start out in Illustrator first and that's fine if you can work that way. You should work in the way that makes you comfortable as long as you come out with the same results.

Once I have the thumbnails in the computer and have made them into vector graphics I am then free to mess around with the various elements of the logo. I like to play around with several different colors for the type at this point. I also like to move various elements of the design around and compare. For example, if the logo contains a triangle on the right of the two lines of type to begin with, I will copy the type and move the triangle to the left, below, above or wherever and then look at different versions side-by-side. Tweak the logo, change the fonts, try different things. Sometimes by shaking it up a little bit you may come up with something brilliant. You'll know when you've found something that works.

Now that you have a good idea where you're headed with the logo and should be close to finishing, get some second opinions. Some claim that you should never look to your spouse for opinions in this matter, but I disagree. Your client is usually not a designer, so if you impress your spouse, you should impress your client too. Take your five best logos and show them to someone in the office, maybe your spouse or a friend, or a relative. Find someone who will be brutally honest. If the person has suggestions, write them down. You may not think it relative at the time, but it never hurts to make minor changes for the sake of seeing how they look. There have been many times when I thought I had the perfect logo and I showed to my wife who made a minor suggestion that just really made it even better. It's the little changes at the end that can make the difference. Use your own judgment as to whether or not the comments are important.

Now, once you think you're finished and ready to meet with your client, open the logo book and compare your final logos to the ones in the book. Do they compare? Are they just as unique? Are they memorable? Can you see your logo in that book? When you go to the client never bring just one logo. This is a mistake. You want to show them at least 3 logos to choose from because you want to give them something to compare. I also create all my logos in full color, 2 color and black and white in large, medium and small sizes.

As time goes on, you will learn to create unique logos with greater ease, but there are always those challenging cases when nothing seems to work. Always remember your basics. Try and stay on top of the latest styles and new fonts. There are several great websites that show logos as well. Once you create several memorable and outstanding logos you will be sought after for your work as a great logo designer. Word of mouth will travel fast when business owners ask around about who designed what logo and your phone will be ringing off the hook before you know it.

Photoshop is a quite expensive program but it is worth it. Now the free online version is certainly not a full blown application. It can do a few things but will not replace the application it self.

Photoshop Express is free to sign up to. Adobe gives you a 2GB space on which you can create albums and upload images to. From there you can download images, email them to friends and family and also link to from other websites.

The Interface is simple and easy to use. It is clear about where you have to click to get certain actions. No need to search for hours to find a simple function.

When you start editing your images, you will be able to access three types of tools:

1. Basics
2. Tuning
3. Effects

In the Basic Tools you will find tools to crop the image or rotate it, auto correct colors, change the exposure, remove red eyes and a couple more.

The Tuning Tools are quite usefull too. Here you can change the White Balance, sharpen or soften the images, change the fill light and more.

The effect tools are as well only very basic. You can distort thr image, change it into a sketch image, change it to a black and white one and some other tools.

All together Adobe managed to createa useful application and if they continue to improve it, they will be able to match the full blown application soon. The question then will be if they will continue to offer this service for free or for a charge.

Well done Adobe.

1. Open a new work place fairly horizontal. I chose the dimensions- width: 1024 pixels and height 768 pixels. Suit yourself to the kind of page you want to work on depending on how big you want it to be.
2. After that, double click the blank sheet on your Layers palette and make it a layer instead of a background
   
   
   
   
3. Once that is done, use the "Paint Bucket" tool and paint the entire page black
   
   
   
   
4. Now, after you have done that, paint a vertical white strip, fairly sized through the middle of your black sheet. If your work place is enormous as compared to this, you would be better off going for a cross shape in the middle. If it is a lot smaller, then use a smaller strip with a smaller diameter through the middle. It depends on how big your black sheet is. I went for a round brush of 50 pixels and chose a cross shape in the middle. Mind you, you don't want a lot of white for this here!
   
   
   
   
5. Now comes a slightly tricky bit, but you'll do fine! Choose the "Smudge" tool and smudge your cross very lightly. You don't want the whole place to be filled with white so don't push it to all the ends. Make it fairly even through the middle of the page. As you can see, I made mine rather wispy.
   
   
   
   
6. Now comes the trickiest bit, but not to fret because I'll put it down for you in a simple manner. On your Menu bar at the top, skim through it and find "Filter". This is where I find some lower versions of Adobe don't have the next feature I'm telling you about. Then, go down the list and find "Liquify".
   
   
   
   
7. After you've found it and clicked it, you should get something like a totally different window that has opened up. On default, the "Forward Warp Tool", at the top, is clicked for you and ready to use, but incase it isn't, you know where to find the "Forward Warp Tool" - at the top. After you've clicked it, squiggle it through your wispy white until you get a liquid like effect. The key thing what you are looking for here is that your white should be more of a grayish black color and should look like liquid mercury. It should look fairly liquid-ish and pretty metallic. Try spreading this evenly now so that it fills the page with the effect. This was how I did it. After you've got your effect, click "OKAY" at the top right. It might take a few moments as a pop up window shows your picture getting "Liquified".
   
   
   
   
8. Now this bit here is a piece of cake. After you have got your liquefied image onto your workplace, click the "Color Replacement" tool. This should be easy especially if you are into such kind of things because it is technically used as the "Red Eye Removal" tool. Then use the tool to your convenience of color. I chose to go for a rainbow effect, and all you do is, paint with the "Color Replacement" tool over your liquefied image.
   
   
   
   
9. For those of you who have an eye for spotting little faults, you can clearly say that where ever there is a lot of white, the color replacement tool hasn't created an effect of the color you wanted it to. So that's a wake up call for you at your "Liquify" stage to avoid as many white spaces as you can and make them gray-ish. And once you have done all what you wanted to, jazz it up with a bit of text or maybe a picture.
   
   
   
10. And, oh, wait! You need your final step! It's quite simple. I've basically slotted this step in so that it can complete 10 steps in total. So your final step is- SHOW OFF!

So the first thing you need is to open your picture you want to edit in Gimp.

1. Erase everything except the image you want to keep.
2. Copy the image into another layer so that if you mess up you can always go back to the original image.
3. Go to colors>desaturate. This will turn the image gray and be the start of turning your picture to stone.
4. Cover the eyes. Use the free select tool and circle the eyes.
5. Use the color gradient tool and try try to get the eyes to match the grays of your image so it blends. Do one eye at a time because you have to do step 6 for the same selections on the eyes.
6. With the eyes still selected go to colors>Brightness-contrast until the color matches the image.
7. Make the hair and any dark area's lighter.
8. Find a texture like a stone image or something rocky that you think would look right. Place it in a new layer over your image your working on.
9. Select the image your working on select it then click on the texture layer and it should have the outline of what you did in the other layer press delete so all the extra that isn't needed from the layer is gone. There should be a rock layer that has the same outline as your image.
10. Go to images>hue-saturation and for hue put -143 saturation -80 lightness 0. Make sure the numbers are in the correct places.
11. 11. In layers select the rock texture layer and for mode: pick multiply. Its starting to look pretty cool now but its not quite done yet .
12. Go to colors>levels black should be 0 gray 1.00 white 210. Output levels for black is 0 and white is 255.
13. Repeat step 12 but this time black is 0 gray is still 1.00 white is now 206. Output remains the same. There you go it should now look like a statue.

Save the image as a .png so you have a transparent background which you should have had the whole tutorial. If not before you save get rid of all the white in your image.

Now that you have your image all saved and done you can add other effect's to it or place it in a background image. Or both. Have fun!

Note: Automatically this becomes another layer, Layer 1. The words which you type will become the name of the layer, if not named. In this case it would be Example-1

1. Now Duplicate the layer and name it as Layer 1
2. Drag Layer 1 with Move tool so that the image now appears like this



3. Under Blending options of Layer 1, adjust the opacity to 20%



4. Under Gradient Overlay of Layer-1, adjust the angle to -90 degrees



5. Now, the image would appear like this:



6. With Layer 1 still selected, under Edit menu, choose Transform-> Flip Horizontal to get the following image:



7. Again, under Edit menu, choose Transform-> Rotate 180 degrees to get the following image: