PART 05 - HOW TO CREATE AN ORNATE LOGO DESIGN

COLORS AND EXPORTING FILES

This part of the tutorial is a little introduction to colors and exporting files. This topic can be really complex so I can only show you a few basics here and I always recommend to talk to your printing company about colors and file types before actually sending anything over to production.

Tip: If you are new to Adobe Illustrator or haven't worked with color swatches yet, make sure to check out these tutorials provided by Adobe:
Change color and strokes
Use and create swatches

In Part 01-04 of this tutorial we worked in RGB color mode. This is the right color mode if you want to use your design on screen. But when you print it in RGB Mode you may get a rude surprise – the colors are not as vibrant as on your screen... So what can we do here? First of all we have to change the document color mode to CMYK, this is short for C=Cyan M=Magenta Y=Yellow K=Key(Black) and defines standard printing colors. (Check out this Wikipedia article if you want to learn more about it: CMYK color model). Click on File –> Document Color Mode and change it to CMYK Color. Go to your color swatches and double click on a swatch to open the options. As you can see the Color Mode changed to CMYK already. The change to CMYK mode could result in paler color values because RGB and CMYK have a different color spectrum. Which simply means 'You cannot print all colors you can generate on your screen'. So it might be possible that your color values need some adjustments.

Tip: If you want to make sure that the colors are exactly like you want when printing it, you need a printing-color-guide like this here for example: Pantone Color Book (There are different guides for different materials)
A color guide shows you the exact translation of your color values selected in your print file.

Adobe Illustrator also allows us to work with 'Spot Colors' like Pantone or HKS for example. These are colors which require an extra printing plate and can't be printed with desktop printers. Nevertheless these printing colors are used for a wide range of materials from paper to textiles and more. The big advantage is a wider range of color values. Spot colors like Pantone can generate more vibrant colors or even metallic colors, which is not possible with CMYK.
Working with spot colors requires a printing-color-guide like mentioned above, because screen colors are varying drastically from the printing result.

Here, I choose the Metallic Pantone Color 871c on my color-guide to be the golden color.
To create this spot color within your document go to Swatch Libraries menu at the bottom left of your color window. This opens different color sets. You can find the Pantone Colors at 'Color Books'. 871c is a metallic color so I choose 'Pantone+ Metallic Coated'.
Note: Coated and Uncoated describes the paper surface.

Enter the name of the color into the search field and add it to the color swatch window by double clicking on the swatch. Now, select the golden part and pick the Pantone color swatch. (As I mentioned earlier, the screen colors vary extremely from the original color value.)
That's it basically ;)

Now, let's have a closer look on how to export our final file. (I returned to my basic colors here). First make sure that your design is placed on our Artboard (more about Artboards here: Work with artboards). Here I deactivate the background layer on the first picture to show the border of my Artboard.

To save your file go to File –> Save As. Before saving you can select the required file type. Different applications require different file types. Here I choose PDF to export for printing.

Some of you were asking how to save a design with transparent background. So let's have a closer look on this. First, deactivate the background layer again as your exported file should have no background ;)
Then choose Export –> Export As...

When you click on Format you can see a big variety of file types. I choose PNG because this format allows me to save images without a background color. This is different from the common format JPG for example which automatically would add a white background to our image. When you click Export it shows you some options for resolution. Make sure to select 'Transparent' before you save it. Now we've created a transparent image with no background color.

You may have already seen the other two options 'Export for screens' and 'Export for Web'. 'Export for screens' is great if you want to export multiple artboards at once and it has some other helpful features.

'Export for Web' – as the name suggests – is used to save our design for web purposes. I use this export option a lot because it allows to resize the image and you can also choose between file types like JPG, PNG and GIF.

Thank you very much for following this tutorial and of course, if you have any questions or feedback, please comment below and I'm happy to help.

Check the other parts of this tutorial here:
PART 01 - ORNATE LOGO DESIGN, GETTING STARTED
PART 02 - ORNATE LOGO DESIGN, ADDING ORNAMENTS
PART 03 - ORNATE LOGO DESIGN, FINE TUNING
PART 04 - ORNATE LOGO DESIGN, FINAL FILE PREPARATION
PART 05 - ORNATE LOGO DESIGN, COLORS AND EXPORTING FILES

12 comments

Thank you so much for this! It is so helpful!

Great products!

Julia February 03, 2022

Do these font interfere with Creative Cloud? Do they load properly?

Kim July 27, 2021

I have just sold my branding company and am starting a business in tarot consultation. This set of tools has the exact aesthetic I want to use in my new brand, and it’s great, but here is what I really want to say … I started my branding career in 1997 as a completely self-taught graphic designer. Every single thing I learned over the years was either by trial and error or by reading/watching tutorials online. After all these years, I didn’t think there was anything I didn’t know how to do with Illustrator, but I learned a couple things from this article. I have said it many times before, but I will forever be grateful for people like you who are willing to share their knowledge freely. I have spoken on branding many times, and I almost always turn it into a big Q&A session where I try to share my knowledge in any way that helps. I’ve been criticized for that by people who feel that I should charge for such info, but if it wasn’t for content contributors like you, I wouldn’t even have a career. Anyway, all this is to say thank you for sharing your knowledge, and if anyone is actually still reading … the quality of these fonts and vectors are very well done. They make it easy to put together a truly polished design that immediately communicates an impression of high-end, high-value integrity. I am so excited to have these tools to work in a brand for myself!! Thank you :)

Nicole F. June 18, 2021

This tutorial is like the keys to the kingdom of vector illustration! It pretty much spells out all the important details in designing quality graphics not just for ornate Victorian designs, but any logo or illustration in AI. Some of these tricks I learned the hard way over the years, and some I didn’t know about at all, like using the Width tool.

This summer I’m restoring an old building, and can’t wait to adorn it with signage and product labels from these collections. I was delighted to see how well made and extensive the collections are, and now I’m discovering that the tutorials are just as excellent. Thank you for empowering designers so much!

Dan DF June 11, 2021

I just purchased this. I want to do some t-shirt designs, and this is exactly what I am looking for. THis tutorial was great. But I admit that I am seriously intimidated by the amount of things you get in this bundle. My only problem is getting started.

Eliel R. May 03, 2021

I bought ta package of fonts over the holidays and love it. I then followed this tutorial all the way through and have a logo put together much like the Black Tiger logo. As I added the ornaments I added colors (not mentioned) to the flowers that I arranged into the design. I want to add blending effects such as “Inner Glows” to the petals and leafs/fronds. At what step do I add blending effects. I am worried that when I jump into the final tweaking, the blending effects won’t be compatible with final product.

Question: Can I add blending affects and if so, what stage should I do this?

Richard January 06, 2021

Any possibility of putting all these tutorials on to a YouTube presentation? I find it easier to follow by pausing the file at odd times than scrolling the page in a web browser. Alternatively, could you produce a pdf on the subject? Apart from this criticism, I found the whole tutorials just what I wanted. Keep up the good work.

Eddie Killick December 14, 2020

SO much professional help we have received from you.
Thank you very much
If would be cool if we can post our logo exercises so you can check them and gives us some feedback

thanks from Ecuador

cesar July 01, 2020

This is so good, I like that you went the extra mile to show how to prepare for printing and export. I think the only hard part is having the talent to make a nice initial sketch. Even though it’s not fleshed out it’s a nice balanced design. You can already see the rest is going to turn out well from that starting point.

Matt Lala May 28, 2020

I was astounded when I cam across HTC’s ad of Facebook and knew I’d have to buy it in a heartbeat, which I did.

I was shocked by the amount and quality of the package I purchased. And to find your template files with non-outlined content inside made it extra worthy. And, to boot, full tutorials on the process of creating these wonderful designs.

I straight away headed to the comprehensive tutorial to see if I could somewhat recreate the Black Tiger logo in my company’s name. It was a cinch! and, more importantly, so much fun.

Thank you Tobias, you’re a trailblazer in the retention of bygone design. I’m in 100% for a revolution! Let’s bring it back.

Here’s my attempt: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4xn4ggahd2tn20g/GKSC.gif?dl=0

Brenn Seldon May 28, 2020

Thank you so much for this! A really helpful and in-depth tutorial, and of course your work is beautiful.

Tulin K May 04, 2020

Thanks for a thorough and clear tutorial. Though I didn’t need to reference it (this time) props for cross-referencing to Adobe tutorials and other background info. Those that need the background can get it easily, yet it saves the main topic from clutter and detail overkill. Lovely products!

Dan Vedda April 13, 2020

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