What you can do in Illustrator with basic skills

I’ve been trying to come up with a great DavePCguy logo for a while. I’m not entirely sure on what to do. It will definitely have to feature the title of our website “DavePCguy: Computers and Technology” or maybe I’ll have to come up with a new title. Something to point out we’re online, and that we focus on both consumer and producer ends.
Anyways, I thought I’d prepare a short article on Logos and Logo-types. I started creating logos when I picked up on Illustrator CS3. One of my class mates in my Digital Arts class told me that Illustrator is a great tool for creating art and brushes for Photoshop. I’m a Photoshop fanatic so this peaked my interest. She showed me some of her works that featured custom made logos, and vector art. It definitely set me on a new path especially since I like to learn new things all the time.


I picked up Illustrator and went through a lot of the tutorials online to learn the basics. It wasn’t hard, it took me about two weeks until I got the hang of it. I still have no idea how to create 3D vector art in illustrator, which according to some of the tutorials, is possible. I checked out the 3D features but I still can’t get the hang of it.

Anyways, let me show you what you can do with the basics of Illustrator:

First attempt at logo-making

Any professional would laugh at this but it was my first true attempt at trying something artistic in Illustrator. The main feature I tried to figure out while making this piece was the grid. The Illustrator Grid, guides, and smart guides are crazy useful while making logos and other artworks that require precision.

A circular thought representation

a circular thought representation

Here are two more. They are very similar, I changed around a few things. I played with the circles, obviously, and the gradients in this piece to make an effect. I actually used these as illustrations for a poem I wrote a while ago. These are simple to make but they are effective and nice to look at the same time.

Water Mark project

When I saw my friend Lydia ask for a watermark for her photography, I volunteered to help. Now, what you’re looking at is a couple hours of work, at least. She’s a photographer and that’s where the idea of the bottom three watermarks came from. She uses a Nikon D90 so I copied the picture and created a vector-based silhouette with her name instead of “Nikon” where the flash goes. As you can see, I even cut out the shutter button, and the lens as well as the “triangle” where the camera holder is. The camera silhouette was all done using the “pen tool.” The top two were made as a joke, even though Lydia actually considered those as well. Her icon picture is always some kind of an apple, and usually armed with sharp teeth. Does the apple look familiar? Well, it should. I used the Macintosh’s Apple design (source). I copied the design (using the pen tool, mostly), added simple shadows and highlights, cut the mouth open, and finally added a small stem. I think it was ingenious to make the apple eat the name of the photography company it represented. The project was cancelled, unfortunately, for the lack of time and determination. I think we just need to use  a different font but that’s alright.

A circle poem

Okay, so you know me. I love poetry. I have a couple of blogs (a Chaos Organized, Poetry and Prose of the Broken Mind) that are concerned solely with writing. I couldn’t help myself but use illustrator to add a new dimension to my poetry. And actually, I used this project to brush up on my guides setting up skills as well as text modification. The pictures look rather simple but then again, simplicity comes with power.

Tonight poem illustration

By far my favorite illustration. I used it to represent yet another poem. It’s simple and it’s rather intriguing. Have you noticed yet? It does not feature any color, and it’s all made up of basic shapes put together. I really like it because it somehow resembles the yin yang but it’s its own picture at the same time.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this quick over-view of my logo-type/logo making skills. None of the logos above feature anything beyond basic skills to create. All you need it is time and to have fun!