Fireworks tip: When logos go bad

admin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:43:14 +0000

Any creative shop, large or small, will understand what happens when you ask a client to supply a Vector or EPS logo for a project. You inevitably receive a JPEG version at 72 dpi, ripped from their website or a partner’s site. This happens too many times to count. Since most of our focus at carbonhouse is web-related, we can generally address these bitmap messes and make them work. But what happens when you need to place the logo on a dark background and the supplied logo is stuck to a white ground? There are many different hacks to achieve a workable end product—some of which are more successful than others. I wanted to share an Adobe Fireworks tip that can make it easier to work with logos on dark backgrounds.

Remember, this is an Adobe Fireworks-only tip.

Step 1
Obtain said nasty JPG logo from the web site or client. In this case we will use the Lex Mundi logo.

Step 2
Place logo on the dark background in your layout

Step 3
Turn the logo into grayscale. Either adjust Hue/Saturation under Filters or convert to grayscale (Menu> Commands > Creative> Convert to Grayscale)

Step 4
Invert the logo (Filters> Adjust Color> Invert)

Step 5
Add a color fill (Filters> Adjust Color> Color Fill) and in the Color Fill Dialog box adjust the Blending Mode to Color Dodge. Adjust levels as needed for clarity.

Step 6
Choose the background color as the ground in the logo in the Blending Mode dialog box

That’s it. Hopefully you will receive a vector logo, but this will help when in a bind.

carbonhouse’s Greenhouse Logo Featured in New Book

admin — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:06:04 +0000

The logo for our content management system, known as Greenhouse℠, is featured in the new book Really Good Logos Explained. The logo was part of a “family” of product logos designed by our talented friends at A3 Design.

Some of the judges comments included:

“The execution of the green leaf is very nicely echoed in the liquid inside the flask, complete with the white inline.”

“This is a very well-executed logo. The curve of the leaf is a perfect arc to represent flowing water and it possesses great color combination that says ‘environment and modern.’”

“‘Greenhouse’ is well centered between the secondary type and the illustration. If the flash were a bit larger, it would definitely be the focal point instead of being equally important as ‘greenhouse.’”

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Fireworks tip: When logos go bad

carbonhouse’s Greenhouse Logo Featured in New Book