DMA101 - Sports Logo Blog

I did a sports logo for a project with an industry tool, aptly named Adobe Illustrator.  In choosing a logo from a Lacrosse team, the San Jose Stealth, I was challenged with the Pen Tool.  Using the tool was not the challenge.  It is actually what to trace first and how to trace it.  The following is my experience.

First, I traced the target and which I thought was the easiest.  Then, the black background.  As you see there are no issues so far.

Next in line were the letters of the city and team name.  I thought that if I find a font that is close to the actual font family used, type the letters, and then convert the type to outlines and use the Direct Select tool to drag the lines to place.  This is an easy thing to do.  At least, I don't need to do any tracing.  However, it is a very, very tedious step.  Here's a screenshot of the letters for the city of San Jose.

On the next layer was the team's letters.  Unfortunately, I can't recall what the name for any of font family that were chosen.  It didn't matter, because I converted them to lines and aligned them to the reference.  Here's a screenshot of the aligned letters.  This step's tedious index was even higher than the City's letters.  The Team's name Stealth looks like it was chiselled and raised.  I couldn't find fonts that had something similar to it.  I had to trace each aspect that resembled a raised letters with the proper shades.  This tracing part prompted me to think if it was better to start the tracing of all the letters from the beginning and not waste time in searching for a font that closely resembles the actual font used.  Then I had to make sure that the traced "chiselled" and "raised" parts are on top when I filled the letters with the proper colour.   Another tedious process.

The lacrosse stick and the player seemed to have lesser tediousness and no issues as well.  Having said that, I was challenged this time with this logo.  The steps were minute and tedious and at the end, I respect the illustrators who are on this application all day.  In addition, noticing that my classmates are done and already have theirs printed and mounted, I kind of thought that I don't need to worry for this project was a piece of cake.  Unfortunately, I have underestimated that technology depends on having electrical power.  Tonight, there was a thunder storm.  There was a power failure that lasted about 20 minutes.  During those long 20 minutes, with the tiring repeated steps that are required, I became worried if I could complete this in time for submission.   After much worry, I finally completed the project.  Here's the final.