48 Logo Designs and Techniques

Leonardo E.

Very good, I learned news techniques!

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Christian G.

I just finished this course and I started this one only after having completed the first course of the series (Professional Logo Design in Adobe Illustrator). In general, I'm satisfied with the overall content of the course, and having completed these two courses would definitely be a very important foundation for my future logo design freelancing career. I feel that this course achieves satisfyingly what it was meant to do and I'm grateful for having discovered it and followed it until the end.

[Positive General Aspects]
As I stated in my review of the first course in the series, what I most appreciate about the course is that is an intermediate course that develops a very specific and needed skill, which I urgently needed as I plan to become a freelancer as a logo designer. Most courses related to the field are either of two types:
1. Logo Design Process courses: They cover just the basics regarding every step in the process.
2. Adobe Illustrator courses: They cover a lot of tools in the software but most of the course relies on conceptual demonstration on how the tools work, rather than putting together an actual real-world logo or illustration.

Both of these types of courses are fine and necessary, but neither of them allows you to specialize and develop your skills regarding a specific skill that prepares you for real-world projects. In contrast, Rawson's course structure is very specific, allowing you to actually get to an intermediate logo execution level, rather than covering a lot of tools or a lot of processes at a surface level. I have struggled to find such a specific skill-oriented course with such an extensive and complete portion consisting of close to real-world projects, in general in the design field, and particularly in Illustrator. This real-world exercise set, specific skill mastering nature, is what makes this course very valuable. Now that I've finished it, I really feel that my execution skills in Ilustrator have improved significantly, in contrast with typical surface-level Illustrator courses.

Again, as I also stated in my review of the first course, this second course also shares the following very positive aspect: You knew exactly what you were aiming at in each lecture, as all of them illustrated right from the beginning how would the logo look like by the end of the lecture, and even better, there was a resource file with an already existing logo in vector for reference. It was also great the almost always the resource file included swatches for the colors and gradients to be used during the logo creation, rather than forcing us to create them from scratch. This allowed me to try to do the logo execution by myself instead of being forced to follow step by step. I went back to the tutorial only when I was finished or when I got really stuck, and I learned much more this way (trying the exercise on my own beforehand).

Additionally, I got to practice intermediate-advanced Illustrator techniques which aren't covered (or covered in a shallow and incomplete approach) in typical Illustrator courses, such as all of the 3D effects (Rotate, Extrude, Revolve); mapping symbols through 3D effects, Envelope Distort with Warp, Envelope Distort with Mesh, Patterns, and varying opacity Gradients, and Blending Modes. My favorite was the Circuit logo. I tried it by myself but failed, not only once, but twice; because I find it very difficult to use the Envelope Distort with Mesh in a polished and balanced way. The use of this technique for the circuit logo was amazing.

[Negative General Aspects]
The pedagogical strategy in comparison with the first course of the series is almost identical. Therefore, this second course in the series shares most of the first course's general positive aspects; but also shares most of its negative aspects, as I stated in the previous course review:

* The directions to follow, on average could be more precise. Ideally, the instructor should work in a separate artwork (from the reference) with precise dimensions, layout guides in the center or at a precise location, and give instructions based on clear round measurements and parameters. This aspect has improved in comparison with the first course, but still needs a lot of improvement. Around half of the measurements consist in a very precise value, but yet other half is completely done by intuition without any direction, especially the placement of points while using the Pen Tool and scaling elements within a group. However, the instructor always works in an already existing Artboard in a random place, and he would eyeball a lot of the measurements, widths, heights, lengths, parameters, and proportions. This made it difficult to follow, and one eventually ended up eye-balling everything as he did, and later realizing, already too late, that there was actually some important step that shouldn't have been eye-balled, resulting in very evident misalignments that needed to be addressed.
* The logo styles explored are still limited. Most of the logos have very similar styles: Abstract geometric shapes combined, frequently with gradients and 3D effects. I would have preferred not to focus that much on these types of logo styles and having explored some other styles, such as enclosure (emblem) type logos, mascot logos, combined logos, vintage logos, and illustration-based logos.
* There's an excessive use of gradients, highlights, and shadows, even for small local shapes where they are almost unrecognizable. On top of that, he uses occasionally raster-based effects such a blurred Drop Shadows, and Blending Modes that stop working reliably outside Illustrator, such as SVGs in a web browser. As I understand, one should avoid completely raster-based effects because logos should be 100% scalable vectors; and you should limit yourself with the usage of gradients; because they won't add any value with a small scaled-down icon, or they aren't rendered reliably when used in printing or outside Illustrator.
* The workflow is usually pretty destructive and relies too much on the Shape Builder Tool, which is great but is absolutely destructive. The instructor should have used less destructive tools such as the Appearance panel, the Live Paint Tool, Compound Live Shapes, the Distort and Transform Effect, Clipping and Opacity Masks, and Pattern Brushes.

[Possitive Aspects in Comparison with Previous Course]
This course is definitely more polished than the previous course in the series, despite having the same pedagogical strategy. Here are a few improvements that should be acknowledged:
* In the previous course, the only resource file available was the finished logo on its own. In this one, the resources are better because you always have the finished logo, but you have yet another resource file that includes the swatches used during the lectures, which is absolutely great because it's much easier to follow along and apply specific gradients settings. Additionally, the font files are also available from the very beginning and there isn't a single exercise with the resource file missing (which wasn't the case for the previous course).
* The instructor slows down a little bit and includes a little bit more directions and measurements. He still eye-balls and lot and still goes too fast, but there's still an improvement in comparison with the previous course.
* The lectures are ordered in a way that makes much more sense. In the previous course, they were put together pretty much randomly, with very difficult logos from the very beginning. In this course, in contrast, the most simple logos to create at the very beginning, and the difficulty, on average, goes up as the course progresses, which is much better.
* The video quality is better than the previous course. Videos are available at 1080p and they look much sharper. I believe the audio got also a little better.
* I enjoyed replicating real-world actual companies' logos. The previous course had just one or two of these types of logos. Here, you get a little bit more, including the logos of Volkswagen, Sony Ericsson, the Rio Olympic Games, and Skype.

[Negative Aspects in Comparison with Previous Course]
* As the previous course was completely free here on Udemy, it was fine that it was also completely available on Rawson's YouTube Channel for free. However, since this second course was a paid one, I was hoping to get access to several exclusive lectures not found on YouTube. Nevertheless, there were only two lectures, I believe (the Dorex and the Source logo) exclusive to the course. All the 42 logo lectures were available on his YouTube Channel for free exactly as they are here in this Udemy paid course. I believe the only two significant differences, besides a couple of additional logo lectures, are the certificate of completion and the finished logo resource files.
* There were three lectures that were already present, exactly as they are, in the previous course, which were unnecessary to repeat: the G-Square logo, the Delmon logo, and the Crease logo.

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Jessie A.

so far so good

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Aleksandra F.

I learned more than I expected, thank you!

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Thiago B.

Curso um pouco antigo e um tanto quanto repetitivo. Mas tirando isso é bom para quem já tem algum conhecimento.

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Carlos S.

O curso apresenta técnicas que podem ampliar as possibilidades criativas do designer, possibilitando a ele encontrar ferramentas para elevar o nível de seu trabalho.

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Rodrigo A. H. G.

Da muy buenos tips para hacer muy excelentes logos

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Welly R.

Nice tuts

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Fimba P.

The instructor has extensive knowledge but he should have slowed down a bit and explain the techniques a little more.

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Gianluca M.

Amazing course A++

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