Making the ident

Marian Dumitriu

Started a new Fw file with dimensions 1900/1100 px

Using the line tool I would go and create the ‘skeleton’ (base) for my text “Plague”

However I’ve realised that using this scale size for the text will result in not have enough space to fit all 6 characters on the page

So I’ve decided to turn the text into a skull looking image by turning the resizing “LA” to the size of a nose. Also draw red boarders across the page to later help me size my image.

Next I’ve token the “LA” text form this file placed in a new Fw file and edited it to look like a more like a nose.

After

Before

Took the nose from the temporary file and added it to the original and started painting it using the brush (the rubber tool was also used to erase mistakes)

I then took the P moved the 2 layers of brush to the side and improved it’s skeleton so I can start drawing the P

AfterBefore

Now that I have a good skeleton I started drawing the P, it took a quite a while to get the curve look smooth. Because I’ve changed the skeleton of P the curve had increase in width also I had to cheerfully control the thickness of brush.

AfterBefore

Similarly, with G I improved the letter’s skeleton and copied P’s curve, reverse it and placed it on top of G’s skeleton. All that was left was the tail to draw.

Time to take our P and G and add them to the original image!

Once P & G were inserted I’ve resize them and move the characters around.

The last part of the text is UE,

Improve text skeleton to fit in with the rest of the characters

Then painted the text using the brush tool.

Now my image looks like this:

To prevent me from moving the different parts of plague, I “Merged Down” all the layers into 1 final layer that named plague, this is similar to grouping 2 or more objects in PowerPoint.

Then saved the file as Plague

However when I finished the brushing the outline I pressed save to save the file as Plague w/ shadow and this error accrued ( left). The finished file didn’t save and the error that appear didn’t have a exit or ok button. THEFORE I had to close the file loosing some of my work.

Now to make Plague look like a skull I decided to paint shadows, what I did is have my Plague layer in the middle, behind the Plague layer I added a black background and the front layer is the brush layer. Used a white brush to create an outline of Plague that will be later edited.

There were some serious issues with the Firework file at school and I was unable to use Firework for the rest of the day. What I decided to do is to create the shadow in PowerPoint. Dragged the saved file “Plague” into PowerPoint and used the “Remove Background” tool found in “FORMAT” once a file is clicked.

Used the following options to give plague shadow effects.

Next day I took the image from PowerPoint and added it to a firework file, added a black background and used the burn tool ( ) to darken the shadow also smoothen out the exterior of the shadow. The tool was also used to create the 2 eye holes in the P & G to give it the skull look.

After which I saved the file as Plague-w-Shadow

Time to make the background, for the background I want a mixture of black and red that will perfectly contrast with the black and grey of the text. In fireworks (Fw) I've used the brush and created 2 layers: 1 black and 1 red. Then used a range of different tools to play around with the 2 layers, some of theses tools were: blur/smudge/burn.

I’ve then merged these 2 layers I’ve used and decided that I had to use a bit more of the smudge tool on the new layer. The result can be seen on the left. (CREATING THE IMAGE ON THE LEFT)

Added some red into a new layer mixed with a greyish colour, then used the same tools as before to mix the colours.

The background was missing something, so I’ve decided to add a lot more red on that layer and burn it in different places after which I’ve used the smudge tool to give me the picture on the left.

After looking ant the image for quite some time I’ve decided that there was to much red, thus I took the smudge tool and used it extensively on the image to create a work of art. ()

To the image last image on the previous page I’ve added a black background. The results can be seen on the right.

The image on the top right half is the full background made. However I’ve decided to only use a small part of it for my ident, the small part can be seen on the bottom right half right.

Inserted the new background and the Plague image to a new file. Once Copied I’ve realised that the Plague is merged with it’s shadow thus using burn/smudge tool on the image will also affect the plague text, thus I’ve used the want tool to delete Plague text and then smudge and burn/blur the shadow and add the simple plague text on top of the shadow. So that the text wouldn’t end up blurred.

After looking at the text plague I’ve decided to use a bit of smudge tool on the text to give it a bit of transparent effect and fit in with it’s shadow and the background.

At this point I was satisfied with the product made, so I saved it and showed it to the audience.

Final plague image with background Final plague image with white

END/FINAL ident

Audience Feedback summary

The audience liked the idea and the colours used however they have advised me to change the name of my ident, the word “Plague” has negative connotations to it and it is not fitted for a company ident.A good point made by a member was regarding hammer being called axe, both are weapon but this weapon is used for killing, whereas hammer can be used in constructions.

Therefore I had to change my ident, but I couldn't let go of the work made, I really like the skull idea. To keep the skull my ident had to be 2 words starting with the letter: P, G, J, Q.

Next step was to make get read of the G and make it into Q. I’ve selected part of ‘Plag’ make the g look like the letter q.

After a few moments of hard thinking, I’ve came with the idea of P & Q( Planetary Quarantine). So now I had to change Plague into P & Q. Opened the basic Plague file and started working.First step was removing the EU at the end of plague.

Then copied the bottom part of P and added it to Q. Using a straight line I’ve made sure that the part would be in line with P.

Now to delete “LA”, this was done by using the rubber tool while zoomed in on the LA part. The results can be seen below

A problem was that I ended up with 3 different layers P the noose and Q, all I had to do is merge them into 1.

To keep the skull, I had to keep the noose, but it’s to simple, so I had to feel it in with something. This was done by taking a copy of P and Q resizing them and the then tilting them slightly. Then group the P and Q and place it in the middle.

Copied the image into PowerPoint, once copied there, the image had a white background, this had to be removed using the Remove Background tool. However this ended up causing a number of problems. The shape was so small that if I was to remove the white background between the tilted PQ object, parts of it would of ended up being deleted.

Thus I decided to let some of the white background so I don’t end up loosing parts of my image.Next I added the shadowy glow, to my P & Q image.

The options above show what I’ve used to create the “shadow” in PowerPoint.

After the shadow was made, the P & Q image and the background was copied on a firework file.

To begin editing the shadow, I had to remove the text away from the shadow. This was achieved using the wand tool ( ) selecting the text then deleting it.

END/FINAL ident