Shawn’s Picks – (Programmer, Rainman’s siamese twin, Ping Pong Champion, meatatarian, Rock Band/Guitar Hero Superstar, Poker shark)

AJ’s Picks – (Designer, Narcoleptic, Drum slave, Twilight fan, pizza relocation specialist)

Jennifer -(Multimedia Designer, bubbly taskmistress and den mother, music elitist, food network addict, Polymath)

Logo design has been a controversial subject in the design press lately. One branding professional recently claimed that logo design is not that hard to do and another said that logos are dead; some rebutted while others concurred. Why all the fuss?

We live in a Brand Era, where branding is in, and for some, aspiring to the Paul Rand style of logo craftsmanship is about as hip and contemporary as writing your invoices with a quill. Yes, logo design is only one facet of the powerful force that we call brand identity. Yes, a branded design environment can communicate sophisticated brand meaning without much (any?) usage of logos. But some ‘brand gurus’ or ‘brand evangelists’ (translation: ‘bastions of corporate pretension’) seem to enjoy making hyperbolic pronouncements just to sound shocking or cutting-edge. Logo design is not dead. The technological advancements and tumultuous industries of our century are causing its role in our culture to evolve.

Perhaps this clamorous debate is cause for a look at where logo design comes from, what state it’s in currently, and where it’s headed in the future. Where does a logo ultimately derive its power from? If we’re so hung up on divining what this Brand Era means for our clients, can we envision a Post-Brand Era?

Symbolism

The history of logo design begins with the roots of human expression. In fact, the fundamental power of symbols remains most important element of logo design. A logo has meaning because it draws on centuries of signs and symbols (including the alphabet) in human literary and visual language. A logo designer who uses an image of an apple, for example, is drawing on centuries of potent symbolic usage. For most Western viewers, the image of an apple summons our associations with nature, food, the ‘forbidden fruit’ in the Garden of Eden, Snow White, Apple computers, et cetera. To design a logo with symbolic resonance is to participate in the lineage of social dialogue.

Fragment of a vase, third millennium B.C. The figures on this vase bear a striking similarity to the cave paintings of Lascaux and even to contemporary imagery like the Puma logo. These similarities reveal the harmony and union of human communication over great distances of time and geographic location.

To communicate effectively with design, it’s important to view the big picture of human communication and mythology. Logo design as we know it today is a strategy that rose to popularity with brands and corporations of the twentieth century. However, people and organizations have been identifying themselves with an enormous variety of marks, signatures, and emblems for centuries. In terms of visual communication, a modern company that represents itself with a logo, color scheme, and slogan is not very different from a 15th century royal court that invoked identity and unity through the use of family crests, uniforms, and religious symbolism.

In semiotics (the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation), human communication is discussed in terms of signs and signifiers. Signs can take the form of words, images, flavors, or even odors: things that have no intrinsic meaning until we invest it in them. We perceive, understand, and negotiate the world around us by investing meaning in all manner of signs and symbols. In the West, an image of a snake signifies evil. But without our Western cultural and mythological associations (many of which are rooted in the Bible), a serpent is just a serpent.

Greek signature seals, fifth century B.C. Affluent Greek citizens used these molded stamps to sign or endorse documents. Using an animal image to identify oneself has a long history predating famous animal logos like Lacoste and Penguin.

Symbols are highly subjective and dependent upon cultural reference. The swastika, for example, is a symbol that was used by various cultures across the globe for over 5,000 years to symbolize a variety of positive meanings including good luck, life, sun, power, and strength. In fact, the word swastika comes from the Sanskritsvastika, which means “good fortune” or “well-being.” Sadly, those meanings have all been usurped by the atrocities of the Nazi party. No symbol has inherent meaning of its own, but when maligned by indelible association with war and unspeakable tragedy, a simple symbol like the swastika can be transformed into a potent talisman capable of eliciting an intense reaction from the viewer. Our complex emotional responses to rudimentary images reveals the profound depth of our relationship with the visual world around us.

The meaning of a logo is often an elusive concept, and two top professionals may disagree about whether a particular logo is a masterpiece or an abomination. This subjective nature of meaning in logography is part of the beauty and wonder of the craft.

Historical Identifying Marks

A wide variety of stamps, symbols, and signatures have been used to identify people over the centuries. Here are a few.

Printer’s marks, late fifteenth century

The printer’s marks above are variations on an ‘orb and cross’ theme, symbolizing the idea that “God shall reign over Earth.”

Aldus Manutius, printer’s trademark, c.1500.

This printer’s trademark symbolizes a beautiful paradox. It was used in conjunction with an epigram reading “Make haste slowly.” Swiftness is visually represented by the speedy sea animal and stillness is represented by the anchor.

Rembrandt ‘branded’ his authorship on his paintings with a variety of signatures during the course of his career, but the distinctive ‘R’ and unique personality of the letterforms provide unity to the marks.

Corporate Identity

The industrial revolution profoundly expanded the reach and power of mass production and the marketing used to promote it. Corporations now found that a simple identifying mark was insufficient for distinguishing themselves amongst growing competition in broadening markets. “The national and multinational scope of many corporations made it difficult for them to maintain a cohesive image, but by unifying all communications from a given organization into a consistent design system, such an image could be projected, and the design system enlisted to help accomplish specific corporate goals.” (Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, by Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis).

In other words, the logo was now being used as one element in a broader system of visual elements used to identify the entire output of a corporation — many of which were becoming larger and more powerful than any had every been before.

Here are some notable developments in the evolution of identity design.

Wiener Werkstätte

The Wiener Werkstätte was a manufacturing and marketing enterprise founded in Vienna in 1903 — decades before graphic designers were doing work that was officially recognized as corporate identity. This group of craftsmen and designers were true trailblazers.

Marks of the Werkstätte, left to right: Werkstätte monogram, rose logo, logo for Galerie Miethke designed by Kolo Moser.

Wiener Werkstätte letterhead printed in ‘Wiener Werkstätte blue,’ 1914. The group’s obsession with squares and grids is evident here.

A trademark was proposed for the Werkstätte, but designer Josef Hoffman proposed a complete graphic identity. The appearance of the group’s letters and articles was unified by four elements: the Werkstätte’s red rose symbol plus the monogram marks of the Werkstätte, the designer, and the producer. These standard elements, along with the use of the square as a decorative motif, were used to design everything from invoices to wrapping paper.

Identity Masters

Westinghouse logo and annual report designed by Paul Rand

Extraordinarily influential designers like Paul Rand, Milton Glaser, and Alan Fletcher helped shape the graphic identity of consumer culture during the second half of the twentieth century. Rand, for example, designed many ubiquitous logos and his varied identity work for IBM became a benchmark in the industry. These great designers have been covered in depth elsewhere (check out ‘The world’s best logo designers?’ by David Airey), so we won’t spend too much time on them here.

Music Television

“The move of information from the printed page to other media has changed the nature of graphic identity. The MTV logo, which emerges from an unexpected metamorphosis, is probably the ultimate in animated identity.” -The New York Times, September 1996.

The MTV logo was designed by the now-defunct studio Manhattan Design in the early 1980’s. Former Manhattan Design member Frank Olinsky tells the story behind the creation of this logo here.

This logo was a revolution in corporate identity because it adapted to the language of television and shattered standing notions about the ‘rules’ of logo use. In the early 80’s, television had become a ubiquitous medium. The MTV logo adapted to the nature of this medium by exploiting the speed and motion of the moving image: it was regularly animated, shattered, decorated, erased, and reborn in the course of a brief station identification spot. This showed that logos could be adaptive vessels for graphic identity and demolished the notion that trademarks should always be presented in a consistent, static form. The logo had evolved to fit the culture of the television era.

The Brand Era

“In order to be successful multinational corporations, you need to produce brands, not products.” -Naomi Klein

Lebron James is deified in a Nike desktop wallpaper ad. The Swoosh is tiny; the brand is huge. For some, Nike epitomizes successful branding. For others, it’s the poster child for deceptive marketing, sweatshop labor, and unethical business practices.

Now that the whole world has been branded, the Twentieth Century approach to branding is old school. I’ll call our present day in age the Brand Era. The logo has evolved from a mark of quality on a product to a visual distillation of a cultural ideal — one that’s capable of accruing or asserting brand equity in a variety of marketing environments and inspiring great allegiance among consumers. “In this corporate formula,” says Naomi Klein, “the brand has little to do with the life of the product. Rather, it is a free-standing idea. The goal of the successful brand has become nothing short of transcendence from the world of things.”

In this twenty-first century brand space, Nike is no longer a shoe company — it is a concept that represents transcendence through sports. Consider the Nike ad above: Lebron James is deified in a Christ-like pose and with religious language (‘witness,’ ‘believe’), both of which imply spiritual transcendence. In the case of Michael Jordan, the star was granted superhuman powers in Nike ads (picture him achieving flight, suspended midair en route to the hoop). In the corner floats the simple, austere Swoosh. In this context, the logo is a sponge, soaking up the ‘brand equity’ created by themes of transcendence and flight as well as the basketball star’s fame/endorsement/deification.

‘Brand evangelists’ now use all kinds of lofty language to describe ‘brand worlds’ and ‘branded landscapes.’ At best, this kind of language describes creative brand strategy that can provide organizations with an innovative approach to defining themselves in today’s corporate culture — a place where tumultuous economies and rapid technological change require constant adaptation. At worst, this kind of behavior is an attempt to pull the pretentious wool over the novice client’s eyes, using ostentatious language to leverage the sale of mediocre design and commonplace brand strategy. None of us entered this field to become snake oil salesmen, so don’t pitch like them.

A Post-Brand Era?

Ask someone standing in Times Square if logo design is dead. Image: ‘Times Square Parade’ by Alexander Chen

In this era, the brand is bigger and more powerful than ever. Brands have become so big that some people have logo tattoos (physically branded with a brand) while celebrities like Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey have successfully developed themselves into personal mega brands. Brands like Nike have transformed themselves into lifestyle choices that consumers can integrate into their own identity. How much further can we go? What comes next?

Naomi Klein has noted that the many successful brands have already achieved “transcendence from the world of things,” meaning that the dissemination of a brand’s identity has become more valuable than its production of physical commodities. Technology will soon liberate brands from the visible world even further, as companies enter the fields of nanotechnology, synthetic life production, virtual space, and more. What will ‘brand identity’ mean for a person who has branded cells injected into their body to eradicate cancer? And you thought the favicon was small. Brands will occupy startling new environments (like the bloodstream) in the 21st Century.

The MTV logo famously introduced a logo that could undergo a costume change during every performance. How else can a logo break the rules to adapt? Is there a way to explode the logo, to decentralize it? What about a logo that consisted of separate elements that could be displayed on their own or joined together to create a unified whole? If branded products exist on a molecular level that’s invisible to the naked eye, could they project external holographic brand identity?

The role of brand identity in the future remains to be seen. But it appears as though — barring the apocalypse or some Naomi Klein-inspired activist revolution — brands will continue to expand into new areas. Just as most industries are dealing with abrupt transitional periods due to the disruptive effects of technology, so is ours. In fact, their transitional periods become our transitional periods, because they are our clients.

As brand identity designers, merely designing a logo for a client is not good enough. It is also unacceptable to stand on the cultural sidelines or design with our heads in the sand. We must be students of the changing cultures around us. We must take active roles in the use of design to strengthen and navigate the futures of the industries, people, and causes we believe in.

The Road Ahead

For now, brand identity design is thriving. Branded design environments (like a website with an integrated design strategy expressing brand qualities) can coexist with traditional logo design. In the future — as always — it’s creative thinking that will lead the way. One valuable asset will be the willingness to take a risk when it comes time to develop a strategy for a brand’s visual persona. The faster technology propels our culture, the more design risk-takers we’re going to need.

Whatever changes may come, one thing will remain. As graphic artists and designers, we possess the power (just as any two year-old with a crayon does) to ascribe meaning to the world around us. We put an expressive face on raw information. The fundamental desire of humans to understand the world in visual terms is a desire that we can understand and foster. Graphic design’s ability to provide meaning and useful information will prove more valuable than ever during uncertain and challenging times.

Logo design in today’s world is totally under rated. People do not understand how important a good logo is and how valuable it is to their business and this is why I am going to outline some very important facts telling you exactly why logo design should not cost $5 and why your logo is not something you should take lightly.

In broad terms, I will do this by comparing “cheap logo design” to “professional logo design” and I will outline the reasons why professional logo designers do not charge such low fees and why you should invest in a professional logo design.

What Is A Logo?

To understand what a logo is meant to do, we first must know what a logo is. A logo’s design is for immediate recognition, inspiring trust, admiration, loyalty and an implied superiority. The logo is one aspect of a company’s commercial brand, or economic entity, and its shapes, colours, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organisations and other non-commercial entities.

It makes me wonder why people have no logo or why they would even bother with a cheap logo design if a logo is meant to do all of these things?

Spec Work & Logo Design Contests

Before I get onto comparing cheap VS professional logo design I want to talk to you a bit about SPEC work. “Spec” has become the short form for any work done on a speculative basis.

ie. You design this for me, and I will pay you if I like it. - This is not right.

To clarify, let’s create a scenario in another industry where SPEC work does NOT exist.

“I went for a dental check-up yesterday. After the dentist inspected my teeth, she suggested some work to prevent further tooth decay. I told her to go ahead, and if the dental work was satisfactory, I’d be more than happy to pay. She responded that she wouldn’t be able to do that, because she normally provides a service when a fee is agreed upon up-front. I said I’d let her know after I checked in with other local dentists.”

This scenario happens in the design industry every day and is seen as very unethical as it is ruining the design industry. A designer should not have to invest time and resources with no guarantee of payment much alike a dentist or any other professional.

I do not want to go into this any further as much has been written about it but I would like to say please avoid design contests and spec work at all costs. Logo Design Contests are bad for your business. Period.

For further reading on the damage of spec work I have written an in depth article outlining the “pros” and cons of spec work.

There have even been comics made about the damage of Spec Work:

• Comic 1
• Comic 2
• Comic 3

$5.00 (Cheap Logo Design)

Now that we have taken a look at the damage of Spec Work, let us now take a look at what quality you can expect from a logo in between the $5 to $200 bracket. The particular case I am looking at today is from a $35 logo design contest that was held on Digital Point Forums.

The “brief” for the logo design project was

“Make a logo for the site ‘Spela Piano’. The meaning of that is Play Piano. This is a site where our members can learn to play piano online.”

Below you can see the responses from the contest, which one do you think won?

You will notice that nearly all of the logos above use free standard issue fonts and don’t assign to the rules of what makes a good logo. Ie. describable, memorable, effective without colour and scalable.

Ask yourself these questions in regards to the logos above:

• How many of the logos can you describe or remember?
• Are these logos effective without colour?
• Are they scalable?
• Do they gain immediate recognition?
• Convey the company’s personality, character or attitude?
• Relate to your clients by conveying a feeling of familiarity and credibility?
• Have association with quality and satisfaction?

I will leave these questions for you to decide.

Professional Logo Design

Now compare these professionally designed logos and answer the same questions as above….

See the difference?

Why are they so different? As outlined in the logo design process of top graphic designers, professional logo designers have an actual design process that involves research, sketching, conceptualising, and reflection and this is why they do not charge $5.00.

The design process of a professional logo designer usually consists of:

1. The Design Brief: They conduct a questionnaire or interview with the client to get the design brief.
2. Research: They conduct research focused on the industry itself, on its history, and on its competitors.
3. Reference: They conduct research into logo designs that have been successful and current styles and trends that are related to the design brief.
4. Sketching & Conceptualising: They develop the logo design concept(s) around the brief and research. They use creativity and know how to design a logo.
5. Reflection: They take breaks throughout their design process. This lets their ideas mature and lets them get renewed enthusiasm and receive feedback.
6. Presentation: They then choose whether to present only a select few logos to the client or a whole collection.
7. Celebration: They then drink beer or eat chocolate or sleep or start on next logo design. Or a combination.

Do you believe doing all of that costs $5.00?

On that note, did you know that the software to make the logo is USD$700 in itself,   let alone the computer that it has to be installed onto or the costs associated with the essentials… paper, ink and an internet connection.

More Reasons

Here are some more responses from other designers on reasons why logo design does not cost $5.00.

Tara from Graphic Design Blog outlines in her 6 reasons why a logo should cost more than your lunch that

1. A logo is the very first impression people get of your company.
2. A logo needs longevity.
3. A logo needs to be original.
4. A logo should look professional.
5. A logo should reflect the time and thought gone in to designing it.
6. A logo is the starting point of your whole corporate image.

Now look back at those $5.00 logo designs or your even own logo to see if adheres to the above points.

How much does a logo cost?

This is the single most frequently asked question, though it is the hardest one to answer without more details of the project.

The cost of a professional logo design is a question that cannot be easily answered as every company has different needs, however, the best way to approach this question is to draw up a customised quote for each individual.

A number of factors have to be taken into consideration when designing a logo, such as how many logo concepts need to be presented, how many revisions are required, how much research is needed, the size of the business and so on.

The best way to find out how much a logo design will cost is to get a quote from the designer them self.

Time To Invest?

Isn’t it about time you invested in a professional logo design? You can can get a free quote for a professional logo design by clicking here or you may like to look at mylogo design portfolio first. You may also like to read the article “how to choose a logo designer?”

Do you agree? Does logo design cost more than $5.00? What have you paid for a logo design?

Some of the other happenings are:

So, come out on Friday… bring the kids, and enjoy a great event!

With the power of the Web, and more eyes watching than ever, it’s important for a business to communicate its unique message clearly. The easiest way to recognize a company and distinguish it from others is by its logo. Below, we go through 10 common logo design mistakes that you should avoid if you want to create a successful and professional logo.

1. Designed By An Amateur

Avoid websites that promote ridiculously cheap logo packages. You get what you pay for.

A professional business should look professional. New business owners often invest a lot of time and money in property and equipment, but do not often match it by investing suitably in their logo.

Here are the most common reasons why many logos look amateurish:

• The business owner wanted to save money by designing the logo quickly themselves.
• A friend or relative who claims to know a little about graphic design does it as a favor.
• The wrong people are commissioned. (Local printers are not likely proficient in logo design.)
• The business outsourced the job via one of several design competition websites, which are mostly populated by amateur designers.
• The job was given to an online company that offers really cheap logos.

All of the above can result in disastrous outcomes. If your logo looks amateurish, then so will your business. A business should know where to look when it wants a new logo. David Airey offers great insight on how to choose the right logo designer for your requirements.

Here are the advantages of hiring an established and professional logo designer:

• Your logo will be unique and memorable.
• You won’t run into any problems down the line with reproducing it.
• Your logo will have a longer lifespan and won’t need to be redesigned in a couple of years.
• Your logo will look professional.

2. Relies On Trends

Focusing on current logo trends is like putting a sell-by date on a logo.

Trends (whether swooshes, glows or bevels) come and go and ultimately turn into cliches. A well-designed logo should be timeless, and this can be achieved by ignoring the latest design tricks and gimmicks. The biggest cliche in logo design is the dreaded “corporate swoosh,” which is the ultimate way to play it safe. As a logo designer, your job is to create a unique identity for your client, so completely ignoring logo design trends is best.

Logolounge has a great section on its website in which it updates current logo design trends every year. Being aware as a designer of the latest crazes is important, mainly so that you can avoid them at all costs.

3. Uses Raster Images

An example of how raster graphics can limit reproduction.

Standard practice when designing a logo is to use vector graphics software, such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. A vector graphic is made up of mathematically precise points, which ensures visual consistency across multiple sizes. The alternative, of course, is use to raster graphics software, such as Adobe Photoshop. A raster graphic — or bitmap, as it’s commonly called — consists of pixels.

Using raster images for logos is not advisable because it can cause problems with reproduction. While Photoshop is capable of creating very large logos, you never know for sure how large you will have to reproduce your logo at some point. If you zoom in enough on a raster graphic, it will appear pixelated, making it unusable. Maintaining visual consistency by making sure the logo looks the same in all sizes is essential.

The main advantages of vector graphics for logo design are:

• The logo can be scaled to any size without losing quality.
• Editing the logo later on is much easier.
• It can be adapted to other media more easily than a raster image.

4. Contains Stock Art

Using stock vector graphics in a logo puts your client at risk.

This mistake is often made by business owners who design their own logo or by amateur designers who are not clued in to the laws on copyright. Downloading stock vector imagery from websites such as VectorStock is not a crime, but it could possibly get you in trouble if you incorporate it in a logo.

A logo should be unique and original, and the licensing agreement should be exclusive to the client: using stock art breaks both of these rules. Chances are, if you are using a stock vector image, it is also being used by someone somewhere else in the world, so yours is no longer unique. You can pretty easily spot stock vectors in logos because they are usually familiar shapes, such as globes and silhouettes.

5. Designing For Yourself Rather Than The Client

Never impose your own personality onto a client’s work.

You can often spot this logo design sin a mile away; the cause is usually a designer’s enormous ego. If you have found a cool new font that you can’t wait to use in a design, well… don’t. Ask yourself if that font is truly appropriate for the business you’re designing for? For example, a great modern typographic font that you just love is not likely suited to a serious business such as a lawyer’s office.

Some designers also make the mistake of including a “trademark” in their work. While you should be proud of your work, imposing your personality onto a logo is wrong. Stay focused on the client’s requirements by sticking to the brief.

6. Overly Complex

Highly detailed designs don’t scale well when printed or viewed in smaller sizes.

What better analogy for thumbnail images than fingerprints? You’ll notice the intricacies of your fingerprints only when looking at them really close up. As soon as you move away, those details are lost. The same holds true for highly detailed logo designs.

When printed in small sizes, a complex design will lose detail and in some cases will look like a smudge or, worse, a mistake. The more detail a logo has, the more information the viewer has to process. A logo should be memorable, and one of the best ways to make it memorable is to keep things simple. Look at the corporate identities of Nike, McDonald’s and Apple. Each company has a very simple icon that can easily be reproduced at any size.

7. Relies On Color For Its Effect

Without color, your great design may lose its identity.

This is a very common mistake. Some designers cannot wait to add color to a design, and some rely on it completely. Choosing color should be your last decision, so starting your work in black and white is best.

Every business owner will need to display their logo in only one color at one time or another, so the designer should test to see whether this would affect the logo’s identity. If you use color to help distinguish certain elements in the design, then the logo will look completely different in one tone.

8. Poor Choice Of Font

Font choice can make or break a logo.

When it comes to executing a logo, choosing the right font is the most important decision a designer can make. More often than not, a logo fails because of a poor font choice (our example shows the infamous Comic Sans).

Finding the perfect font for your design is all about matching the font to the style of the icon. But this can be tricky. If the match is too close, the icon and font will compete with each other for attention; if the complete opposite, then the viewer won’t know where to focus. The key is finding the right balance, somewhere in the middle. Every typeface has a personality. If the font you have chosen does not reflect the icon’s characteristics, then the whole message of the brand will misfire.

Bad fonts are often chosen simply because the decision isn’t taken seriously enough. Some designers simply throw in type as an afterthought. Professional font foundries, such as MyFonts and FontFont, offer much better typeface options than those over-used websites that offer free downloads.

9. Has Too Many Fonts

A logo works best with a maximum of two fonts.

Using too many fonts is like trying to show someone a whole photo album at once. Each typeface is different, and the viewer needs time to recognize it. Seeing too many at once causes confusion.

Using a maximum of two fonts of different weights is standard practice. Restricting the number of fonts to this number greatly improves the legibility of a logo design and improves brand recognition.

10. Copies Others

This is the biggest logo design mistake of all and, unfortunately, is becoming more and more common. As mentioned, the purpose of a logo is to represent a business. If it looks the same as someone else’s, it has failed in that regard. Copying others does no one any favors, neither the client nor the designer.

As many of you may know, we are all animal lovers here at Gimme Design. I am sure most of you have seen pictures (or have met) Zeb, my shitzu. Zeb comes to work with me everyday, he goes on trips with me, and attends most of the functions I go to. Zeb, is a rescue. Obviously, I am an advocate of animal rescues, so I decided to organize a little function myself.

The entire staff of Gimme Design will be volunteering a day at the Montgomery county SPCA. We invite you to come along! Saturday, May 15th, we will be arriving at this SPCA at 10am :

Montgomery County SPCA
1059 Sweifford Road
Perkiomenville, PA 18074

We chose this particular SPCA because not only does it house dogs, cats, and small animals… it also has an entire barn with horses, pigs, goats and chickens. This is strictly on a volunteer basis, and we will be collecting donations to bring with us on that day. If you would like to help, and cannot volunteer please consider dropping off a donation to my office. These are the things you can donate and the animals at the SPCA needs:

Canned Dog/Cat Food – (very important!!)

Dry Dog/Cat Food

Any Pet Food – (rabbit, hamster, reptile)

Cat Litter

Old Towels

Blankets

Sheets

Newspaper

Cleaning Supplies (bleach, cleaners of any kind)

Anything that is Pet related…

My office is located:

Gimme Design
400 Lincoln Ave. Ste. 2
Hatboro, PA 19040
215.681. 2977
Jennifer@GimmeDesign.com

Feel free to call or email me if you would like to get involved.

Here’s the image I’ll be using:

Step 1: Zoom In On The Eyes

Before we begin, let’s make it easier to see what we’re doing by zooming in on the eyes in the photo. Select the Zoom Tool from the Tools palette, or press the letter Z on your keyboard to select it with the shortcut:

With the Zoom Tool selected, click and drag out a selection box around the eyes. This is the area we’ll zooming in to:

Release your mouse button, and Photoshop fills the document window with the area you selected.

Step 2: Select The Lasso Tool

Next, we need to select the eyes so we’re not affecting any other areas of the image. For that, we’ll use the Lasso Tool. Select the Lasso Tool from the Tools palette, or press the letter L on your keyboard to quickly select it with the shortcut:

Step 3: Draw Selections Around The Eyes

With the Lasso Tool selected, drag a selection around one of the eyes. Don’t worry if your selection outline isn’t perfect since we’ll clean things up later. Once you have the first eye selected, hold down your Shift key and draw a selection around the other eye. Holding down the Shift key will add the new selection to the previous one, allowing us to select both eyes at once:

We don’t need the pupils in the center of the eyes selected, so let’s remove them from the selection. Hold down your Alt (Win) /Option (Mac) key and drag around each pupil with the Lasso Tool. This will remove them from the selection, leaving us with only the colored area selected. Again, don’t worry about being overly precise for now.

tep 4: Add A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

With the eyes now selected, we’re ready to change their color! For that, we’ll use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Click on theNew Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette (it’s the circle split diagonally between black and white), then selectHue/Saturation from the list of adjustment layers that appears:

Step 5: Select The “Colorize” Option

If you’re using Photoshop CS4 as I am here, the options and controls for the Hue/Saturation dialog box will appear inside the Adjustments Panel which is new to CS4. In Photoshop CS3 and earlier, a Hue/Saturation dialog box will appear on your screen. Select the Colorize option by clicking inside its checkbox:

As soon as you select Colorize, you’ll see the eyes change color in the document window:

Step 6: Adjust The Hue, Saturation And Lightness

To change the color, simply adjust the Hue, Saturation and Lightness options by dragging their sliders left or right. Hue will change the basic color, Saturation changes the saturation of the color, and Lightness affects the overall brightness. Be careful not to drag the Saturation or Lightness sliders too far to the right, though, since things can quickly become unnatural looking. The image in the document window will continually update as you move the sliders so you can see a live preview of the changes:

When you’re happy with the new color of the eyes, click OK to exit out of the Hue/Saturation dialog box (Photoshop CS4 users can leave the Adjustments Panel open since there’s no need to close it). Here’s my image after changing the woman’s eyes from blue to green: