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About this lesson

After creating our custom textures we will now combine it with the logo design and create a few iterations to see what looks best.

Quick reference

Adding Texture to a Logo

After creating our custom textures we will now combine it with the logo design and create a few iterations to see what looks best.

When to use

Anytime that you want to add a distressed or grungy feel to an illustration or logo these techniques for creating custom textures can be very useful. 

Instructions

  • Open the the Adding Texture to a Logo - Exercise.ai file
  • Change the name of the layer containing your custom texture by first double clicking on it and then changing it to 'Grunge Texture'
  • Unlock your BG layer and the layer containing your Expanded Logo and update the label color for the logo layer so that it matches the BG layer
  • Go to the View Menu and choose 'Snap to Grid'
  • Select your Artboard Tool and click the New Artboard Icon on the top toolbar and add two more artboards aligning them so they are placed next to the original (the Snap to Grid function should help here).
  • After aligning your three artboards return to the View Menu and uncheck 'Snap to Grid'
  • Switch to the Selection Tool (V) and click on the first artboard to make sure it's selected
  • Click and drag around all of the artwork on the first artboard (should be the Expanded Logo and the BG layers as long as they're unlocked)
  • Press Command/Ctrl+C to copy all of the artwork
  • Select the second artboard and press Command/Ctrl+F to paste it in place in the middle
  • Select the third artboard and once again press Command/Ctrl+F to paste another copy 
  • All of the artwork on the second and third artboards might be on either the BG layer or the Expanded Logo Layer, but we want them to be on a separate layer by themselves. To do this, select the artwork on the second and third artboards and cut them pressing Command/Ctrl+X.
  • Create a New Layer above the Expanded Logo Layer and then select your middle artboard 
  • Press Command/Ctrl+F to paste everything back onto the second and third artboards while your New Layer is selected and everything should be in place
  • Double click to the right of the name of your New Layer to bring up the Layer Options and change the color label so it matches your Expanded Logo and BG layers
  • Also, rename this layer to something like 'Versions' or 'Iterations' so you can identify them easily
  • Select your custom grunge texture which, should be off to the side away from the artboards and copy it pressing Command/Ctrl+C and then turn the visibility of the layer off and lock it
  • Lock your Expanded Logo Layer along with the BG Layer to ensure that we can only modify the new versions of the logo
  • Select the logo on the second, middle artboard and then paste the custom texture pressing Command/Ctrl+V
  • Make the texture slightly larger by clicking and dragging any of the corners while holding the Shift Key and rotate the texture as well
  • With the texture selected, grab your Eyedropper Tool (I) and sample some of the colors from the logo to see how they look
  • Once you are happy with the size, color, and placement of your texture on top of the logo, click on the background color
  • With the background selected, make a copy of it by pressing Command/Ctrl+C 
  • Press Command/Ctrl+F to paste a copy in front
  • With the background shape still selected, hold the Shift Key and select the custom texture which should now be mostly hidden by the background copy that we pasted on top
  • With both layers selected, press Command/Ctrl+7 on the keyboard to place a Clipping Mask on the texture
  • The texture should now be constrained to the borders of the artboard
  • This will be our first version or logo iteration
  • Unlock the grunge texture Layer and turn the visibility back on so you can select it and copy it (Command/Ctrl+C) and then turn it back off and lock it again
  • Paste it onto the Iterations Layer and once again use the Select Tool (V) to place the texture accordingly
  • Once you are happy with the placement, select the texture and try sampling the main orange color from the logo
  • Select the background shape with your regular Selection Tool (V) and make a copy of the background
  • Paste it in front just like before so that it covers the new copy of the texture
  • Hold down the Shift Key and select both the background shape and then the custom texture behind it
  • Press Command/Ctrl+7 to once again create a Clipping Mask on your third artboard
  • You should now have your original logo and two additional versions, each with a different use of the custom texture. The texture should also be confined to the boundaries of the second and third artboards and not spilling outside of the artwork area

Hints & tips

  • When placing and resizing textures, rather than just holding the Shift Key to make a texture larger or smaller, try holding the Alt/Option+Shift Keys instead to scale it from the center outwards
  • Remember that when using Clipping Masks, the shape that is on top will be the shape that used as a mask

 

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  • 00:04 Now that we've got our custom texture here that we created, just go ahead and
  • 00:09 double-click on the layer and rename it, grunge texture or
  • 00:13 something similar like that.
  • 00:15 And then from there we can unlock our expanded logo and the BG layer.
  • 00:20 Now, what I wanna do is actually select both of these layers and relabel them.
  • 00:25 So, I'm gonna change the color maybe to orange so that it matches the BG layer,
  • 00:29 and then we can just leave our grunge texture layer set to this magenta color.
  • 00:34 From here, I come up to the View menu, and come down and
  • 00:37 choose Snap to Grid, and then we'll scrub our art board tool over here on the side.
  • 00:42 Click on the new art board icon on the top, and we wanna add maybe one or
  • 00:46 two more art boards here.
  • 00:48 So we can begin experimenting with some iterations of our logo,
  • 00:52 using our textures.
  • 00:53 All right, so we've got two new art boards and then once you've placed them and
  • 00:57 line them up, come back up and turn off Snap to Grid.
  • 01:02 And then select your texture layer, and
  • 01:05 I'm just gonna move it off to the side for a second.
  • 01:08 So what we wanna do is click on our art board containing our artwork here,
  • 01:12 and then press V to get your regular selection tool.
  • 01:15 And clicking drag around everything.
  • 01:17 So you should have your background and your expanded logo both selected together.
  • 01:22 Press Cmd + C to copy it, click on your second middle art board and then press
  • 01:27 Cmd + F to paste it in front, and then do the same thing on your third art board.
  • 01:33 So you've basically got these three copies.
  • 01:37 Now, as you can see over here in our layers pallet,
  • 01:39 it looks like both of these copies are on the same layer as our BG layer.
  • 01:44 So we actually need to cut this and paste it on a new layer instead.
  • 01:47 So I'm gonna select both of them.
  • 01:48 Press Cmd + X, and then create a new layer just above your expanded logo layer.
  • 01:54 Click on the middle art board and press Cmd + F.
  • 01:56 And it should paste them in this order.
  • 01:59 Now, if it doesn't just make sure you click on the middle album before you
  • 02:02 pasting it.
  • 02:03 You should now have both of these copies on your new layer.
  • 02:06 So come over to layer 7, double click and change the label to orange like others,
  • 02:12 and also go ahead and rename this one.
  • 02:15 Iterations, or versions, or just something to differentiate it.
  • 02:22 Now let's go ahead and grab our texture.
  • 02:24 So I wanna actually grab a copy of it.
  • 02:26 So I'm gonna press Cmd + C, and then lock and turn off the visibility for
  • 02:30 this layer.
  • 02:32 We can also lock our expanded logo and BG layer at this point.
  • 02:36 So that all we have are our iterations.
  • 02:39 And if it's confusing to you, you can also just turn the visibility off for
  • 02:43 those layers at the same time.
  • 02:45 So that we can mostly just focus on these two.
  • 02:48 So make sure you have your iterations layer selected.
  • 02:51 And then press Cmd+V to paste the texture.
  • 02:54 And let's go ahead and maybe rotate it, so I'm just grabbing the corner, holding
  • 02:58 the Shift key and rotating the texture, and maybe make it a little bit smaller.
  • 03:03 So I'm going to select it and then hold down the Shift key, and
  • 03:05 drag from any of the four corners.
  • 03:08 Now I'm going to zoom in a little bit so I can see what's happening here, and
  • 03:11 select the texture, and you should see that it's just filled with solid black.
  • 03:15 So you can grab your eye dropper tool by pressing I on the keyboard, and
  • 03:19 sample some of the colors from your logo to see how it looks.
  • 03:23 So first,
  • 03:24 I've just tried this color using the highlight color here on top of my logo.
  • 03:29 And I think that looks pretty cool.
  • 03:31 And if you want to, you can see how it looks if you send it all the to the back
  • 03:34 by coming up to the object menu choosing Send to Back.
  • 03:38 Okay, and then we actually need to send the background layer
  • 03:42 all the way to the back as well, so that our texture comes in front.
  • 03:47 So you can see how it looks either having your texture only on the background, or
  • 03:50 if you wanted to bring it back in the front and have it on top of everything,
  • 03:53 all right?
  • 03:55 So you can see how it looks just on the background,
  • 03:57 let's see how it looks in the front.
  • 03:59 I actually think it looks pretty good overlaid on the entire thing.
  • 04:03 Now what you can do from here,
  • 04:05 because you'll notice that our texture is kinda spilling over into the other layer,
  • 04:09 is select your background with your regular selection tool,
  • 04:12 press Cmd + C to copy it, Cmd + F to paste it all the way in the front.
  • 04:16 And now while it's still selected, hold down the Shift key and
  • 04:19 click on your texture.
  • 04:21 Now, we can actually apply a mask by pressing Cmd or Ctrl + 7 on the keyboard,
  • 04:26 and that's going to contain our texture just within our background copy.
  • 04:31 This is one version that we may wanna keep.
  • 04:35 Okay, so again let's unlock and turn on the invisibility texture layer,
  • 04:39 select it and make a copy, and turn it off again.
  • 04:43 And on your iterations layer, go ahead and paste another copy in front.
  • 04:47 Now just like before maybe we can rotate this one, but
  • 04:49 let's try going the other way this time.
  • 04:52 Let's also reduce it, scale it down a little bit in size, and this time
  • 04:57 I'm going to hold Shift+Alt option key to scale it down from the center.
  • 05:02 If I were just holding down the Shift key,
  • 05:03 I would only be scaling it from this corner.
  • 05:06 But if I hold down Alt option + Shift,
  • 05:08 it's basically going to scale it from the center.
  • 05:11 Okay, so we can try and a get a slightly different look there.
  • 05:14 And then let's come up to the Object menu and choose Transform Reflect.
  • 05:18 And let's reflect it horizontally and hit OK.
  • 05:21 Just so we can change it up a bit, and
  • 05:23 see if we can get some different looking results from this.
  • 05:27 Now again, you'll notice that you have a solid black fill.
  • 05:30 So press I to get your eye dropper tool.
  • 05:33 And maybe sample some other colors this time.
  • 05:35 See how it looks if you maybe use the yellow color,
  • 05:39 instead of our highlight color and if you like that.
  • 05:43 Or if maybe you wanna try and
  • 05:46 actually sample some of the mid tone orange color instead.
  • 05:50 I think the mid tone orange color actually looks pretty good here, but
  • 05:53 I'm wondering if maybe I should reflects my texture once again.
  • 05:57 So I'm gonna come back up to objects to transform and reflect, and
  • 06:01 maybe let's try vertical this time and hit OK, all right?
  • 06:06 And then you've got kind of another version here but, the interesting thing
  • 06:09 about this version is that anywhere that we have our main tone orange,
  • 06:13 you obviously can't see the texture because it's the same color.
  • 06:17 So you're really only noticing the texture of this version inside of the shadow areas
  • 06:21 or the highlight areas.
  • 06:23 But anywhere in here in the middle, you're not gonna see the texture.
  • 06:27 It's a little more subtle than our first iteration, but that's the point.
  • 06:31 You know, we wanna see which options we like the best.
  • 06:34 And you can move it around and play around with the positioning of it.
  • 06:38 And continue to transform it or rotate it however you like.
  • 06:42 But I think this looks pretty cool.
  • 06:43 It's a little bit more subtle than our first option.
  • 06:45 So let's go ahead and put a mask on this.
  • 06:48 So once again,
  • 06:48 select the background, press Cmd+C to copy it, Cmd+F to paste it in the front.
  • 06:54 And then while it's still selected, hold down Shift and click on your texture.
  • 06:57 And then once again press Cmd + Ctrl+7.
  • 07:00 So we now have two different iterations of our logo and our textures,
  • 07:05 in addition to our original which you can now turn back on, right?
  • 07:10 So if I close my layer panel, you can now see our clean version and
  • 07:14 two different versions using our custom texture.

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