Create a Watercolor Logo in Photoshop
Tutorial #10
Create a Watercolor Logo, using different watercolor and paper textures learning different techniques on brushes and layer mask.
A few weeks ago I created a wallpaper for the site, I thought it could make an interesting tutorial for every level designers, I hope you’ll appreciate the creation.
Step 1 – New Document
Open Photoshop and create a new document with a white background, mine is 1680×1050px so it fits my screen resolution.
Step 2 – Logo
Create a new layer and select the Text Tool (T), I used the Bifurk font; I already used it in a previous tutorial. Write your text; use a different layer for each letter so you can work on each one separately, I just used two layers with a D and a rotate G to represent a C for drawing clouds. Put each layer with a letter in a folder for each one of them. Rasterize both letters layers by doing right click – Rasterize.
Step 3 – Gradient and Rotation
I’m going to explain how to give a nice effect on the D. You’ll just have to repeat the same process for the other letters.
Duplicate the D layer twice, Use the Free Transform Tool Ctrl+T and rotate the two duplicated layer with about 6,5° for the first one and -6,5° for the other one. Name the duplicated layer d_01 and d_02
Add a Gradient Overlay layer style to those 2 layers. You can play with the angle and the colours.
Change the opacity of both layers to 50% and place them under the original D layer, Repeat the same process for the other letters.
Step 4 – Blur
Select the 2 gradient layers we just created before and press Ctrl+Alt+E, this will create a new layer, place it under the d_02 layer and apply a Gaussian Blur to it, Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur with 3px, name this layer d Blur and change the opacity to 50%.
Do the same for the other letters, when you’re done select the entire letter folders but make sure the black letters layers are hidden, Ctrl+Atl+E and apply a 30px Gaussian Blur, place this layer under all the folders and name it Logo Blur, Change the opacity to 40%.
Step 5 – Watercolor Texture
I’ve used two watercolor textures from sadmonkeydesign-res’s deviant art gallery for this step, you can find them Here and Here, when you’ve downloaded both textures files, just open them in Photoshop. Drag the orange/pink texture into your document, resize and place it on top of the logo layers, make a selection of the D layer by doing Ctrl+Left click on the little thumbnail preview in the D layer, then with the selection still active, press Ctrl+Shift+left click on the G layer preview thumbnail in the layer panel, finally go back on the texture layer and create a layer mask, Layer - Layer Mask - Reveal Selection and change the opacity to 80%.
Drag the other texture and place the layer under the first texture. Make a selection of the d_01, d_02, c_01 and c_02 with the same process we used for the previous texture and create a layer mask on the blue texture, then change the blending mode of the layer to Overlay. When you’re finished hide the two original letters layers.
Step 6 – Background Textures
We’re not done with textures; we’re going to do the background now. You’ve got to download 2 more textures, download the 10 old paper texture by `Bleeding-Dragon pick one of those textures, I choose the paper2 one and drag it in your document, rotate it 90°, Edit – Transform – Rotation 90°. Place the texture layer in front of the background layer.
Next download a texture from ShadyMedusa-stock’s deviantArt gallery , resize and rotate it with the Free Transform Tool and place the layer in front of the first texture layer, change the opacity to 30%.
Step 7 – Lines
Create a new layer, select the Rectangle Tool and create a white thin stripe, duplicate this layer 3 times, each time move the new layer a little bit to the right, so you’ve got 4 stripes with the same spacing. Merge the 4 stripes layer and then duplicate the merge layer, place the new stripes under the original ones, you should have something like this.
Step 8 – Texture on lines
Select both stripes layers and use the Free Transform Tool Ctrl+T to rotate them, place them like on the image, then download an other watercolor texture Here, open it in photoshop and drag it into the document, place it on top of the first stripe layer, rotate and resize it with the Free Transform Tool, and create a Clipping Mask, Right click – Create a Clipping Mask, this will mask all the watercolor parts out of the stripes shape.
Step 9 – Layer Mask
Make a selection of all the D layers, D, d_01 and d_02 and invert the selection then create a layer mask on both stripes layers with this selection.
Step 10 – Paint Splat on Logo
Download some photoshop paint splat brushes, you can find some on deviantART Brush Library, to load them in photoshop, just double click on the .abr file you’ve downloaded or go on the brush library and click on load brushes. I used a new layer for every splatter and used the colours from the textures. When you’re done with the splatters, just create a new folder, name it Paint Splat, place all the splat layers in it and place it in front of the stripes.
Step 11 – Background Paint Splats
Create a new layer, name it Paint Brushes and place it just in front of the textures. Select the Brush Tool (B) and paint some more splat on all the canvas, when you’re done duplicate the watercolor texture layer in the stripes folder and place the layer in front of the Paint Brushes layer, Right click on it and select Create a Clipping Mask.
I hope you liked the tutorials, contact me for any questions and send me a link to your creations, I really appreciate seeing what people learn in my tutorials. You can download the PSD source file:
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36 Responses to “Create a Watercolor Logo in Photoshop”
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What does rasterize do? and very attractive and colorful design man! thanks for sharing this one
Thanks for the comment, When you use the text tool, you’ve got a text layer with you letters on it, you need to rasterize the text layer if you want to apply some layer style to it.
Amazing!!! Very nice tutorial. Big Thanks.
thanks!! great tutorial.
heres the image i made with this
http://i40.tinypic.com/1zcn2uf.jpg
Very creative, and it looks really nice. Thanks for sharing
I liked it a lot more without the splatter but it’s a really pretty logo. I’m trying this out as I type
Thanks for the comments Glad you all like the tutorial, Send me a link to your creations, i’d like to see what you’ve done
PS: Nice creation Angad
Super tutoriel !
A utiliser et remanier selon ses propres idées
Moi voilà ce que j’ai réussi grâce à lui :
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/2673/cocacolaaffiche.gif
[...] Great Watercolor Logo Technique for Adobe Photoshop [...]
http://i43.tinypic.com/5540hf.jpg
Here’s my outcome, used the middle splatter from your PSD, as i ran out of patience attempting to do it myself, just couldn’t get it of a good enough standard tbh..
Thanks for all your comments, I really like the background you did with the brushes Smash
J’aime bien l’incorporation de la canette dans le logo Alexandre!
[...] Great Watercolor Logo Technique for Adobe Photoshop [...]
Great tutorial, you have a new subscriber!
P.S. You can’t subscibe via Feedburner/Google?!?!?
Thanks for the comment, no you can’t suscribe via feedburner right now but i’ll try to create my feedburner account right now
nice tutorial and logo, i’ll use this as an inspiration to design better logos.
[...] Drawing Clouds blog has some great retro-grunge inspired design tutorials, this walkthrough in particular shows [...]
Looks great, thanks a lot for sharing with us!
really nice design! I learned a lot copying it. Thanks mate.
I stopped at step 5. Step 5 confused me way too much so I gave up.
I don’t get what you mean by: “Drag the orange/pink texture into your document, resize and place it on top of the logo layers, make a selection of the D and G layers by holding the Shift and Alt keys on the little preview thumbnails in the layer panel, create a layer mask on the texture layer.”
I tried doing that, but CS3 wont let me create a layer mask for the texture layer while selecting all of the letters.
Sorry.
It was a great tutorial besides that though. (:
Hey, Thanks for letting me know that this part of the tutorial was badly explained, I changed most of the step, I think it’s easier now
awesome stuff! thanks for sharing this..it’s really useful for me
thanks alot.
[...] View Tutorial Posted in Home | [...]
[...] Create a Watercolor Logo in Photoshop Create a Watercolor Logo, using different watercolor and paper textures learning different techniques on brushes and layer mask. A few weeks ago I created a wallpaper for the site, I thought it could make an interesting tutorial for every level designers, I hope you’ll appreciate the creation. [...]
[...] Drawing Clouds blog has some great retro-grunge inspired design tutorials, this walkthrough in particular shows [...]
What FONT did you use? Cos I’m trying to make my own version of yours, but I can’t find the font……
The Font I used is called Bifurk, you can download it on fontriver.com http://www.fontriver.com/font/bifurk/
Cool and interesting tutorial. Its awesom
[...] Remember how fun watercolors used to be? You can recreate a watercolor effect with Photoshop! [...]
Cool. Thanks for this. Very useful tuto.
Heee,
Thanks for this tutorial!
Here is my design with my Initials =)
http://jspr-vrbm.hyves.nl/album/41301961/GLR_O1M2/tmYhAsHP/photos/714758717/0/JhUx/
Greetz from the Netherlands!
Thanks, really appreciate your comment, but i can’t see your design it says that its a private profile
Here is my result.
http://xek263.deviantart.com/art/Esperanza-136561311
I like the tutorial ;D gracias ^^
hi
i loved your tutorial
but i stopped at step 4 how can i select the 2 gradient layers to create a new one????????
Great tut, thank you
i loved it! thank you for posting.
xx