We can create a simple logo that is memorable and clearly visible from a distance by stacking pre-drawn shapes from iWork's standard menu.
This simple logo consists of three shapes included in iWork's Shapes menu—an arrow, an oval, and a rectangle.
The oval and arrow resemble the letter Q for "question". The logo could be used for a questions-and-answers section in a publication or on an internet page or a consultancy or civic group.
Shapes are in the Toolbar under Insert | Shape. In this design, they are stacked, edited, and colored. The following steps describe how to design the logo.
- Insert an oval into the blank iWork document.
- In the Metrics Inspector, uncheck the Constrain Proportions box, and under Size, type in the dimensions
2.85 x 3.24 in(7.23 x 8.22 cm). - In the Graphic Inspector, under Fill, choose None in the drop-down menu.
- Set the thickness of the oval outline at
28points. Type in the size in the width window under Stroke|Line.
- Give the outline of the oval a blue color. Under Stroke| Line, click in the color well, which turns dark gray, and in a few moments the ColorsViewer opens. Click on a blue color in the Crayon box or create your own shade by dragging the small editing dot in the color wheel.
- Add an arrow from the Shapes menu. Choose the thick arrow with one arrowhead.
- Resize and reshape the arrow by dragging the shape's handles and the round editing handle at the base of the arrowhead.
- To color the arrow red, go to the Graphics Inspector, and under Fill, choose Color Fill and click in the color well. Its frame turns dark gray. When the ColorsViewer opens, click on a red color in the Crayons Box, or create your own shade by dragging the small editing dot in the color wheel.
- Stack to combine the oval and the arrow—click on the arrow and drag it over the oval.
- Next, rotate the arrow to a diagonal position. To rotate, press Command and drag one of the handles.
- Resize the arrow so that it resembles the stroke in a capital Q.
We can stop here or we can do more.
- Add a rectangle from the Shapes menu; give it a white color fill and its outline a thickness that is slightly less than the thickness of the oval. Here, the color of the outline is the same as the color of the oval.
- Move the rectangle behind the oval and the arrow, thus: Arrange|Send to Back.
- When you are satisfied with the result, select all three shapes and group them, thus: Arrange|Group.
By default, the oval will in fact be a circle when we insert it. Shaping it into an oval resembling the letter O evokes a range of positive associations: O for open, for agreement, discussion at the round table, for harmony and solutions.
The shape can be in any dimensions that you feel comfortable working with, but remember that at the end of the process it will have to be converted to an image that can be used in various file formats and sizes. To make it work well with whatever dimensions it will finally appear in, it is best to work on the original design in the largest dimensions possible.
There are several different styles of arrows in the Shapes menu. The thick arrow with one "arrowhead" has an additional feature: a round editing handle at the base of the arrowhead. Dragging it changes the thickness of the arrow's stem, while leaving the head as it is.
Because we added the arrow after the oval, it will go over the latter. Each new shape we add to an iWork document, including Text Boxes, goes over the previous one, much like paper documents that we pile on our desk.
In this example, the oval's outline is 28 points thick and the Arrow is 102 x 45 points with a 1-point black outline. You can set dimensions by eye, by simply dragging the shapes' handles or by typing your chosen measurements in the Graphic Inspector and, for the arrow, in the Metrics Inspector.
A rectangle combined with an oval may remind one of the "squaring the circle" idiom (which means solving a seemingly unsolvable problem). The rectangle needn't be square; its height may be slightly more than its width. In this example, it is 274 points wide and 281 points high.
You can store the finished logo as an iWork document and also export it to PDF. For other formats, to crop and reduce size, use Preview options and tools. The Save as... option in Preview also gives a selection of file formats, including TIFF, PNG, and .amd; you can save your logo in these. You can also remove the white background from around the logo and inside it, too. To do this, use the Alpha tool, included in Preview in the current Mac OS.
Once you've publicized your logo—put it on marketing material, on stationery, registered it as a trademark and put it on the Internet—it's better not to change it, at least for some time. Customers quickly get used to recognizable logos and look out for favorite brands in internet searches, in magazines, brochures, and catalogs.
But, it is safe to turn it into a black-and-white image, for example, to use on black-ink-only printouts. Ungroup the three shapes under the Arrange menu, select shapes one-by-one, and change the Color Fill of the arrow and the color of the stroke in the oval and the rectangle to black.
If you want to use your logo as a watermark—the semi-transparent symbol or logo that appears as a "wash" in the background of your documents—choose Send to Back or Send Object to Background, under the Arrange menu. You may want to reduce the logo's opacity to about 30 percent. To do this, drag the Opacity slider in the Graphic Inspector. If your logo consists of grouped iWork shapes, you will have to ungroup them and reduce the opacity of each. If it is a PDF or JPEG image re-imported into an iWork document, you can reduce its opacity in one step.