Learn how to create a logo placeholder in the top title bar of your webpage design using various tools in Illustrator. This step-by-step guide takes you through the whole process of creating guides, building wireframes, using the ellipse tool, and customizing stroke color to achieve a professional-looking logo placeholder.
Key Insights
- To start designing the logo placeholder, the guide lines are set at 150 pixels from the left and top rulers. These guides assist in maintaining consistency and alignment in the design.
- The Ellipse tool is used to create a placeholder circle for the logo. The circle is drawn to fit within the 150x150 pixel square created by the guides, and is given a black stroke with a transparent fill.
- After creating the circle, the Type tool is used to add text, which can be resized and aligned perfectly within the circle. The 'Nevis Bold' font is recommended for a professional look.
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In this video, we'll be working on our top title bar. Let's first begin by creating a space for our logo on the top left-hand side.
In order to do this, let's first add two guides. We'll first drag from the left ruler and leave it at about 150. When we release, we can go up to our control bar and change the X value by double-clicking, typing 150, and hitting Enter.
Next, let's create another one by dragging from the top and releasing at 150 on our Y value. In this case, I released it perfectly there. However, I can also double-click and type 150 if I need to adjust it and hit ENTER. Next, let's begin working on our logo on the top left-hand side.
In this case, building a wireframe simply gives us an opportunity to add placeholders for future content. Therefore, let's simply drag an ellipse across this square as a placeholder for the logo. To do this, we'll go to our toolbar and select the ellipse tool.
I'll click and drag to the right, holding Shift to make a circle until I release it at the opposite corner. I'll then release, and we have our circle. If I hit V now for the selection tool, I can select it or deselect it by clicking outside.
Currently, our ellipse has no fill and no stroke, so let's change it to have a black stroke with a transparent fill. We can change the stroke color and fill color from a couple of different places. First, we can change it directly from the toolbar.
We can change it from our control bar, or we can change it within our color panel. In this case, I want to change the stroke, and I'll do so in the toolbar. In order to change the stroke, I'll select Stroke, and when the stroke is on top, I can now change the color by double-clicking it.
I'll want it to be black, so I'll drag to the bottom left-hand side, or I can type zeros for the hex code. The hex code refers to the specific color we're using. I'll then click OK.
We now have a circle, or a logo placeholder. Let's now add additional text saying "Logo." To do this, I'll deselect the circle and go to the left-hand side to select my type tool.
With the type tool selected, I can now begin typing. I'll click, and in this case, I'll simply type 'Logo' and hit Escape when I'm finished. If we see that we have a white circle on the right-hand side, we can change the size of our logo by clicking and dragging while holding Shift.
For now, let's double-click, making sure that we have a white circle on the right-hand side. This way, we can change the size, making sure to hold Shift to maintain appropriate proportions. We'll drag it to about this size, and next, let's edit our text to our preferred font, Nevis Bold.
If you don't have Nevis Bold installed on your computer from 'Introduction to Illustrator, ' we'll go into our file, unzip the fonts ZIP folder by double-clicking it, and then double-click 'Fonts.'
To install the font, we'll simply double-click Nevis and select 'Install.' If you already have the font Nevis Bold installed, there's nothing you need to do, so you can click 'No.'
However, if it isn't installed, it will finish installing, and you can close the Nevis Bold TrueType box. If you haven't already installed these on your computer, please do so before continuing.
Next, let's change our font to Nevis Bold.
To do this, we'll go to our Character panel within our control bar and begin typing 'Nevis Bold.' We'll then select 'Nevis Bold' from the dropdown, and here we have our appropriate font.
Let's now move this font to the center of our ellipse.
Finally, let's center it within the ellipse. To do this, we'll select both 'Logo' as well as the ellipse, holding Shift to select both. With both selected, we can go to our alignment options within the control bar.
From here, we'll click the dropdown and select 'Align to Key Object.' Align to Key Object allows us to align one object to another. We can designate the key object we'll align to by selecting it.
As we can see, if I click 'Logo, ' the circle will be aligned to the text. However, in this case, we want to designate the ellipse or circle as our key object so that 'Logo' is aligned to it. Once the circle is highlighted in blue, we'll go back to the top and select 'Horizontal Align Center' to center it horizontally, then select 'Vertical Align Center' to center it vertically.
If we click outside, we can see that we now have a logo, and our ellipse is centered within our top-left bar, 150 pixels from the edge. Well done! Let's now save our work using the shortcut CTRL S on the keyboard to save, and in the next video, we'll continue working on our title bar. See you there!