Hand-Drawing Assymetrical Logos and Tags

Thanatos_820

Death is Not the End
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91
Hand-Drawing Asymmetrical Logos and Tags
Thanatos_820

PREFACE
I am an inexperienced artist who lacks the ability to shade, paint and draw realistically. As such, all of my art is self-taught (often through non-conventional means), since I was never conditioned for an artistic career.

Due to my fascination with the asymmetrical element that often is found in band logos, I spent the last two years of high school teaching myself how to do this sort of art. When I first started, the pieces I created as a junior were absolutely awful. It wasn't until my senior year that they started to look much more pleasing.

But, while the designs got better and better with enough practice and creative fluids, the time efficiency however didn't. If you happen to be a perfectionist like I am, free-handing the asymmetrical element is far from easy, and extremely time-consuming.

So after two years of trial and error with my designs, I eventually discovered a way to hand-draw my pieces in a much more efficient manner, while still retaining the revered asymmetrical aspect that I incorporated into my work. No more spending four hours just to create a logo that I already knew how I wanted it to look.

This is my current method, optimized for efficiency and flexibility.


PREPARATION
Name — We are dealing with word art, so be mindful of the tag. Any name/set of words will work; short tags (between 4-7 letters) are recommended for beginners.

Letters — Analyze the letters that form the name, particularly the first, middle and last letters. If the letter count is even, you will have 2 letters in the middle. They can determine how difficult the drawing will be; try picking a tag whose letters complement each other (Q-O, J-L, D-B, A-U, H-N, M-W, ect).

Design — Doodle if you have you; you need a basic idea of how the drawing is going to look like. It does not need to be overly complex.


MATERIALS
61ObRLN.jpg


PaperMandatory; regular, graph and lined paper are preferred. Construction paper is not recommended due to the lack of ideal transparency/opacity.

PencilMandatory; any pencil. Mechanical pencils are moderately more efficient.

EraserMandatory; any eraser. Standalone erasers that don't smudge are recommended.

MarkerOptional; any bleed or non-bleed marker. One fine-tip Sharpie (bleed) and one Sharpie pen (non-bleed) are recommended, though the latter is not required.

RulerSituational; dependent on the envisioned design of the tag. If the tag's design is geometric, any ruler or similar tool should be considered.


TECHNIQUE
1. Fold the paper in four quarters. This grants you a center point to work with, in addition to allowing you to freely fold the piece.

EvvREtN.jpg


2. Sketch only half of the letters on one side of the paper. If the letter count is odd, you may want to split the middle letter in half, depending on what it is.

1tQhEOq.jpg


For this example, the tag will be "Han". I split the 'A' in half because it's going to look the same on the other side. Since I am lightly sketching the drawing with pencil, I traced it over with a Sharpie to darken the lines.

3. Fold the right side of the paper (which is entirely blank) over the left side. The drawn side must be dark enough so that you can see it when it is covered.

Yfic9qE.jpg


Thanks to the Sharpie outline, I can see the sketch beyond the fold that covers it. The eraser is there in place of my fingers to keep the paper down.

4. Trace the sketched half onto this side of the paper. Bleeding markers work well here.

aB9OK1H.jpg


5. Unfold the paper as it originally was. You should be able to see the traced sketch underneath the blank side of the paper.

Bj4xkkJ.jpg


If you're doing it right, you should have only one half of the drawing on per side, so that when you look at it on either side, it'll look like this.

6. Trace the sketched half onto this side of the paper.

wTL10L2.jpg


Do not trace over the tag with marker just yet! You leave the sketched half in pencil for now since it's a perfectly symmetrical design at the moment. If I wanted this to read as "Hah" instead of "Han", then I would use my Sharpie without changing it.

7. Recalibrate letters on the right side through erasing. Depending on the name you've chosen, this can be difficult to do.

T0CZRyT.jpg


I erased a few aspects of the 'H' so that I could have it look more akin to an 'N'. You can vaguely see the original 'H' sketched on the back.

8. Apply details. Changes should reflect on the corresponding side as well.

The reason why there's no image is because the details have already been applied (the points and curves). This is a redo of an old tag I did before.

9. Darken the outline. Markers work well here.

HYhGhfJ.jpg


10. With a new sheet of paper, trace over the drawing in pencil. This will be the final draft.

This step is here so that you can get a clean draft of the design. You wouldn't want a final piece to have the folded creases and sketch on the back, would you?


FINAL PRODUCT
Anything you do beyond this point is entirely based on personal preference. You can choose to take this a step further by coloring and/or going digital. As for me, I generally take these completed pieces into Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop to polish them up for my own purposes.

Sometimes I change things here and there as I construct the vectors, but that's because what looks pleasing on paper doesn't always look equally as so when converting it into a digital medium.

Below is the digital rendition of 'Han'.

G5lueRP.jpg
 
Last edited:

vypur85

Hibernate
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803
Nice looking tut you have here.
I would suggest you to embed the image in image tags so that it's more visualise-able. Clicking to links can be quite cumbersome and spoil the flow.

Is the word art in your profile picture your artwork as well? It looks awesome. :)
 

Thanatos_820

Death is Not the End
Reaction score
91
Ah, forgive me for hyperlinking the images. I was going by this thread when it came down to formatting, as there are several images involved. I'll change it now.

As for my current profile picture: no. It's a shame though, since I don't even know who designed the logo for Disfiguring the Goddess. They did an excellent job despite using a fair bit of regular text (at least, the looks suggest it) as a base.

EDIT: Just realized I spelled asymmetrical wrong in the thread title; got the double letters mix-matched. Oh well, not like I can change that now...
 
Last edited:

thewrongvine

The Evolved Panda Commandant
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506
Your post is x4 informative now. So much power.

Neat stuff, gonna post more works you do?
 

Demonfaze

8 yrs. Hell, it's been a long time.
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72
This is a sweet tutorial. I'm wanting to come up with a logo for my game, so it's not quite as crazy as band art, but still I think the same techniques work. Thanks dude!
 

Thanatos_820

Death is Not the End
Reaction score
91
Your post is x4 informative now. So much power.

Neat stuff, gonna post more works you do?

Perhaps later, whenever I feel like it, I'll tack up a few pieces of my own work in the Gallery.

This is a sweet tutorial. I'm wanting to come up with a logo for my game, so it's not quite as crazy as band art, but still I think the same techniques work. Thanks dude!

Thanks! I know that this tutorial caters towards a pretty specific art-style, but I'm glad to hear that it can be of some use to you.
 
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