Creating Animated Logos with Corel DRAW!
Animated GIFs
This tutorial will demonstrate how you can create an Animated GIF logo. I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows for this technique. Some things may be done differently with other versions.Putting a New Spin on Your Logo
I'll be the first to admit that I'm probably the last person to jump on the "Animated GIF" bandwagon. To be honest, I didn't really see the potential for animated GIFs. Most of the early images I saw were kind of cheesy. On top of that, I prefer keeping my images' download time to a minimum, and animated GIFs can get rather large very quickly.Recently, though, I've seen the light. Done right, animated GIFs can be pretty cool. And, with today's GIF animation software, animated image file size can be kept quite reasonable. Animated GIFs can be real attention-getters on banner ads, can really add to the appeal of a static logo, and they can certainly add some pizzazz to a web page.
Animated 3D text has become so popular on the web, in fact, that there are now several dedicated programs available for you to choose from. These programs, produced by software companies such as Xara and Ulead, make the creation of animated 3D text as simple as point-and-click.
What if you need to do more than animate simple text? Normally you might think of resorting to a dedicated 3D-rendering program. These programs can be expensive, though, and they often have pretty steep learning curves. So what can you do? Well, you can use Corel DRAW! to create the frames for your animated masterpiece. That's right! Corel DRAW! has all the features necessary to help you create a 3D animated logo.
Here's how you can use the extrusion features to give depth to, light, and spin your creation...
Open a new graphic in Corel DRAW! (I'm using version 7, but the method should translate well to other versions).
I'll be creating a simple logo using the first letters of GrafX Design, my design company.
First I entered the text using the Text tool. I then selected the text by clicking on the Pick tool. This enabled me to change the font and the size of the text. I chose Braggadocio at 72 points.
Because I didn't want to create just simple text, but rather I wanted a logo, I decided to cut the text out of a simple oval shape. To do that, I selected the Ellipse tool and dragged an oval shape around the text.
To line these elements up, marquee-select them all with the Pick tool and choose Arrange, Align and Distribute. In the Align and distribute dialog box, check Center of Page and click OK.
With the elements still selected, click the Combine button on the property bar. This will combine, or cutout, the text from the oval.
You can change the color of the oval logo by left-clicking a color on the color palette. I choose a light blue color (see figure 9.1).
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| figure 9.1 |
Now that the logo design is complete (as simple as it is), it's time to extrude the image, light it, and start creating the separate frames you'll need in order to complete the animation.
