Working with logo shapes
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Logo Design Studio Pro Guide – Part 4
Working with Shapes
Logo Design Studio Pro includes a number of geometric shapes that you can add to your logo project and modify as you see fit. You can resize, rotate, change the color, or add special effects to your shapes.Adding Shapes to the Canvas
The Shapes section of the Insert menu lets you add geometric shapes to your logo canvas.
Modifying Shapes on the Canvas
Logo Design Studio Pro lets you modify the shapes you added to the logo canvas and Add Color and Effects to make it visually appealing.Resizing and Rotating Shapes
To modify a shape on the canvas, click the shape you want to change. It will be surrounded by a group of sizing handle dots; when you move your cursor over one of them, it will change to a two-headed arrow, indicating the directions you can move the cursor to enlarge or shrink the shape. To enlarge your shape, hold down the mouse button and drag the cursor away from the shape’s center; to shrink your shape, drag the cursor toward the shape’s center. Two of the available shapes, Rectangle and Ellipse, also have rotational handles. Move your cursor over the rotational handle; it will change to a set of four arrows. Hold down your mouse button and drag the handle to the right to rotate the shape clockwise or left to rotate the shape counterclockwise.Advanced Shape Manipulation
Use the options on the Shapes tab of the Advanced Tools menu to make changes to the shape’s appearance not possible by using the sizing handles. To display the Advanced Tools slide-out pane, click the Advanced Tools button on the right sidebar or in the View menu.
Changing Shape Color
When you add a shape to your canvas, the default color of the shape is always transparent (fill) with a black outline (stroke). To change the color of a shape, use the options on the Color menu. You can select from Solid Color, Gradient Color, or Fill With Picture — or use Clear Stroke/Fill to remove the color entirely. Before selecting a color option, select the Fill button to apply the color option to the interior of the shape or the Stroke button to apply the option to the shape border.Adding Effects to Shapes
You can add Outer Glow, Drop Shadow, Bevel, Blur, and Emboss effects to your selected shape(s) by clicking the Effects menu tab, and then clicking the checkbox(es) for the section(s) whose effects you wish to apply to your shape. Note: The Drop Shadow and Bevel effects will not be noticeable on the Line, Arrow, and Polyline shapes unless you thicken the component lines by using the Stroke slider in the Advanced Tools menu. Combining Shapes Logo Design Studio Pro lets you combine two existing geometric shapes on the logo canvas into new shapes. You do this with the options under the Boolean option button in the Editing section of the Home menu. To combine two shapes together, first position them with respect to each other according to the effect you want to achieve. (You do not have to overlap the shapes, although most of the combining outcomes will be more effective if you do overlap them.) Select both of the shapes by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and clicking both of the shapes you wish to combine. Select one of the four combining options under the Boolean option button:- Union – Creates a new shape whose area is the combined area of the two shapes. Its perimeter bounds the total area of the original two shapes. (This is equivalent to the Boolean operation OR.) When colored in, the total area of the two shapes will be colored.)
- Intersect – Creates a new shape whose area is the area where the two original shapes overlap. Its perimeter is made of the line segments that bound this overlapping area. (This is equivalent to the Boolean operation AND.)
- XOR – Creates a new shape that duplicates the overlapping of the original shape. The two shapes’ perimeters are duplicated in their entirety, including the boundary of the overlapping area; however, when colored in, only the areas not common to the two original shapes will be colored. (XOR is short for “Exclusive OR.”)
- Exclude – Creates a new shape whose area is that portion of the first shape selected that does not overlap the second shape. (How the positions of the layers the shapes are on has no effect on how the new shape will appear; however, the order in which the shapes are selected before being combined with this operation does.
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Part 5: Working With Logo Graphics >>