In this tutorial I will be showing you how to design a professional looking logo for a Hawaiian Surf Club in Illustrator. Once we develop our logo we will be applying it to a realistic business card mockup over in Photoshop. To do this we will be using a mockup from Mockup Cloud along with a few free typefaces and a free stock photo that you can download from Pixabay that will serve as our background. The mockup we will be using in the tutorial is a special Social Share Freebie that you can get simply by sharing The Colossal Mockup Templates Bundle from Design Cuts. We will be covering some very useful techniques throughout the tutorial, so if you are all ready to get started then let’s open Illustrator and get ready to catch some waves!
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Here’s a look at what we’ll be creating:
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Step 1: Hawaiian Surf Club Brand Design
Let’s start by creating a new document in Illustrator. Let’s start by naming our document ‘hawaiian-surf-club-logo’ and then making the dimensions of our project ‘5 in’ wide by ‘5 in’ tall. Lastly, set the document up with ‘2’ for the number of artboards and then click ‘Create’ from the lower right hand corner.
I like to have at least two artboards when starting a project so I have one board to kind of experiment and play around on, and another for the strongest or final design elements. Unlike Photoshop, you will notice that while you essentially have two canvases to work on, you will only have a single layer, and that’s totally fine!
Step 2: Selecting Your Typeface
Next we will open up our Character panel so we can start off with adding some text. To do this, go to the Window menu and choose ’Type > Character’ from the dropdown list as shown here:
It is always crucial to begin every logo or branding project with a thorough font exploration in order to determine the best possible font for your project. In this case I have done most of that prior to getting started and landed on a free typeface called Fondy Script, which you can download from DaFonts.com by clicking here to follow along. Once you’ve downloaded and installed the font, type out the words ’Surf Club’ and then bring over your Character panel to change the font to ‘Fondy Script’ and change the size to about ’43.44 pt’ with a solid black fill color.
Step 3: Faux Bold
I’d like to make the weight of the font a bit heavier, but in cases like this where there are no ‘bold’ styles available, we can cheat it by adding a stroke. To do this, let’s return to the Window menu and choose ‘Stroke’ from the list to open the Stroke panel.
Next, change the ‘Weight’ to ‘0.5 pt’ to add a stroke that will make our script type appear heavier.
Step 4: Creating Outlines
Now that we have our text in place we will need to create outlines to convert our live type into a shape. Doing this will give us more control over the font and allow us to apply certain effects that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to use. To do this, select your text with the Selection Tool (V) and then go to the Type menu and choose ‘Create Outlines’ from the list.
You should now see that your type has been converted into a shape and you will see many points around each of the letterforms. One other thing to note here is how some of the letters are overlapping – for example the ‘r’ overlapping the ‘f’ and the ‘u’ overlapping the last ‘b’. We also till have a stroke around each of the letters that we want to combine with the rest of the shape.
Go to the Object menu and choose ‘Expand…’ from the list.
When prompted with the ‘Expand’ dialog box, be sure to check off both the ‘Fill’ and ‘Stroke’ boxes before clicking ‘OK’ to proceed.
Step 5: Pathfinder
Once we expand the type we have successfully changed the stroke into a path so that if we needed to resize it, the weight of the stroke would not change. There is still more we need to do here to merge everything together so return to the Window menu and choose ‘Pathfinder’ to open the panel.
With your Pathfinder panel now open and your text still selected, choose the ‘Merge’ option from the bottom row of icons to merge everything together. You will now see there is no longer any overlap of the letters and our stroke has been merged with the main text shape. Taking these steps will ensure consistency with the text and make it easier for us to move it around as one solid shape.
Step 6: Ellipse Tool
Press ‘L’ on the keyboard to grab the Ellipse Tool, and then hold the Shift key and click and drag out a large circle filled with solid black that sits centered above the text as shown here:
With your ellipse shape selected, go to the Object menu and choose ‘Arrange > Send to Back’ to send this shape back behind our text.
Step 7: Offset Paths
Select your merged text with the Selection Tool (V) and then go to the Object menu and choose ‘Path > Offset Path…’ from the list.
When prompted with the panel, enter an ‘Offset’ value of ‘4px’ and then press ‘Return’ on the keyboard or click ‘OK’ from the lower right corner of the dialog box to proceed.
You should now see a thicker version of the text has been created and laid on top of our original type.
What we want to do next is cut this copy of the text by pressing Command/Ctrl+X on the keyboard.
Next, let’s paste the text back above everything else by pressing Command/Ctrl+F.
From here, grab the Eyedropper Tool (I) and sample any area of the white background to fill your text with white.
Return to the Pathfinder panel and choose the first icon in the first row to unite the shape.
Now that we’ve filled this copy with white, we want to send it backwards so that it’s behind our main black text, but in front of the ellipse. To do this, go to the Object menu again and choose ‘Arrange > Send Backward’ from the menu as shown below:
Your logo should now look something like this:
Step 8: Text on a Path
Select your ellipse shape with the Selection Tool (V) and then press Command/Ctrl+C to copy it, and Command/Ctrl+F to paste a copy in front. Press the letter ‘D’ on the keyboard to reset your default colors which should give you a white fill with a black stroke. For the fill color, let’s choose ‘none’ by selecting the small white box with a red strike through it. This will leave you with an outline of the ellipse itself, which, at the moment we can’t see because it’s on top of our solid black copy. From here let’s hold the Alt/Option+Shift keys and drag inwards to scale the outlined copy down from the center until you have something like this:
Click and hold on the Type Tool (T) and then choose ‘Type on a Path Tool’ from the panel that pops out.
Click along the path of the inner circle shape and type out ‘HAWAIIAN’ in all caps. Refer back to your Character panel and use a bold, condensed, sans serif typeface for the font – here I am using ‘Acumin Variable Concept ExtraCondensed Bold’ but you can use any condensed sans serif typeface for this. Let’s make the text about ’12 pt’ for the size, and change the tracking setting to ‘500’. From here, press Command/Ctrl+A to highlight the line of text on the path and then use the Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample the white background color.
From here all we are going to do is use our Selection Tool (V) to rotate the ‘HAWAIIAN’ text counter clockwise a bit by simply moving our cursor over any of the four corners of the bounding box and rotating it towards the left so that the text sits nicely above the main ’Surf Club’ type with an even amount of space on both sides as shown here:
Step 9: Circle Borders
Select the black circle and press Command/Ctrl+C to copy it, then Command/Ctrl+F to paste a copy in front. From here, hold the Alt/Option+Shift keys and drag outwards to scale up the second copy.
Press ‘D’ on the keyboard to give your circle a white fill with a black stroke, and then go to the Object menu once again and choose ‘Arrange > Send to Back’ as shown here:
Use the Stroke panel to add a ‘Weight’ of ‘4pt’ to the stroke.
Step 10: Expanded Borders
With the back circle still selected, go to the Object menu and choose ‘Expand…’ to convert the stroke to a shape.
Be sure that ‘Fill’ and ‘Stroke’ are both checked off, and then press ‘Return’ or click ‘OK’ to proceed.
From here, choose the ‘Merge’ icon from the Pathfinder to merge the shape.
Step 11: Surf Club Border
Use the Selection Tool (V) to select only the white border around the ‘Surf Club’ text.
Press Command/Ctrl+C to copy it, and then Command/Ctrl+F to paste a copy on top. Next, use the Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample an area of solid black to fill the shape with black.
With the top, black copy selected, go to the Object menu and choose ‘Arrange > Send to Back’ once again.
Use the Stroke panel to add an ‘8pt’ stroke to the shape. Once you have done that, repeat the same steps that we used before to expand and merge the back copy into a single shape.
Step 12: Making Waves
Press ‘M’ on the keyboard to switch to your Rectangle Tool and then click and drag out a wide black rectangle like this:
Now press ‘L’ to switch to the Ellipse Tool and click and drag out a small-mid sized black circle while holding the Shift key to constrain the proportions of the shape. Move the circle on top of the rectangle so that the top edge of the rectangle intersects with the middle of the circle as shown here:
Select the circle only and then use the Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample the white background color. From here, tap the circle up a few times with the up arrow so you end up with something like this:
Grab your Selection Tool (V) and then hold the Alt/Option+Shift keys and click and drag a copy of the white circle over to the right.
Create a third and forth copy and then click and drag around all four white circles with your Selection Tool (V). From here, use the Pathfinder to merge the four white circles together into a single shape.
Click and drag a copy of the white circle shape over to the right once again by clicking and dragging while holding Alt/Option+Shift on the keyboard until you have circles going all the way across the top edge of the black rectangle. Once you’ve done that, select them all and merge them once again. You should now have something like this:
Step 13: Rip Tide
Use the Selection Tool (V) to click and drag around both the black rectangle and the merged white circles, and then use the Pathfinder and select the ‘Minus Front’ icon to knock the white circle shape out of the black rectangle. This will leave you with a single black shape where the circles have been essentially subtracted.
Select the shape and fill it with white using the Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample the background color, and then move the waves up beneath the ‘Surf Club’ text. Here I’ve used the Selection Tool (V) to grab the left or right handle on the bounding box and drag outwards while holding Alt/Option on the keyboard. This will just stretch the shape out a bit to both sides to make it a bit wider.
After placing the waves below the text, select the black circle and copy it by pressing Command/Ctrl+C.
Press Command/Ctrl+F to paste the black circle copy on top of the waves. Hold the Shift key and select the wave shape so you have both that and the black circle on top selected together.
With both shapes still selected, go to the Object menu and choose ‘Clipping Mask > Make’ from the menu.
The Clipping Mask in Illustrator is similar to a regular Layer Mask in Photoshop. Once you’ve applied this you should only see the white waves inside of the circle, but you may notice that there is a small thin line around the edge like this:
To get rid of this thin border we will simply select the shape and drag it outwards a bit while holding Alt/Option+Shift on the keyboard. Your logo should now look like this:
Step 14: Subtext
Switch to your Type Tool (T) and type out ‘ESTD 1982’ using the same sans serif typeface that we used earlier for the ‘HAWAIIAN’ text. Here let’s use the Character panel to change the size of the text to about ‘9.93pt’ with a tracking setting of around ’80’ as shown below:
Add another line of text that reads ‘• ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE •’ using a regular, bold, sans serif typeface with a solid black fill. Here I am using ‘Avenir’ with a ‘Black’ style in the Character panel. The bullets on either end of the text are created by holding the Alt/Option key and typing the number ‘8’ on the keyboard. Let’s make this text ‘4.19pt’ in size with a tracking of ‘140’ and move it just above the previous line of text.
Press ‘V’ on the keyboard to go back to your Selection Tool and then click and drag around the entire logo. From here, use the Align panel to select the ‘Horizontal Align Center’ option which will make sure everything is nice and centered.
After centering all of the logo elements press Command/Ctrl+G to group the entire shape together. We have now constructed the main portion of our logo and will continue to build out a few more elements in the next steps. Here is how your logo should be looking so far:
Step 15: Surfboard
Let’s work next to our main logo and continue by pressing ‘L’ to switch to the Ellipse Tool. Click and drag out a tall, narrow ellipse filled with solid black next to the logo as shown here:
Change your fill to solid white and then use the Ellipse Tool (L) again to click and drag out a small circle while holding the Shift key and place it at the bottom of the long black ellipse shape.
Select both shapes by clicking and dragging around them with the main Selection Tool (V) and then use the ‘Minus Front’ option found in the Pathfinder to knock the small white circle out of the larger shape.
Step 16: Offset
Select the main black shape and go to the Object menu and choose ‘Paths > Offset Path…’ as shown below:
Enter a value of ‘-4px’ and then press ‘OK’ to proceed.
After your new shape is created, select it and use the Eyedropper Tool (I) to fill it with solid white.
Step 17: Double Offset
Next, select the inner white shape and then return to the Object menu and choose ‘Path > Offset Path…’ once again.
This time we will double the value and enter ‘-8px’ before pressing ‘OK’ to proceed.
Let’s now fill this inner most shape with solid black.
Step 18: Surf Line
Press ‘P’ to get your Pen Tool and click to make a point at the bottom of the surfboard shape and then hold the Shift key and make a second point towards the top. Make sure that you have a solid white stroke color and then choose ‘none’ for the fill as shown below:
Open the Stroke panel and change the weight to ‘6pt’ and then also change the ‘Profile’ at the bottom of the panel to the shape that looks like a triangle.
Next, select the stroke and go to the Object menu before choosing ‘Expand Appearance’ from the dropdown.
After that, switch back to your Selection Tool (V) and click and drag around the entire surfboard shape. Use the Align panel to once again align everything vertically and then once you’ve done that, merge the shapes together with the Pathfinder.
Grab the surfboard shape and place it on top of the main logo. From here, rotate it clockwise a bit and then go to the Object menu and choose ‘Arrange > Send to Back’ and you should end up with something like this:
Step 19: Rotating Rays
Use the Pen Tool (P) to create another vertical line with a weight of ‘8pt’ and the same triangle ‘Profile’ that we used before. This time, however, we want the stroke to be solid black with no fill color.
Grab your Ellipse Tool (L) and click and drag out a small black circle while holding the Shift key and place it just below the line as shown here:
Click and drag around both shapes and then press ‘R’ on the keyboard to switch to the Rotation Tool. You will notice that it has placed the anchor point in the center of both of these shapes, which I’ve highlighted in the image below:
Since we want our pointed lines to rotate around the circle we will need to change the anchor point. To do this, simply hold the Alt/Option key and click in the center of the black circle at the bottom. Once you do that you will be prompted with the ‘Rotate’ dialog box. Here we want to enter an ‘Angle’ of ’15º’ and then click on the button that says ‘Copy’ in the lower left.
You will now have two points, with the newest of those points rotated by 15º. What we need to do now is press Command/Ctrl+D on the keyboard to duplicate this last step. Continue pressing Command/Ctrl+D on the keyboard until the shapes rotate all the way around the center leaving you with a nice burst shape like this:
Step 20: Rotating Rays
Click and drag around the whole shape and then go to the Object menu and choose ‘Expand Appearance’ from the dropdown.
After expanding the shape, go to the Pathfinder and choose ‘Merge’ once again to merge everything together into a single shape.
Grab the burst shape and place it on top of your logo as shown here:
Return to the Object menu and choose ‘Arrange > Send to Back’ to send the burst all the way to the back, behind all of your other shapes and elements.
Step 21: Finishing the Single Color Logo
Select the entire logo shape and align everything once again using the Align panel. Once you’ve done that, return to the Object menu and choose ‘Expand…’ once again. This will convert any other live text or shapes into editable paths.
Check off both the ‘Object’ box as well as the ‘Fill’ box before clicking ‘OK’ to proceed.
We will now click and drag around the entire logo and press Command/Ctrl+G to group it together and we have now assembled our single color logo. In the next section we will begin applying some colors.
Step 22: Color Logo Prep
If you remember all the way back in the beginning of the tutorial we set our file up with two separate artboards. What we want to do is have one artboard for our final black and white logo, and then we will use the second for the color version. To get started on the color version of our logo let’s first select the whole black and white logo on the first artboard and copy it by pressing Command/Ctrl+C. Next, select the second artboard and press Command/Ctrl+F and it should paste a duplicate of the logo in the exact same place on your second artboard.
Select the second logo with your Selection Tool (V) and then go to the Object menu and choose ‘Ungroup’ to separate the logo elements.
Step 23: Logo Colors
I always start with the black and white logo first so as not to get too distracted or bogged down by color choices, so now that we have our black and white logo the coloring will be fairly straight forward and simple. The main thing to remember here is that you want to find colors that will help capture the spirit or essence of the business or service that the logo represents. In this case I have landed on a light cream color with a sea foam type of aqua. Let’s create two squares next to our logo for each of these two colors.
The first square will be filled with the hex value ‘#EFE7B7’ as shown here:
Our second color will be filled with the hex value ‘#39A49C’ as shown below:
Step 24: Coloring
Now that we have our colors selected, and everything is ungrouped, all we need to do is use our Selection Tool (V) to select areas of the logo, and then use the Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample the colors we created off to the side. You can see how I’ve colored the logo in the image below and one adjustment I’ve decided to make to the main logo here is to have the blue circle be a bit thicker. To do this I’ve used the Selection Tool (V) to grab the ‘HAWAIIAN’ text, hold the Shift key, and then select the inner tan circle and reduce them in size by clicking and dragging inwards from any of the four corners of the bounding box while holding the Alt/Option+Shift keys.
Next, select the black circle border and go to the Object menu and choose ‘Arrange > Send to Back’ to make sure that the black circle gets pushed back behind the surfboard.
We now need to do the same thing for the burst in the background by sending that all the way to the back once again.
Step 25: Merging Everything
After coloring the logo and making a few adjustments we can select the whole lockup and use the Pathfinder to choose ‘Merge’ and bring everything together.
We now have our final color logo that we can use to apply to our realistic business card mockup. Be sure to save this vector file before moving over into Photoshop for the next section of the tutorial.
Step 26: Mockup Cloud
Now let’s open the ’06-stationery-business-classic-mockup-inter-size.psd’ file from Mockup Cloud which you guys can get simply by sharing the latest bundle.
Once the file has been opened in Photoshop let’s open the ‘Background’ folder and then go into the ‘Background Texture’ folder where we want to double click on the ‘REPLACE BACKGROUND’ Smart Object highlighted below:
After we double click on the Smart Object we will be inside of an empty document with a single layer that looks like this:
Next, go to the File menu and choose ‘Place Embedded…’ from the menu.
We will now navigate to the free wooden plank photo from Pixabay which you can download here and then navigate to the file to open it in Photoshop.
Once the file is placed into the empty Smart Object, hold the Alt/Option+Shift keys and drag outwards from any of the four corners of the bounding box to scale it up a bit before pressing ‘Return’ to apply the changes. After that, save the file by pressing Command/Ctrl+S and then close the tab by pressing Command/Ctrl+W to return to the main mockup file.
Step 27: Group Mode
After we return to the main mockup file, select the ‘Paper Background’ folder and change the Blend Mode to ‘Overlay’ and make sure the ‘Opacity’ is set to ’80%’ as shown here:
Step 28: Wood Paint
Select the ‘REPLACE BACKGROUND’ Smart Object layer that we replaced in Step 26 and then click on the Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette before choosing ‘Hue/Saturation…’ from the list.
For the properties let’s move the ‘Hue’ slider to ’128’ and the ‘Saturation’ slider to ‘-85’ to change the color of the wooden plank background image.
Step 29: Cropped
Next, press ‘C’ to switch to the Crop Tool and drag either of the left or right handles inwards while holding Alt/Option on the keyboard, and then do the same for the top and bottom to get a closer crop on the business cards. Once you’ve done that, press ‘Return’ on the keyboard to apply the changes. This will help to keep the focus in the center of the image and on the cards.
Step 30: Vignette
Select the foreground color ‘#5A7E75’ shown below:
Press ‘G’ on the keyboard to switch to your Gradient Tool and then select a solid to transparent Radial Gradient. Let’s take a look at the top toolbar area to also make sure that we check off the box that says ‘Reverse’ along the top as shown here:
Create a new layer just above the ‘Background’ folder and then click and drag outwards from the center of the image to create an inverted Radial Gradient. Change the Blend Mode of this layer to ‘Multiply’ and then reduce the opacity to about ’75%’ so you have a nice vignette effect. After that, let’s go ahead and move the ‘Vignette’ layer into the top of the ‘Background’ folder.
Step 31: Business Card Background
Select the top folder – ‘Business Card Top’ and then expand the folder and double click on the ‘Your Design Here’ Smart Object inside.
When you open the Smart Object you will see a single layer labeled ‘Your Design Here’ and from there we want to click on the Adjustment Layer icon and choose ‘Solid Color…’ from the dropdown list.
For the fill color, let’s use the hex value ‘#66A19B’ and then press ‘OK’ to apply the changes.
Step 32: Importing the Logos
Jump over to Adobe Illustrator and select the full color logo and copy it by pressing Command/Ctrl+C on the keyboard.
Return to Photoshop and paste the file into the Smart Object by pressing Command/Ctrl+V and then when you are prompted with the ‘Paste’ dialog box, choose ‘Smart Object’ from the list and press ‘OK’.
After pasting the logo, hold the Alt/Option+Shift keys and scale it down a bit and then press ‘Return’ to commit to the changes. After placing the logo, save the file and close out of the window to return to the main mockup document.
Step 33: Border Patrol
Back in the main file, with the ‘Business Card Top’ folder still expanded, let’s double click the ‘White Border’ file to apply a Color Overlay.
Check off the ‘Color Overlay’ box once inside of the Layer Style panel.
For the fill color enter the hex value ‘#D5D0A7’ and then press ‘OK’ twice to apply the changes and close out of both dialog boxes.
Step 34: Second Card
Next, expand the contents of the ‘Business Card Stack’ folder and double click on the ‘Your Design Here’ Smart Object layer.
After double clicking on the Smart Object, a new window will open similar to the first file where we placed our logo. Let’s go back into the main mockup and open that first Smart Object layer once again so we can click and drag the same logo and Solid Color Adjustment Layer into our other Smart Object file.
To bring in the same logo and Adjustment Layer that we used in Step 32, select both layers in the first Smart Object file, hold the Shift key, and then click and drag both layers into the new Smart Object file. After you’ve done that, go ahead and save the file and watch it update in the mockup!
Step 35: Side Business
Next, double click on the ‘Card Side’ Smart Object layer back in the main mockup file.
Once you are inside of the Smart Object file for the side of the card, you will just see a long, thin line like this:
Change your foreground color to the hex value ‘#EBE6B8’ as shown below:
Select the layer and press Alt/Option+Delete on the keyboard to fill the layer with your foreground color. Once you’ve done that, let’s save and close out of the window. Back in the main mockup file, make sure the Blend Mode of the ‘Card Side’ layer is set to ‘Multiply’ and increase the ‘Opacity’ to a full ‘100%’ as shown below:
Step 36: Business Card Bottom
Let’s now expand the contents of the ‘Business Card Bottom’ folder and double click on the Smart Object labeled ‘Your Design Here’.
After opening the Smart Object in a new window, let’s use the same hex value from the previous step – ‘#EBE6B8’ as shown here:
Fill the single layer in the Smart Object with the foreground color by pressing Alt/Option+Delete on the keyboard.
Step 37: Business Card Info
What we want to do next is go to the File menu and choose ‘Place Embedded…’ from the dropdown. Navigate to the freebies folder for the tutorial which you can download here and select the ‘BC_Front_xx.eps’ file. Here the ‘xx’ represents the version of Illustrator you are using, just in case you don’t have the latest version. After selecting the appropriate EPS file, go ahead and click ‘Place’ from the lower right corner.
Scale the text down slightly and place it in the center of the file before saving it and closing out of the tab to update and return to the main mockup PSD.
Step 38: Adding Some Texture
In your main mockup PSD, select the ‘Your Design Here’ Smart Object layer inside of the ‘Business Card Top’ folder. Once you’ve selected the layer we’re going to press ‘W’ to switch to the Magic Wand Tool. From here, click the tan colored portion of the surfboard to make a selection as shown below:
After selection a portion of the tan color from this layer, go to the Select menu and choose ‘Similar’ to grab similar colors on this layer.
You should now have a selection of all of the other tan portions of the layer selected. With your selection still active, click on the ‘Add New Layer’ icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette to add a new layer at the top.
Make sure your foreground color is set to the hex value ‘#D2CEA5’ and then press ‘OK’ to proceed.
With your selection still active, press Alt/Option+Delete on the keyboard to fill your new layer with the foreground color. After you’ve done that, go to the Filter menu and choose ‘Noise > Add Noise…’ as shown below:
For the settings, choose an ‘Amount’ of about ‘202.4%’ and make sure the ‘Distribution’ is set to ‘Uniform’ and then check off the box at the bottom that says ‘Monochromatic’ before pressing ‘OK’ to apply the filter.
After we apply the noise to the layer, change the Blend Mode to ‘Multiply’ and reduce the ‘Opacity’ to about ’50%’ as shown here:
Step 39: Bottom Business
Select the ‘Business Card Bottom’ folder and click the small arrow next to it to reveal the contents of the folder. From here, select the ’Your Design Here3’ Smart Object layer inside. Switch back to your Magic Wand Tool (W) and then click any of the tan areas of the layer.
After a selection is made, go back to the Select menu and choose ‘Similar’ once again.
With your selection active, create another new layer at the top of the Layers Palette and then fill the layer with your foreground color by pressing Alt/Option+Delete on the keyboard. You will notice that after you do this, the color will be overlapping the business card in front, but we are going to fix this in the next step.
With the selection still active and your new layer highlighted, return to the Filter menu and select the very top option that should say ‘Add Noise’ to apply another instance of the filter with the same settings we used before.
After applying another instance of the Noise filter to the new layer, change the Blend Mode of the layer to ‘Multiply’ and reduce the ‘Opacity’ to ’50%’ just like we did with the previous layer. Here I have also renamed each of these noise layers ‘Noise 1’ and ‘Noise 2’ respectively just to keep things neat and organized.
What we want to do next is make sure that our ‘Noise 2’ layer is selected (our most recent noise layer) and then expand the contents of the ‘Business Card Top’ folder. Hold the Command/Ctrl key and click on the layer thumbnail icon of the ‘Your Design Here’ Smart Object layer to create a selection around it, and then simply press the ‘Delete’ key to remove this area from the ‘Noise 2’ layer as shown below:
Step 40: Stacks on Stacks
Next, expand the contents of the ‘Business Card Stack’ folder and then select the ‘Your Design Here’ Smart Object layer inside. Use the Magic Wand Tool (W) once again to select an area of the tan color. Once you have done that, return to the Select menu and choose ‘Similar’ once again. Now, before moving on to the next step we are going to hold the Command/Ctrl key and click on the layer thumbnail icon of the ‘Card Side’ Smart Object layer so that we can add that to our current selection.
Once we have our selection, add a new layer and then fill it with the tan foreground color by once again pressing Alt/Option+Delete on the keyboard. You should now have something like this:
With your selection still active and your new layer selected, return to the Filter menu and choose the first option to ‘Add Noise’ once again. Change the Blend Mode of your ‘Noise 3’ layer to ‘Multiply’ and reduce the ‘Opacity’ to ’50%’. After that, expand the contents of the ‘Business Card Top’ folder and then hold Command/Ctrl and click on the layer thumbnail icon of the ‘Your Design Here’ Smart Object layer to activate a selection around the business card. While your new, ‘Noise 3’ layer is still selected, press ‘Delete’ on the keyboard to remove the noise from the area that is overlapping.
Step 41: Noise Group
Let’s select the top ‘Noise 3’ layer and then hold the Shift key and click on the ‘Noise 1’ layer so all three noise layers are selected simultaneously.
Press Command/Ctrl+G on the keyboard to place these three layers into a new folder, and then double click the ‘Group 1’ text to rename the folder ‘Grain’ as shown below:
With your newly created ‘Grain’ folder selected, hold the Alt/Option key and click the Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette before choosing ‘Hue/Saturation…’ from the list that appears.
Make sure to check off the box that says ‘Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask’ before clicking ‘OK’ to proceed.
Once you’ve added the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer it should have a Clipping Mask attached to the ‘Grain’ folder. In the properties, let’s change the ‘Saturation’ slider to ‘+62’ as shown below:
Step 42: Curves
Select the ‘Grain’ group folder and then click on the Adjustment Layer icon once again. This time, let’s choose ‘Curves…’ from the menu that appears.
Once you’ve added the Curves Adjustment Layer it should automatically have a Clipping Mask applied to it as it will be above the folder but below the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. Let’s press Command/Ctrl and the right bracket to move the Curves Adjustment Layer up above the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. For the properties we will simply add a single point in the middle of the Curves grid and move it slightly up and to the left to increase the brightness.
After applying the settings to the Curves Adjustment Layer, select the ‘Grain’ folder and press ‘3’ on the keyboard to reduce the ‘Opacity’ to ’30%’ which will help to make our texture more subtle.
We have now completed our Hawaiian Surf Club Brand Design in Illustrator and Photoshop! To create our logo we’ve used some of the basic tools in Illustrator along with a small handful of free design elements and the photorealistic business card mockup from Mockup Cloud. Remember to check out The Colossal Mockup Templates Bundle to help you save time and money by unlocking 170GB of premium quality mockup templates with this unbeatable value collection. Buy with confidence, knowing that each set has been hand-tested by our team, to ensure maximum quality.
Remember that whether it’s your outcome for this tutorial or something new you’ve made, we’d love to see your designs on our Facebook page.
Please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions. I always look forward to hearing from you!
There’s still time to check out The Colossal Mockup Templates Bundle giving you access to everything from branding and packaging to print and apparel mockups, all for an unbeatable price of $29!
Just got home from vacation and glad I caught this tutorial. Thanks!!! Have a great weekend!
Welcome home Beth, we hope that you had a great time on vacation!
We’re so glad that you really enjoyed this one and hope that you have picked up some fab new tips :)
where is samplepack link?
We’re so sorry for any confusion caused Jongwook!
Rest assured I have popped you an email to help you locate these :)
Wow, so wish I had AI, so impressive. Would love to learn how to do this.
Hey Andrea,
We’re so sorry to hear that you do not have Illustrator but we hope that you are still able to pick up some useful tricks for your own design software!
Please do feel free to let us know what software you are using as we would be more than happy to help with any compatibility queries you might have as well as being able to suggest any tutorials that might be super useful for you and your own creative projects :)
O.M.Gee! This is a fantastic tutorial! I’ve been using AI for 10 yrs and can see how much I don’t know. What an informative lesson! I wish I had HOURS to learn every day. So impressed how well he knows his stuff and just blows through the instructions! LOL. Of course, I’ll have to review again and again.Will definitely download in the next day. Perfect timing as I’ve been struggling on how to use the mockups, etc. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Hey Sue,
Thank you so much for your comment and we are so glad to hear that this tutorial has come at such a perfect time for you :)
I hope that you have great fun picking up some new tips and tricks with this one, and happy designing!
Hey Sue! Thank you SO much for the kind words and for checking out the design tutorial! I’m very happy to hear that you enjoyed it and that it proved helpful for you in working with Adobe Illustrator. Logos and branding are a big passion of mine so it’s always nice to mix things up and do some designing in different programs, and I hope you’ll be able to put some of these tricks to use in your own work as well! :)
Woohoo thanks for another awesome tutorial Eric, our community are really loving it :)
there is no link to the ‘sample pack’
Hey Annie,
I’m so sorry for any confusion caused! The links to the freebie resources used by the designer have actually been embedded in the tutorial so I’m so sorry if you missed these. Rest assured I have popped you an email to help :)
Hi
I’m unable to find the link to the BC_Front_xx.eps’ file mentioned in the tutorial. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Many thanks!
Hey Gill,
I’m so sorry for any confusion caused!
The file that the designer mentioned is the Business Card Mockup that you can pick up for yourself by sharing our Colossal Mockup Templates Bundle on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram so my sincerest apologies if you missed this. Rest assured I have popped you over an email to help :)