- [Voiceover] Monograms are one of the oldest
forms of branding.
It was popularized in the late 1800s through the process
of artistic engravings that were printed
for both personal and commercial use.
It's still a fun format to use on logo designs today.
So let's take a look at how you can create
your own unique monogram.
Now, this isn't an approach graphically that I take
all the time, but when the occasion arises
within the context of a branding project
and it's a good fit, then I always jump on it.
In this case, the client I was working with,
the name of the company is called Circadian Company
and so, it had two Cs in the name,
which lends itself to a monogram.
So I wanted to create a nice, unique kind of brand mark
with the monogram as the center spot,
and this was the base art that I did that with.
Now, to do monograms, to do simple overlaps,
I just select the shapes here that make up both of the Cs.
I'll go to Object. I'll go to Path.
I'll go to Offset Path, and then on this,
it'll just depend on how big this mark is in context.
But, for example here, we're gonna go four points,
and you can test it to see if that's gonna work here,
and I think it is.
So we'll go, OK.
Now, I'm gonna go to my Graphics Styles just so you can see
what's going on.
I'm gonna colorize these, just as an outline,
so it'll make more sense.
We'll zoom in so we can see what we're working on here.
And I'm gonna take this outline
and this just needs to be on top,
so we can see how it's interacting with the letter forms.
Now, on this, I want this C, that's kind of
facing to the right, to overlap the other C.
So I'm gonna take the outline I've created
based off of that shape, and I don't need everything.
I just need the area it's gonna overlap,
so I'll create a throw-away shape like this,
and then I'll use the Pathfinder with Intersect
to isolate just that area.
And then, on the other C shape outline,
I want that to overlap the corresponding C
going in the opposite direction,
so I'm gonna just isolate that area, and do the same
by intersecting it with the Pathfinder.
Now this gives me the shapes needed to shape build,
overlap detailing so I'll take this shape,
and select this C, and then I'll remove from that shape,
using Pathfinder, to create the end shape that I want.
And I'll do the same thing on this letter C,
and I'll punch through it like this.
And you can see that it creates a simple, little
monogram overlap, and it just adds a lot more dynamic
to this design by adding those little overlaps.
It makes it more interesting.
There's a lot more interplay going on.
And the more detail you get with a monogram,
the cooler this effect really looks.
Now, in the final brand system context for this design,
this was both the vertical and horizontal direction
I presented to the company.
It is actually my personal favorite
of the ones I pitched to them.
Now, moving forward with more monogram work,
you can get more illustrative and ornate with it.
So we're gonna take a look at a slightly different approach.
We'll use some of the same methodology,
but we're going to realize that we, at times,
can use a symmetric format
in order to create a more elaborate design.
In this case, I only have to create these two or three areas
of art to form everything else needed in this design.
This is kind of the beauty of it.
And once I have this one created,
I don't need to clone this again.
That's gonna just stay where it's at.
I'm just gonna select these little dots,
select this little ornament piece here,
and I'm gonna clone it, command-C, command-F.
Or, if you have the F key set up, F3.
And, I'll use the Reflect tool.
And we'll click on the center spot,
and I'm just reflecting this up.
And so we're making, basically,
a backwards C shape right now.
You could think of it like that.
Now, what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna select all of this
inner content that makes up this C artwork,
and I don't want to select this part.
We don't need that, just this.
And I'm gonna fuse it all together with the Unite feature
in Pathfinder, like this.
And now that I have this created,
I can now simply reflect this.
So we'll go ahead and clone it, command-C, command-F.
And I'll take the Reflect tool, find the center point
on this design, which is actually based off of this circle,
so you could do it there.
And we'll flip it like this.
Now, I just realized I actually didn't need
to reflect these dots, so I can get rid of them.
Because we just have a set that's floating underneath there,
so we don't need that.
So I'll select these, I'll select these dots,
and I'm gonna unite them to this.
And now we have two pieces of artwork.
It's the same project, Circadian Company.
We just have made more elaborate,
ornate if you will, C shapes.
And we're gonna do the same type of approach
where we select both of these.
And we're gonna offset them by going
to Object, Path, Offset.
In this case, we will try
a little wider than what we had before.
And I think that's gonna work.
Just so we can see what's going on,
let's go ahead and colorize these.
We'll make this one blue, and we'll make this one,
just temporarily, we'll make this one
a brown type color,
like this.
Now we're gonna zoom in so we can see what we're doing here.
And we're gonna take the overlap of this shape,
once again, we only have to focus on the area
that it's gonna be overlapping.
We don't need everything.
So we'll just draw a throw-away shape that we can
basically select with the offset that we've created,
and then we can intersect it with Pathfinder
to just get the shape we need to create
the overlap we're after.
And then, I'll do the same thing down below,
just isolate the area we need,
and use Intersect to create the overlap we need.
And on this one, we can get rid of that shape.
We don't need that.
Okay, now that we have these, we can use it
to add the nice overlap.
So we'll select the overlap shape, select the C,
and punch it out using Pathfinder.
And then we'll do the same thing on the corresponding C,
like this, and we'll add that kind of detail in there.
So this is how I would create another motif
based off of this same format of overlapping in monograms.
Now, on this particular one, the final one ended up
looking like this, with the background colored
and in its final brand system context,
this is how this came out.
And I think this one has a nice beauty factor to it,
so it was a good exploration and iteration
to present to the client.
Now, on a more complex monogram,
here is a good example of that.
On the left, you have a very basic composition
of an overlap.
It's flat colors, easy to understand.
And these two characters are interacting in such a way
that we want to create the illusion
that they're kind of bound together.
And so if I select these shapes that we created
with the Offset Path, and I select the P,
we can punch through this, and then I can select
these shapes, and punch through the ornate D.
And so what you get is this nice interplay
of these letters kind of wrapping and intertwining
with one another.
And that works great on a flat motif.
It's pretty easy to discern.
Now if you get more illustrative with your letter forms
like this, and you add more detail,
like we've added this dimensional aspect to the letters
so it looks a little offset.
We have some inset detail.
We have some thick and thins, and if I go
to the Keyline View, you can see that these are all strokes
with shapes and fills and so it gets very complex.
We can't simply use Pathfinder to punch through it.
So how would I add this same dynamic to this type of design?
Well, this is where masking will come in.
So if I turn this layer off and turn the layer on above it,
you can see I have a copy of this D shape right here,
but I have my masking set up.
So what we're gonna do is we're simply gonna select
the masking that we've set up.
We're gonna select the character, and we're gonna mask it.
And to mask something, you go to Object,
Clipping Mask or Make.
You can see I have an F3 key set up.
It's kinda nice, I can just have both selected,
hit F3, and it masks it.
I can hit F2, and it'll unmask it.
So that's a nice feature.
Once again, if you want to know more about keyboard
shortcuts, check out my original
Drawing Vector Graphics course.
I go over how to set those up.
I use them all the time, it just makes the process faster.
I don't have to go up here and pull down
and click on the menu item.
And with that mask, if I turn on the layer below it now,
we now have the illusion that it is gonna overlap.
Now, I wouldn't want to set up my final art that way,
but for a comp it's perfectly acceptable.
But you would actually want to build it out into shapes
for your final art, if you're gonna use this methodology.
Now in the final context of this design,
this was for Printer's Distillery.
This was a branding idea for them
in my exploration for that project,
and how they could handle their labeling to actually look
like it was turn-of-the-century of sorts.
Now, the next one I want to go over
is a little more complex.
And this involves three letter forms, not just two.
And there is a principle that's really easy to understand
and if you just remember it, it's gonna make it easy
to discern where to add in your overlaps,
where one letter will overlap the next letter.
In this case, we're gonna focus on the letter T here,
and we're gonna go to Object, Path, Offset Path,
and we're gonna do this at six.
We'll go, OK.
Now, so that you can see what I'm doing,
I'm gonna go to Graphic Styles and
color this so you can see it.
So, you can see it now, offset six points.
And now, a principle that you want to keep in mind.
If you want the T to start, you just make the decision,
is it gonna overlap on the first pass,
as it goes over the S?
Or is it gonna go under?
In this case, I want it to overlap.
So we know we're gonna have a section
that's gonna be isolated here that will overlap.
On the E, it's gonna go underneath, and then
on the S again, it's gonna go over the top.
So we'll have overlap here. We'll create that.
It's gonna go under the E, and once again, over the S.
So we'll put a shape down here.
I'll select these three shapes,
and I'll go to Pathfinder and I'll unite them.
And now with those, I can select this outline shape,
intersect them, and this gives me the final shape
that I can then select the S,
and I can remove from shape to start creating
this overlap effect.
And this is the principle I'll use on all of this,
and the nice thing about this is, on the S now,
because it goes under the T, the next letter,
it's gonna go over the T.
So that's all you need to remember.
Wherever it starts at, the corresponding overlap
is gonna be opposite of it.
So this goes under the T, so this S shape will go
over the E, in which case we just do the same principle
of Path, Offset Path, of six.
And once again, so you can see it, we'll color it this.
And I don't need all these shapes,
so I'll just tap into Isolation mode,
get rid of what I don't need.
And now, I'll just isolate the area it's gonna overlap,
select the shape, intersect it with Pathfinder,
and then if I punch this out of the E shape,
it starts to create that illusion in overlap
that you see here.
Now that it goes under the T, over the E, under the T again,
it's gonna go over the E down here.
So I'd create the overlap for that area,
and then I'd start working on the T and figure out,
well here it's under, so as it gets here
I want it to go over at this point on the T itself.
So when it's all said and done, we have a base overlap
that shows it like this, with all the letter forms.
Now, I really like how this is coming out,
and the more I was looking at it, I was thinking,
I want to add some dimensionality to it.
And so I'm just gonna turn on the simple modeling
that I did for it, and it really breathed life
to this overall design.
And this is just simple shapes.
I've just taken these shapes, and if I double-click
into the Isolation mode, you can see,
it's just dividing each of these shapes in half,
and then I've just applied a nice gradient to it,
on some of these, for the curves here,
and if you go to the Gradient, you can see
the gradient goes from a darker hue of this base color,
which is this gold, and it's a tint of it,
and it blends to nothing.
So it creates that nice illusion of a beveling
on these letter forms.
Now the final context for this design was for
a logo mark for T.S. Eliot Society, which is
a society that loves the writing and poetry of T.S. Eliot.
So do I, so this was the inspiration for this design,
I should say.
Now, I use this, not all the time,
because I don't have the opportunity to do a monogram
approach on a lot of things, but when the opportunity
does arise, I always jump on it.
Here is a beverage company
that I created their branding for.
This is an encapsulated logo.
But within it I have a nice, little monogram design
of R and B worked out, which also works
and serves the purpose of a secondary branding graphic,
as well, in a bottle cap, kind of nested shape.
So, technically a monogram isn't a logo type.
But this type of logo design is a fun one to design
and build, so give this process a try and see
what you can create for your own projects.