Along with a few other predicted trends for Logo Design in 2009, the one that most caught my eye was the Origami Logos. I am extremely fond of Origami and while I am by no means an expert in the art of folding paper, I was very keen to see what sort of techniques could be written for creating such pieces in a digital environment.
An important exercise
Before you pick up any pencils and start sketching, try this. Take a piece of paper and fold it. Take a strip of paper and fold it. Observe how the paper folds, the shape that is created and the shadows that are cast.
Step 1 - The inevitable 'New Document'
Open Photoshop and create a New Document.
For the purpose of this tutorial, I've gone with my personal favourite, 750 by 500 pixels.
Step 2 - Sketch to Basic Shape
Once you've sketched up the concept for your logo (digitally or on paper for scanning later), identify each of the areas and how paper would fold to create your new origami logo.
Step 3 - The Individual Panels
Depending on the complexity of your origami logo, you may have separate layers and paths for each individual panel. For the purpose of demonstration and the simplicity of the logo we're creating here, we manage to use two main paths for a 'front' and 'rear' paper set.
Step 4 - Taking Shape
Now that we have our basic shape and panels set out, we can go ahead and fill them with the colour of our choice. Use a slightly darker shade for the rear paper set, which will create some depth to your origami logo.
Next, we need to crop down the ends of the paper strip by using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, holding Shift to get a good 45 degree selection area.
Step 5 - Folded Shadow
Make a duplicate of the front paper set [ Select the layer then press Ctrl + j ] and darken the layers contents to a solid black. You can do this quickly using the Hue/Saturation controls [ Ctrl + u ] and dragging Lightness down to -100.
Next, apply a Gaussian Blur [ Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur ] of around 2.5 - 3 pixels and click OK.
Finally, clip the shadow layer with the rear paper set below it [ Alt-click between the Shadow layer and Rear Paper Set ] OR [ Layer » Create Clipping Mask ]
Step 6 - Shadow
Holding Ctrl + Shift (on a PC), click both the Front & Rear paper Sets and in a new layer, fill with any colour. Drop the Fill down to 0% then access the layers style options.
Apply a small drop shadow of around 1 to 2 pixels and leave it quite sharp. This just lifts the logo from the surface giving it a little more dimension.
Step 7 - Final Details
Try not to be tempted to play with the Texturizer settings! It is really not something that is needed.
All that is left to do is incorporate the company name in with our new origami logo and save!
