American Idol Logo

In this tutorial I'm going to how you how to replicate the American Idol logo in Photoshop.

1. First, open a new document (approximate size of 500x300) with a white background.

2. Next, select the Ellipse Tool and draw an ellipse with the color #1E2E69.

3. Select the blending options of the ellipse layer, and check the "Stroke" box. Set the size of the stroke to 23, position outside and color #24569F. It may be that the width of your stroke will be different to the one in my example, given the potential difference of size of the ellipses. Play around with the settings until you get something that looks like below:

4. Now duplicate the Ellipse Layer and name it "Ring". Remove the stroke layer effect, select the ellipse in the duplicated layer and color it with a light blue color (#00AAED). Then go to Select -> Modify -> Contract and set the "Contract" to 8 pixels. Once again you will have to play with the settings to get the look you want. Once you have contracted the selection, hit delete. That should leave you with something that looks like this:

5. Using the scale tool, enlarge the "Ring" layer until you have something that looks like this:

6. The base of the logo is now done! All we need to do is add the text. Select the text tool, and write "American" with the font Kaufmann Bd BT, size around 90 pt, color white. Rotate the text approximately 10° to the left. NOTE: Kaufmann Bd BT is not a font that comes with you computer. It is available online, but not for free. You can download a similar font, Airstream, here if you are not willing to pay for Kaufmann Bd BT.

7. Rasterize the Text layer (Layer -> Rasterize -> Type) and, using the Pen Tool, create the following path:

8. Right click on the path with the pen tool and select "Make Selection". Create a new layer called "Streak", and fill in the selection (Ctrl/Cmd-D) with White. Then link the "Streak" layer with the "American" layer, and merge them (Layer -> Merge Linked). Rename this layer "America Below". Then duplicate it, rename the duplicate "America Above", and place this layer above "America Below".

9. Go to the Blending Options of "America Below" and select the "Stroke" Style. Change the settings to Size: 6px and Color: #24569F. Then go to the blending options of "America Above" and check the "Outer Glow" box and set the options as follows: Blend Mode - Screen; Opacity - 75%; Color: #00A5ED; Size - 8px. Hit OK. You should end up with something that looks like this:

10. Once again, select the text tool and type out "Idol" in the same font, same color. Set the size to 110pt and vertically scale the text to 110%.

11. Rasterize the "Idol" layer (Layer -> Rasterize -> Type). Like we did for the "American" layer, duplicate it, name the top layer "Idol Above" and the bottom of the two "Idol Below". Set the stroke on "Idol below to size 6, color #24569F, and the outer glow on "Idol Above" to Blend Mode - Screen; Opacity - 75%; Color: #00A5ED; Size - 8px.

Hit OK and there you have it, your very own American Idol logo!

Click to enlarge