How To Create a Stylish Single Weight Line Art Logo in Adobe Illustrator

Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics back with another video tutorial I've been focuing on a lot of Photoshop effects in my uploads recently so I thought I'd open up Adobe Illustrator and have some fun creating some nice vector artwork, so in today's tutorial we're going to look at creating a stylish single weight line art logo

Even though the entire design is made just using lines, there's a range of Illustrator tools and techniques we'll use throughout this tutorial which you can incorporate into your arsenal This style of illustration is pretty popular with badge style logo designs, particularly those with an outdoors theme with landscape scenes, so that's the type of design I'll be making in this guide It features a simplistic mountain range with trees, clouds and snow capped peaks, along with stylised linework to represent water and sun rays So begin by opening up Adobe Illustrator and create a new document I'm working with a generic A4 sized landscape layout with the rules measurements in millimetres

Select the Line tool from the toolbar and clear out the default white fill, leaving just a black stroke Click and drag from one point to another across the artboard while holding shift to draw a straight line In the Stroke panel, increase the weight to around 3pt, then check the round cap and round corner options to give it a smooth appearance Switch over to the Selection tool, then hold the ALT key while dragging the shape to make a copy Before releasing, hold the Shift key tool to make sure the copy moves perfectly vertical, then release the mouse

Use the shortcut for Transform Again, which is CMD+D, or CTRL+ D on Windows, to create 5 or so duplicates of this line with even spacing between them Draw a selection around all the lines except the top one, then go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Zig Zag Turn on the Preview checkbox so you can see the affect the settings have, then configure them Smooth, 1mm size with the Absolute option, then alter the number of ridges to produce a nice wavy line to represent water Be sure to leave it at an odd number so the wavy line ends with a peak at both ends Switch back to the Line tool, then head to the View menu and check you have Smart Guides enabled

Use the little pink tooltip to find the centre of the line, then carefully move your mouse upwards to stay centralised Draw a diagonal line and snap it back to intersect the horizontal line Go to Object > Transform > Reflect and make sure the Vertical option is checked, then hit the Copy button Switch to the Select tool and move this line until it snaps to form a triangle shape Hold the Shift key to ensure it moves perfectly straight

Draw a selection around both lines then hold the ALT key while dragging with the mouse to make a copy Position this duplicate to one side so it overlaps both the original triangle and the horizontal line Select the Scissors tool from under the Eraser group in the toolbar Use the Smart Guides to snip the lines where they intersect, then press the backspace key to delete the excess Draw a selection around the two lines that make up this triangle shape, then go to Object > Transform > Reflect

Hit Copy to make a duplicate, then position it on the other side The Smart Guides might not snap it into place exactly, so some nudging is sometimes required Select the Line tool again and draw a horizontal line across the top of the middle triangle Go to Effect and select Zig Zag Change the settings back to Corner, then reduce the number of ridges to 5

Nudge this shape downwards with the keyboard cursor keys so it fits within the triangle Use the Line tool to draw a short horizontal line on the edge of one of the smaller triangles Switch to the Selection tool and hold the ALT key to make a duplicate, while dragging the copy towards the top of the shape Shift and click each lines to select them both, then go to Object > Blend > Make Head straight back to Object > Blend > Blend Options and change the settings to Specified Steps with a value of around 7

Go to Object > Transform > Reflect Hit Copy and move this duplicate into position on the other mountain triangle shape Next, we'll create some cloud shapes Use the Ellipse tool to draw a small circle while holding the Shift key Draw another one at a slightly smaller size that overlaps

Switch to the Rectangle tool and draw a shape that intersects the two circles right at the halfway point of the lower circle Switch to the Selection tool and draw a selection around all three shapes, then activate the Shape Builder tool Click and drag between the circle first of all to merge them together, then hold the ALT key while clicking and dragging the lower rectangle area to clip these shape away to leave a cloud outline Position this cloud shape with the Selection tool so it overlaps one of the mountains Switch to the Scissors tool and snip the path where the two shapes intersect and delete the overlap

Hold the ALT key while clicking and dragging with the Selection tool to make a few copies for the other mountains Use the Reflect transformation to flip some for the other sides The key to making line art like this is simplifying objects as much as possible Let's make a tree using just lines Begin with a straight vertical line as the tree trunk

Switch to the Arc tool from under the Line tool group, then use the Smart Guides to snap to the top point Hold shift to make a smooth quarter circle path Hold the ALT and Shift keys while dragging a duplicate with the Selection tool, then use the CMD+D Transform Again shortcut to quickly add a couple more copies If you want to extend the length of the tree tunk line, you can use the Direct Selection tool to drag just the lowermost point Select and make reflected copies of the these tree branch lines, then use the snapping functionality of the Smart Guides to position them on the other side

Draw a selection around all the paths that form the tree and press CMD+G to Group Position the first tree centrally within the middle mountain, then drag a copy to one side Rather than scale the tree down and affect the proportions of the stroke weight, overlap it with the horizontal line then use the Direct Selection tool to delete the lowermost branches and shorten the trunk to size Place a few copies of this tree elsehwere in the scene Select the Ellipse tool and hover over the end of the horizontal line to find the starting point, then drag out a circle that finishes at the other end

Move this circle downwards until the upper portion surrounds the main mountain scene but just overlaps the clouds slightly Use the Scissors tool to snip the path and delete the lower portion below the horizontal line, then also the overlapping areas on each of the two clouds Elsewhere on the artboard, draw a vertical line Make a duplicate of this line and position it off to the side With both of them selected, go to Object > Blend > Make

Head back to the Blend Settings and change it to Specified Steps We can change this value again later, but make a series of evenly spaced lines Draw a circle on the artboard, then use the Direct Selection tool to delete the lowermost point, leaving a semi-circle Select this semi-circle along with the blended lines and go to Object > Blend > Replace Spine Head back to Object > Blend > Blend Options and change the Orientation setting so the lines flare out from the centre

One of those flared lines isn't playing nicely, but a quick fix is to snip the top point with the Scissors tool to set all the lines in place Move this blend object centrally within the main scene Before scaling it up, you'll want to open up Illustrator's Preferences and make sure Scale Strokes and Effects isn't checked This will keep the stroke weight the same size, rather than enlarge it with the object Scale the flared lines object to the same width as the horizontal line

Head back to the Blend Options and alter the number of blend steps to produce a series of sun ray lines Go to Object > Lock > Selection for this next step to avoid accidentally selected these flared lines Hold the Shift key while selecting the various segments of the semi-circle path and the two clouds it overlaps, then go to Object > Path > Offset Path Enter 4mm and change the Joins to Round Click the Unite button from within the Pathfinder panel to merge these shapes into one, then draw a rough circle to join the inner portion of these shapes

Unite the shapes again to form one large outline Go to Object > Unlock All to release the locked flared shapes, then go to Object > Expand Choose just the Object in the options, not the Fill or Stroke Add both the flared lines and the temporary outline shape to the selection, then grab the Shape Builder tool Hold the ALT key and carefully click each line to delete it, making sure to only click where the red highlight appears, not the grey highlight

CMD+Z to Undo if you accidentally click while the grey area is highlighted Run through and delete all the flared lines to trim them to the size of the temporary outline shape Once you're done, that outline shape can be deleted to leave a series of sun rays that have an even space between all other objects in the scene without any overlaps To finish off the artwork as a badge style logo, draw a rectangle, aligning it to the exact width of the rest of the design using the Smart Guides Add some text with the Type tool

I'm using a font named Smoothy Sans, which has a nice rounded appearance, with increased tracking to spread out its width Once your layout is complete, you might want to save a copy with editable paths in case you want to change anything later Select everything and drag a duplicate into some empty space on the artboard To finialise the design so it can be used as a logo, begin by creating outlines from the text using the shortcut CMD+Shift+O Go to Object > Expand Appeance, then go to straight back to Object > Expand to convert any strokes to solid shapes

Click the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel to merge everything into one outline If any elements disappear, it means there's a couple of blends that haven't yet been Expanded Go to Object > Expand again, then try the Unite button The artwork is now made of continuous paths, so the colour can be changed by altering the fill You can choose any colour combination you wish, and even place it on a darker background with a lighter coloured fill

So I hope this tutorial helped you learn some new tricks in Adobe Illustrator If you did, a thumbs up on the video and a share with your friends would be a great help to spread the word Subscribe to the channel if you want to stick around for more tutorials, and be sure to head over to my website at spoongraphics for more written tutorials and free design resources Big thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video

Be sure to check out their website building tools and grab a 10% discount with the code Spooner if you want to set up your own blog, design portfolio or online store So as always thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one!