Do it your self logo design tutorial using GIMP software

This is a logo design tutorial I would like to share with you; here I will help you learn create a simple text based logo for your website using GIMP software. GIMP is a software like photoshop, and it’s free. You can find a copy for download here. The file size is only 15 MB and trust me, this tiny piece of program helped me design thousands of dollars worth graphics.

Now after installing the program, open it and you should see at least 3 windows:

The left window is the toolbox for you to use all the tools, brushes etc; the right is for the layers and the center part is the main area where you will be editing your graphics.

Now lets start with creating a new file, just select “new” from the file menu. In my example, I am creating a new image with 400×200 pixels:

After you create a new image with the specified dimensions, you should see a white area on the middle section. That is where we will create our logo. Now because it’s a text based logo, we will create a text called “BlogKori” select the text tool:

Now drag the white area to create a text box. You will see the text options in the left panel where you have to change the fonts, size, color etc:

When you select the text to type/edit a text box will appear:

I have selected the font: Trebuchet MS, size 95px and blue color, that gives me the desired feel. Do drag your text box to align the text properly:

Now we will create a gradient effect on this plain simple text. For this, use the color selection box and choose your foreground and background color:

Clicking on each tab will show up a color panel:

I have selected a deep blue color as the foreground. Now I have to select the area to edit, now go to the layers panel (right) and select the text:

Now right click to show up the options and select “Alpha to selection”

You will then see that the blogkori text edges are now highlighted:

Now select the blend tool from the toolbox:

Now draw from top to bottom to apply a gradient (use undo command and do it again until you finally have a good blend)

Now if you release the selection by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+A you will see that our logo looks like this:

Good, now lets make a drop shadow on it. Select the text area again in alpha and now go to menu > Filters > Light and shadow > Drop Shadow:

A window will appear; set these options and the shadow color and click OK:

Now the final logo will look like this:

Use the save command to save it in a project file or choose an extension to save it in an image file such as JPEG or PNG:

Now our logo has a white background, but if you want to make it transparent, just remove the white background from the layer by clicking on the eye:

So we will then have our logo background as transparent:

To save this image in transparent, save it as .png

So that was a simple logo tutorial using GIMP; let me know how it went when you tried to design your logo, thanks.