Circular/Curved Text / by brasscollective

Couple of weeks ago, I applied for online tenders for government work. 

Come on la, I need money to eat, pay my bills, pangsai, sustain the art, photography, film of what I'm doing now right? 

 

So, there was this particular agency called GeBiz that requires a signature. Ok, no problem, just sign on  my Wacom tablet, that should do the job. 

Then as I scrolled down further, it states that I need a company stamp. 

Come on man, it's already 2015. Can't they just get a simple ACRA reg. no.(WHICH I TOOK FARKIN' TWO WEEKS TO GET IT DONE, I'LL EXPLAIN WHY ANOTHER TIME). 

Since the deadline was a month before the initial registration, I decided to finish up what was important first and shelved it till now. 

In my years of design, I haven't really come across the chance to design any company stamps. 

Well, initially I was thinking of throwing this saikang to Scottie Lim CY, but bruh was pretty much busy with his FYP, so I didn't wanna trouble him. 

 

THE BRAINSTORM

Went to research a little on what is a company stamp. Wasn't exactly too hard of a Google search, but finding one for design reference was particularly hard, as most people wouldn't really care much about company stamps. 

It wasn't until much later when I saw a nice little template from tumblr, and start messing around with the concept till I got something similar. 

Screen Shot 2015-03-04 at 10.42.10 am.png

Okay so now I've got the base done. 

The Technical Part

Next up is creating the circular text. 

The main tool I used for this was the Ellipse Tool. Previously in Photoshop CS4 and below, it was in the Shapes column, I think it was in Paths or something. But in Photoshop CC and above, it was in another location, check the photo below. 

This is a Photoshop CC 2014 btw, so if you're using CS4 and below just hit me with an email for instructions how to go with that.

Next up, I created just a circular shape, while holding "Shift" button to retain the circle, if not you'll probably get just an oval shape.

Now the catch is, I didn't create my circle exactly how a circle should be. Not really a issue, we just have to transform it. Using "CMD + T" or "CTRL + T" for windows, just adjust according to what you want the circle to be. 

TADA, I made the circle shape according to the base circle. 

Just keep shifting your transform tool till you get what you want.

You can adjust using the "Properties" too, but since I was using a Wacom, manually adjusting it was faster. 

 

Next up was adding the text to the shape path.

Choose the "Text" tool and place your cursor close to the Shape Path. You should get some reaction when the two entities meet like this.  

I had to take this photo with my iPhone as I couldn't screenshot it while using the hotkeys for it. Pressing "CMD" makes it disappear, which I had to CMD+SHIFT+4 to screenshot this. 

Next up is typing in the letters. 

It isn't the best looking font for circular design in my opinion, so I wanna slightly change the look of the font. 

I go to "Character" tab

Screen Shot 2015-03-04 at 10.50.43 am (2).png

Using the tools here, I adjust till I get the fonts to the shape I want 

Ah okay so I think that this is the correct font shape I want. 

But it's not in the right position. So now we have to wind it back to where we want it to be. 

Using "Path Selection" tool,

 

we can wind the words clockwise or anti-clockwise.

 

Again, I couldn't screenshot because of the hotkeys. But it's a little hard to see from the screen, so actually this was a clearer shot than the screenshot itself. 

You can use "CMD+R" to bring up the Rulers and align your words. 

After you think that you're almost done with it, and you wanna see it without the Shapes, Paths, Rulers, just go to View -> Extras and uncheck the option to toggle the view on/off.

A fast way to see your alignment is pressing the CMD key, you'll see something like this 

So now I wanna add on the registration no. I continue using the Ruler as a guide. Trust me, it's the most fun thing to do in Photoshop.

For me, I think my fonts are looking a little stiff. 

I wanna erase away the parts which looks too corporate. I haven't really found an easier way yet, but for now I choose to rasterise the text layer and edit it as an object. 

Once I get my fonts correct, I wanna blur it a little. Some stuff just doesn't look nice being too sharp. 

Just a little gaussian to get the words to be less intimidating.

Screen Shot 2015-03-04 at 12.14.26 pm.png

For the fonts before rasterising, it's possible to change it through "Character" window. 

Once that done, we are almost at the end of the product. 

Press CMD+ALT+SHIFT+E at the topmost layer to create a new layer. 

This creates an entirely new layer that takes all the elements instead of merging them(CMD+E) into a single layer. 

One of the most useful shortcuts in my short Photoshop life. 

After that, I wanna tone down the blacks. Nothing looks too good in true black, in my opinion. 

For this, I just choose Levels, and push my Output Levels blacks towards white 30, and that's enough for me. 

Finally to make it to a PNG for the transparency. 

Remove all the whites by using Colour Range or Magic Wand Tool. Shouldn't be too much of a problem since it's only two colours. 

Switch off all the below layers, the eye icon beside it.

Select "Trim"

And choose "Transparent Pixels"

This takes away all the extra space which are not needed in the extra space, leaving only the logo, since we have deleted the only whites around and in it. 

And we are finally done with it. 

Here it is, the final company stamp design.

Eh wrong picture sorry

This one

Why I choose to do this in Photoshop and not Illustrator you might ask. 

I'll explain another time. Took me hours to get this post up because fuckin' Singtel was screwing up my internet the whole day, couldn't upload the photos properly, and Squarespace keep crashing. 

I hope this helps with your new Photoshop CC 2014. 

Drop me a comment if you need any help for Photoshop CS4 and below. 

 

 

 

Henry is a film-maker, photographer, VFX artist, animator living in Singapore. 
Inspired by the works of Hayao Miyazaki, Mamoru Hosoda, and the late Satoshi Kon, he pursued a career in 3D Animation, but somehow landed in Double Negative and ended up working on Hollywood feature films as a FX artist. 
His hobbies include molesting his cameras, his girlfriend and his cats. 
He also enjoys cooking Japanese dishes, however the Japanese groceries cost a bomb in the country he is living in.
He is an avid lover of coffee, cheese, chocolate and cigarettes, and is usually found at henry@brasscollective.com