[lnemup]

Hello all,

I am brand new to the business. Green as green gets. But have to start somewhere. Ok so got my cutter up and running yesterday. Now try to make sence of the software side of things. As my first try/practice A buddy asked me to cut some small vinyl decals of his business logo. Basically I need someone to walk me through a step by step process of creating the logo in either illustrator, (or i think i set up access to Carworx) and through the printout process. I am running a GX-24 cutter. The logo is mostly text with phone numbers ect. A guru could probably knock it out in mins. I dont wanna post logo until someone lets me know it is ok to do so without breaking any forum policy's. Again dont want someone to just creat for me, that defeats the purpose of me learning. I understand this will take time so if need be willing to pay someone for there help. Please let me know if anyone has the time,and interested in helping me. Thanks

 

[Just Breathe]

The easy way would be to scan the logo and live trace it in illustrator.

 

[playera]

If its mostly text find out the name of the font used for the logo and just type it out in COREL or Illustrator. Thats the best way instead of drawing letter by letter. And for the logo see if you can find the stock vector for it online or ask you friend to supply if not I think corel draw is easier for a beginner.

 

[playera]

e-mail me the logo(if its simple) ill do it for free to help you out if not I don't do logos yet so you can outsource it to someone else here that has a logo business

 

[tfalk]

The Roland GX24 comes with Cut Studio, it has a function for tracing images. It's pretty close, you can then tweak each point to be fairly exact to the original logo.

 

[lnemup]

Thanks for the repsonces.

Just Breathe I accutually dont have a scanner as of yet, its on my list soon. Any recommendations?

Playera please provide me your email.

I do have the cut studio. In know there are different ways to accomplish this. Problem is need someone to walk me through, so that I can learn.
Thanks again for all the help so far.

 

[MX1CAN]

Thanks for the repsonces.

Just Breathe I accutually dont have a scanner as of yet, its on my list soon. Any recommendations?

Playera please provide me your email.

I do have the cut studio. In know there are different ways to accomplish this. Problem is need someone to walk me through, so that I can learn.
Thanks again for all the help so far.

Do you have a camera? Take a high resolution picture of the logo. Bring it into your vector program of choice and then trace it manually by hand. Auto trace features in any program lead to less than desirable results that's why it's almost always better to do it by hand.

Anyway once you have it into your vector program use the pen tool to re-create the logo. If there is text involved try to find the font first so that you don't have to trace the letters as well as the graphic.

If you don't know how to work the pen tool take a look at this handy guide: Photoshop’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide | Psdtuts+

It's a photoshop pen tool tutorial but the pen/bezier tool behaves pretty much the same way on all the vector programs.

 

[sukie64]

Thanks for the repsonces.
I do have the cut studio. In know there are different ways to accomplish this. Problem is need someone to walk me through, so that I can learn.
Thanks again for all the help so far.

First: ask your friend if he has his logo in a digital format. If so, have him email it to you. If not, take a photo of it and upload to your computer.
In cutstudio: start with a new item.
go to file, click on import
find the image on your computer and import it.
Right click on image and click on image outline. Not all images work well but this is a start.
After that you can move the nodes to fine tune the design. If it is just a font that is needed, then you can just click on the A on the right side of the screen and type in what the letters are. Right click to properties and find the font you would like to use.
Best way to learn this program is just to try out different areas. Very easy to learn and use.

You also mentioned Cadworks:
again easy to use:
open cadworks and click on create a design, on the right hand side of the screen, you will see where is says: ADD Objects, click on vectorize.
There you can import your image. click on your background color, then click next. The pick the colors you would like to use in the design. The program will then vectorize it. Now again, not all images work well with this.
But it should be able to get you started.

 

[miktoxic]

e-mail me the logo(if its simple) ill do it for free to help you out if not I don't do logos yet so you can outsource it to someone else here that has a logo business

i thought he said he didn't want anyone to do the work for him because he wanted to learn the process/program?

lnemup:

the gx-24 comes with cutstudio which is alright just for cutting, but if you're going to be doing design work you should invest in either illustrator or coreldraw for vector and phostoshop for bitmap. the most important tool in illustrator is the pen tool. learn it first and practice, practice, practice.

as said above you'll need to match the font. you can download (for free) font utility programs from:

Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

get the ones that allow you to view your fonts outside of your program (trying to view fonts from illustrator's font pull-down menu is a pain). once the font is matched you'll have to play with the size, kerning, wordspacing etc. to get it exact. if you don't have the font you'll either have to buy it or download a close version of it for free from sites like:

www.dafont.com

depending on the complexity of the graphic you can either recreate with the pen tool or try to trace it with automated vector trace program (live trace within illustrator). most of the time it comes out close but in need of some tweaking.

before sending this file to cutstudio (i use the plugin thru illustrator so i don't know about cutstudio the program) you have to turn all fonts into objects. select your type and go to type>create outlines. always check your work in wireframe mode as to see if you have any overlapping cut lines etc. then you have to reverse the design horizontally using the reflect tool. save your file. send to cutter.

of course if your customer has access to the original file then all this is moot. but there goes the plan of you learning to do it yourself, right?

 

[lnemup]

Thanks again for the help guys. Miktoxic you are correct I am not looking for anyone to do this for. I am trying to learn the process, or even different process. This is not actually a job just a friend logo that I though was pretty simple, and would be able to get help with. I have had a couple people that have told me that they maybe able to help me out. I am waiting to hear back from them. I also ordered corel and should be in today along with a video from lynda.com for corel, so hopefully between help from here and video I can start to really understand the process. Thanks again for all help thus far, and the guys that contacted me about help please contact me back if you are able to help out.

 

[lnemup]

Forgot to mention here is the website containing the logo.Rick's Iron Works - Manassas Park, VA- Services
I appologize if this breaks any forum rules, and understand if it gets taken down. Thanks

 

[Eview1]

The Best way to learn is to do it yourself. Start by going to your local College, see if they have a Digital Arts department. Ask them if they have any students that can show you how, for a small fee/trade you will work out with the student you will learn what you need. If you use Adobe products go to their website and look at the tutorials they walk you through step by step on how to use the pen tool in Illustrator/Photoshop too. There are also user groups (Corel/Adobe) that will help you, go to a meeting they have free classes.

Evie

Thanks again for the help guys. Miktoxic you are correct I am not looking for anyone to do this for. I am trying to learn the process, or even different process. This is not actually a job just a friend logo that I though was pretty simple, and would be able to get help with. I have had a couple people that have told me that they maybe able to help me out. I am waiting to hear back from them. I also ordered corel and should be in today along with a video from lynda.com for corel, so hopefully between help from here and video I can start to really understand the process. Thanks again for all help thus far, and the guys that contacted me about help please contact me back if you are able to help out.

 

[miktoxic]

The Best way to learn is to do it yourself. Start by going to your local College, see if they have a Digital Arts department. Ask them if they have any students that can show you how, for a small fee/trade you will work out with the student you will learn what you need.

if that's the case why not just enroll in the class?

 

[Just Breathe]

Thanks for the repsonces.

Just Breathe I accutually dont have a scanner as of yet, its on my list soon. Any recommendations?

Well depends on what you expect from your scanner but at the end of the day a scanner is a scanner. I won't endorse any particular brand over another. I mainly only use mine for the purpose of putting sketches into the digital realm. If this is the only thing that matters to you, with today's technology, any scanner should be able to serve this purpose just as well as the next. For a lot of folk, the biggest thing to decide on with a scanner may just be the size of the bed.