✏️ How-to Video: Vectorizing the @Framelalife Logo using Adobe Illustrator

Recently @framelalife commissioned me to design some things for his steemit profile. If you don't follow him you should. He posts excellent content!

This is my first #SteemGig and I'm very excited! Unfortunately, he'd lost his vector logo file since the last time it was used. Logos really should be vector files to remain clear and scalable as raster logos tend to fall apart. In order to move forward to making his banners and profile images, I needed to trace it from his existing profile footer. (For more information regarding Raster vs. Vector images and why it's important, read this article)

I hope this time-lapse video is informative and can help aspiring steemians to make their profiles look more pro! Instructions are in the closed captions. but I've also included them below.

1. Make a selection of the logo using the marquee tool in Photoshop. Then copy.
2. Open Illustrator, create a document, and paste the raster logo onto the artboard.
3. Since this logo is round but not a perfect circle, we create guides around the edge.
4. Lock the layer with the pasted raster so nothing gets moved around and create a new layer for your tracing
5. I create one more guide to make sure my lines are perfectly level.
6. Using the Pen tool, I start adding points around the shape. I hold down "shift" on my keyboard when I want my lines to lock to the horizontal or vertical axis.
7. I set the path to have a solid fill and no stroke. When tracing white., I like to use a magenta fill for contrast.
8. Using the ellipse tool I create an oval the size of my guides. I set it to have a stroke.
9. In the stroke panel, I set the stroke alignment to "inside". I then bump up the weight to match the raster.
10. After 2x checking everything is where I want it. I select the stroked oval. and outline it to make a filled path.
11. Strokes can be mistakingly resized this is why we always make sure logos are filled paths. Here we 2x check the outline by viewing in outline mode.
12. For contrast, I make a box using the rectangle tool and place it behind the vector tracing.
13. I give it a blue fill and align the box behind the grouped logo using the align palette.
14. I now set the magenta fills back to white using the swatches palette.
15. Voila! All done and ready to place in other designs. Thanks for watching!

If you'd like me to help design something or if you have a request for another video, please leave a reply and let me know!

Thanks for checking me out. Keep up the good fight!