The modern logo has to work harder than ever before. In the past, a company logo was perhaps intended simply for a shop sign and printed in local newspaper adverts. Today’s logos have to work with a growing plethora of smart devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions, displaying responsive websites. Often logos end up suffering within responsive website design. Many have not been designed with responsive frameworks and variable sizes in mind, and are just resized to fit whatever available space has been provided for them or not.
A Simple Fact
The human brain remembers simple forms far more easily than complex ones. One of the most common factors that separates a good logo from a bad logo is the element of simplicity. Quality, memorable, successful brands are always simple.
This concept is nothing new and was known long before responsive web design started pushing the envelope of simplicity. Look at Apple’s first attempt at a logo from 1976, designed by an engineer, Ron Wayne. As creative as it was (especially for an engineer) it was too complex and unsurprisingly it was replaced just a year later.
Apple Computer logos.
Steve Jobs commissioned professional graphic designer Rob Janoff to design something simple, memorable and modern. The colours may have varied but this basic shape has remained unchanged for over 30 years and has become one of the most iconic and recognizable logos in history. The simplicity of this design allows it to work well at any size on practically anything. Perfect for responsive web design, despite being made decades prior to the availability of such technology.
However, Apple’s original branding mistake is a common recurring issue for most businesses. Small startup companies typically have a limited budget. To avoid costs they mistakenly turn to the wrong person for a logo, someone who is not a professional logo designer. Someone who feels compelled to add things to create something.
Complex and simple logo examples.
Consider the Great Lakes Golf logo above on the left. Somebody spent a lot of time adding things to that design. The result is quite busy and it’s not going to scale down well at all; whereas the Skype logo on the right is simple, clean and memorable. It will work on anything and is scalable to small areas on mobile devices.
Logos viewed on mobile devices.
At full width you can identify the ball sport elements on the Great Lakes Golf logo. But scale down 50% and it’s barely readable. On the right, the Skype logo scales down beautifully. And if space gets too small, the Skype brand is flexible enough to drop the wordmark altogether.
This simple comparison shows how simple, clean and versatile design wins over more complex arrangements. The Great Lakes Golf logo probably suited its original intention just fine. However, in the context of a responsive website, the inability to scale cleanly becomes very apparent.
The Tech Industry Response
FACEBOOK
Web-savvy brands are simplifying their logos to suit responsive mobile web design. Facebook removed the faint blue line from the bottom of its icon’s ‘f’ in 2013. And in July 2015 it simplified its wordmark by removing the ascender on the lowercase ‘a’, swapping it out for a simpler, more rounded version.
Overall, the other letters have also been slimmed and refined. The changes might seem insignificant but the reasoning is not. Facebook is changing its brand as a direct response to viewing on mobile devices.
Facebook old and new logos.
“This is actually a huge change and it's much more than the 'a'. It's driven by mobile.” - Howard Belk, co-chief executive and chief creative officer of branding firm Siegel+Gale.
SPOTIFY
Back in 2006 the original Spotify logo was a mix of playful type with small wave elements that would get lost when it was scaled down. It was redesigned and simplified in 2013 to the black type and the green icon we are all familiar with. It has now been refined further to a single flat green colour. There has been some confusion expressed over the change with some asking why Spotify fixed what wasn’t broken. However, the change is part of a larger branding update for Spotify and it’s fairly obvious the driving factor is the search for further flexibility within mobile web spaces.
Spotify logo changes.
“Because the system is so flexible it can go anywhere Spotify goes from screens, to print, to environments and interactive experiences. We pressure tested the system with tiny mobile ads on tiny mobile screens.” - Leland Maschmeyer, creative director at New York design firm, Collins.
GOOGLE
Another case in point is Google. While I was writing this article, Google unveiled its latest logo update, their simplest yet. The Google logo has been evolving to new levels of simplicity since it first graced our browsers in the 90s.
Google logo changes in the early days.
In recent years it would have quickly become apparent that their thin, serif type was not going to scale nicely within responsive web design. So, like other tech brands, they’ve simplified to a sans serif typeface with a flat design and a friendly and distinctive ‘G’ icon.
Google logo changes recently.
“Once upon a time, Google was one destination that you reached from one device: a desktop PC. These days, people interact with Google products across many different platforms, apps and devices… Today we're introducing a new logo and identity family that reflects this reality and shows you when the Google magic is working for you, even on the tiniest screens.” - Posted on the official Google Blog by Tamar Yehoshua, VP, Product Management.
No Words
When Prince changed his name to a symbol in 1993 most of us thought he was nuts. But perhaps he was ahead of his time.
Prince photo and logo.
An increasing number of companies are refining the simplicity of their logo, moving towards a flat, simple symbol design with no wordmark at all.
Logos for Twitter, Nike, Apple, Starbucks and Pinterest.
Remember the bubble type and bird illustration that used to make up the Twitter logo? Over time, Twitter refined the logo, removing unnecessary detail; now it is just a very simplified version of the bird. No lower case ’t’ icon, no twitter word-mark, just the bird logo.
Twitter logo changes.
“Twitter is the bird, the bird is Twitter. There's no longer a need for text, bubbled typefaces, or a lowercase 't' to represent Twitter.” - Creative director Doug Bowman
Of course, these are all well-known brands that can get away with reducing their logos to only a simple icon. Not everyone can or should do this. However, this is another example of the effect responsive web design is having on brands. Certainly, using an icon graphic as part of an identity increases the flexibility of the brand for use on mobile devices.
Moving Forward
Does this mean all logos are going to end up as simple flat icons or flat sans serif typefaces? I don’t think so. However, there is little denying the influence responsive web design is having on branding and it will be interesting to see how far this goes.
The historically sacred view that a company’s logo is a rigid form that must never change is giving way to a new kind of branding freedom, where logos respond and vary. From horizontal formats to vertically stacked, from wordmarks to simple icons, even changing colours to suit dark and light screen backgrounds.
One might argue that looking at the branding direction of the tech industry isn’t relevant to, say, a law firm or a restaurant. However, all industries are going to eventually end up within responsive web design one way or another and become affected by the rise of mobile devices. Some companies may wonder why this doesn’t seem to work as well for their brand as it does for Twitter or Pinterest.
Those who understand the design principle of simplicity and embrace this flexible approach to their branding will respond best within this new medium. At the very least, how a brand appears when scaled down on a mobile device will become a staple test for any logo designer or branding project.
Logo designers ought to help educate clients to embrace this new flexible approach, where logos can be optimized within responsive web design while maintaining brand consistency. Otherwise we will witness more web builders taking it on themselves to alter a problematic logo on the fly to suit their individual project. Not an ideal solution for anyone.
Keep an eye out for our upcoming practical how-to guide on responsive logo design.
You remember when your parents or girlfriend see your photo and said to you “your teeth are very yellowish”. Because in real life we are animated, and minor imperfections or yellowish teeth’s less noticeable. When you freeze a moment in time and give the eye a chance to concentrate on these minor imperfections then everybody knows the truth. Now its time to say, go to the doctor and check your eyes because my teeth’s are perfect.You can always book an appointment at Western Dental too to get real teeth whitening so they can look pearly in real life as well.
First choose your Magic Wand tool, lasso tool (or any other selection tool) to put a selection around your teeth. To refine your selection, go to Quick Mask mode and use your Paintbrush tool to modify the mask.
Now that you have a refined mask, feather the selection radius by 2 pixels (Select > Feather) to give a nice blended edge. First remove the yellowing (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation). Select Ok. When the Hue/Saturation dialog box appears, from the Edit pop-up menu, choose Yellows. Then to remove yellowing, lower the Saturation slider.
There are two ways to brighten the teeth. Choose anyone from following.
First Method -> Now from the Edit pop-up menu, choose Master and drag the Lightness slider to the right to brighten the teeth.
Second Method -> Select (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels), and move the middle slider to the left a bit. Different amounts of whitening are called for in every image, so use your own judgment and experiment until it looks right to you.
In the end I would like to say that I tried to make the teeth’s better and not make them unrealistic.
Sometimes we have a precious moment in our lives captured in the wrong way. This is where Photoshop is used to fix this problem — to enhance and retouch our precious, yet less-than-perfect image to become precious perfect ones.
In this tutorial, I will share some of my favourite enhancing and retouching techniques. You may know some of my techniques, and others, you may not. So, let’s get started.
Step 1
Open the Cosplay Girl image. Special thanks to Priestess Shizuka for her permission to use this image. You can find the image here. Crop it (Ctrl + C) to get rid of those black edges at the top and bottom.
Step 2
Notice that the image isn’t smooth enough, especially the hair, so I want to make it smoother by increasing the amount of the pixels. Choose Image > Image size, or hit Alt + Ctrl + I on the keyboard. In the resolution column, change the value to 200 pixels/inch or more. And then click OK.
Step 3
Now I want to level it, to make this image better. As you can see when we open the histogram (Window > Histogram), the histogram tells us that this image suffered an ‘unbalance’ tonal range. The gap at the light area (right side) means the highlight areas are not as bright as they could be. Thats why the image looks rather dull.
It will be good if we can trace the brightest, darkest and midtone pixels of this image to apply proper level adjustment on it. This is so Photoshop can convert the brightest pixels in this image to become pure bright (pure white), darkest pixels to be pure dark, and the midtones as well, for ideal tonal distribution.
To do that, duplicate the background layer by hitting Ctrl + J. Create a new layer under it by hitting Ctrl + Shift + N, and then, fill it with white color (Ctrl + Backspace).
Step 4
Target layer 1, and double click it to bring up the Layer Style dialog box. On theBlending Options window, drag the white triangle to the left, until it almost meets the black triangle on the left post. The remaining spot is the darkest pixel in this image.
Step 5
Take the Color Sampler tool, change the Sample Size to 3 by 3 Average, then point it to one of those remaining spots in this image. We’ve got sample 1 here — the darkest pixels.
Step 6
Repeat step 4, but this time in the Layer Style window, do the opposite by dragging the black triangle to the right.
Again with the Color Sampler tool, point it to the one of those remaining spots. We’ve got sample 2: the lightest pixels.
Step 7
This time we want to trace the midtones. Repeat step 4, and in the Layer Stylewindow drag the black and white triangles to the center, around 127.5 (= 255/2). However, when we drag it close to 127.5, the spot sample becomes too narrow, with a focus on the girl only, not the background, thus we should drag the black triangle to 121, and the white triangle to 134 (6.5 units either way of 127.5).
That will be the ‘equal’ value for both of them. Then, with the Sampler Colortool, take a sample from one of those remaining spots. Here we’ve got Sample 3: the midtones.
Step 8
Now target Layer 1, double click it to bring up the Layer Style dialog box, and then reset those triangles to the original post. Now, with the Sampler tool still active, you should indications as shown below:
You can use actual pixel mode when tracing those spots, to get more accurate results, but in this case, I think what we did before is enough.
Step 9
Now, create a Levels Adjustments layer above layer 1. On the Levels Adjustments window, use the eyedropper to set the black point. Click on the eyedropper, at black, then on Sample 1 that we made previously.
Step 10
For the midtones, click the eyedropper for gray point, point and click it to Sample 3. And last, click the eyedropper for white point, then point and click Sample 2.
Now, what we’ve got here is an image with an ‘ideal’ tonal and color range. We’ve got pure black, pure white and the tonal spans mathematically ideal. With a quick visual check, you can see that the image is indeed getting better. That’s the best I can achieve for this image so far.
Step 11
Now let’s add some details and emphasize some parts of the image. Of course, Photoshop can’t create any details, but it can reveal or enhance it. First, hitCtrl + Shift + Alt + E to merge the layers without flattening all layers beneath it. Target this new layer, then go to Image > Calculations. This will bring us to the Calculations dialog box.
Step 12
After taking a closer look at each channel, you will see that the green channel contains the most details, so we’re going to use that channel as a ‘patch’. We’re going to multiply it to get a more significant result. In the Calculations dialog box, set the value as shown below.
Step 13
The result will be located at the bottom of the Channels palette, name it ‘Alpha 1’. Click it, select all (Ctrl + A), copy (Ctrl + C), and then go back to the Layers Palette and paste it (Ctrl + V) on top of all the layers. Then set theBlending Mode to Soft light. Name it ‘Basic’.
Step 14
The dark details distribute nicely, but there seems to be too much light. Let’s decrease it a little. Double click the Basic Layer to bring up the Layer Styledialog box, then while holding the Alt key, move the white triangle to the left; it will separate the triangles to give us a smooth transition.
Step 15
On step 13, we may have lost some details on her clothes; so let’s fix that. To do that, add a layer mask for this Layer (Basic Layer), and brush that area with the soft black brush, to get back some detail from the underlying layer. I use a Soft Round Brush with size 50 px, Hardness 0%, and Opacity 20%. Make sure you target the Layer Mask Thumbnail on the Layers Pallete before brushing.
Step 16
Now let’s smooth out the skin especially the right shoulder. To do that, hitCtrl + Shift + Alt + E again and apply the median filter. Choose Filter > Noise > Median. Set the radius to 10 pixels. Again, apply a layer mask to this layer, Hide All by holding the Alt key when you click the Add Layer Maskbutton. Use a white smooth brush to cover the rough areas, but leave the hair and edges. Name this layer ‘Smooth Skin’.
Step 17
Now let’s sharpen the image. Like before, hit Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E, and name it ‘Sharpen’. Copy this new layer by hitting Ctrl + J. Hide the copy by clicking the eye icon on the Layers Palette. And then target the original Sharpen layer, go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Set the radius to 2 pixels, and change the Blending Mode to Vivid Light.
We can see now, how the details become more vivid in this image. However, the hair has also ‘sharpened’ and looks rough, which is not wanted, so, let’s add a layer mask again, reveal only some parts: eyes, nose, lips and clothes using a smooth soft brush.
Step 18
Now target the Sharpen Copy layer that we’ve made before. Make it visible. Name it ‘Smooth Hair’, because this time I want to smooth out the hair using this layer. Go to Filter > Stylize > Diffuse. Select Anisotropic, and then click OK. Add a Layer Mask, and hide all areas except the hair. Zoom in to see the result.
Step 19
Finally, create the Hue/Saturation adjustments layer on top. Set theSaturation value to 20 to give this image more color. You can compare this final result with the original image, by simply holding the Alt key, and clicking on the eye icon of the original layer image.
Final result
And walla, here’s our final image! You can download the PSD here.
