Trunks Tails & Trees

Any creative shop, large or small, will understand what happens when you ask a client to supply a Vector or EPS logo for a project. You inevitably receive a JPEG version at 72 dpi, ripped from their website or a partner’s site. This happens too many times to count. Since most of our focus at carbonhouse is web-related, we can generally address these bitmap messes and make them work. But what happens when you need to place the logo on a dark background and the supplied logo is stuck to a white ground? There are many different hacks to achieve a workable end product—some of which are more successful than others. I wanted to share an Adobe Fireworks tip that can make it easier to work with logos on dark backgrounds.

Remember, this is an Adobe Fireworks-only tip.

Step 1
Obtain said nasty JPG logo from the web site or client. In this case we will use the Lex Mundi logo.



Step 2
Place logo on the dark background in your layout



Step 3
Turn the logo into grayscale. Either adjust Hue/Saturation under Filters or convert to grayscale (Menu> Commands > Creative> Convert to Grayscale)



Step 4
Invert the logo (Filters> Adjust Color> Invert)



Step 5
Add a color fill (Filters> Adjust Color> Color Fill) and in the Color Fill Dialog box adjust the Blending Mode to Color Dodge. Adjust levels as needed for clarity.



Step 6
Choose the background color as the ground in the logo in the Blending Mode dialog box


That’s it. Hopefully you will receive a vector logo, but this will help when in a bind.

Posted in Design, Web Design