[Photoshop] Effective Logo Design

Well, I'm sure lots of you want to know exactly how I make stuff I make.
Aside
from the years of graphic design experience under my belt, I know a lot
more than some people about it and don't expect everyone to follow what
I do.
I never do the same process, so every piece I make is unique
in itself. So this is just an example of how to go about stuff to make a
decent logo.
Please note that the splatter images and heart tribal
are from a free font source as well as the font I use. However, once
combined they become a unique image and are altered dramatically.

1.
The font.: First thing you should ever do, is placement of your logo
words themselves. Nothing is more distracting and discouraging when you
make a logo and the images don't work together.

2. Now you should make new layers for each item you
wish to combine into one. Afterward place them under the Logo itself,
to make a splash image for the logo.

3. If you didn't do splash image placement, do it now. Merge all the splash image layers

4. Now you need to make a duplicate copy of the
splash logo. And set the upper layer to 0% Fill, this will make more
sense in a moment.

5. After that is done, simply on the bottom layer,
place flat colors, gradients, and such. Any extra stuff will be added on
the upper layer. Btw, if you want 2 outer glows, this is how you do it,
by placing one here, and another on the next layer.

6. Continue adding different flat effects on the
bottom layer until satisfied, then move onto the upper layer. Here you
can put patterns (preferably self made ones even though I use preset
ones sometimes), add inner glows, and more. This layer, you can abuse
different blending techniques (Normal, dissolve, darken, etc).
Experiment and find out what works well.

7. Now you can either add more layer blending
effects onto the splash or not, your choice, I didn't, instead I moved
onto the text.

8. Here you need to repeat the same steps 4-7 with
each layer of text, so I will have 4 layers, 2 of are Faithless, other 2
are of Tests of Time. Also, remember to rasterize your fonts. You can't
print blend them or without this. Also, you can't see the font if you
open the file on a different computer without the font, without
rasterizing it.

9. Finally here is the final outcome of what I made, and you should be finished by the time you get here.


Congratulations!
That is all there is to it really. Obviously your first won't turn out
like this, but if you put time and effort into your work you can get a
very creative and interesting looking image.
~Axe