The
retro style badge/emblem of logos is a hot trend at the moment, and
it’s no surprise why – They’re super cool! We’ve already looked at a showcase of retro and vintage style logos
based on circular motifs, now let’s build our own. We’ll put the basic
structure together in Illustrator, then give it that aged vintage
appearance with some finishing touches in Photoshop.

The
logo we’ll be creating is for the totally fictional Powerhouse Gym
(although I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a gym somewhere with this
name!). It combines many of the typical traits of this retro/vintage
theme with alternating rings of black and white as well as fine details
such as the stars and dots. The text and tagline follow the
circumference of the circle while the icon sits bang in the centre and
gives visual feedback as to what the logo is promoting.
View the retro/vintage logo design

Be sure to check out the showcase of retro badge/emblem logos,
then when you have plenty of ideas open up Adobe Illustrator and create
a large circle. Copy (CMD+C) and Paste in Front (CMD+F) a duplicate,
scale it down slightly while holding ALT and Shift, then switch the fill
for a white stroke.

Press
CMD+F to paste in another duplicate, scale down and change the fill to
white. Paste in another, scale it down a little further to give the
impression of a thick ring.

Paste
a couple more circles and scale them appropriately to add a couple of
thin strokes on the inside and outside of the white ring.

Position
another circle exactly in the centre of the white ring, then adjust the
stroke settings to 4pt Weight, Round Cap, Bevel Join, Dashed Line, 0pt
Dash and 17pt Gap. For the gap setting in particular, use the cursor
keys to nudge the number up and down until the circles are spaced
evenly.

Elsewhere
on the artboard, draw a series of weight plates with the rounded
rectangle tool. Scale and position each larger plate with the same
distance between them.

Use the rectangle tool to add a handle, then copy, paste and rotate the series of plates to finish off a simple dumbbell icon.

Switch
the fill of all the shapes that make up the dumbbell to white, group
them together and position the graphic in the centre of the logo.

Copy
and paste one of the circles from the logo and clear out the fill and
stroke. In the Text tool menu select the Type on Path option and click
on the circle.

Enter
the words Powerhouse Gym then select an appropriate font. Slab-Serif
fonts typically have a strong and masculine feel, so I’ve picked out
Boton for use in this logo.

Instead
of adjusting the tracking of the letters, go to Type > Type on a
Path > Type on a Path Options and adjust the spacing here. This
setting will generate more even gaps where the tracking would bunch
letters together as they flow around the curve.

Use
the Direct Selection Tool to carefully adjust the little handle to
centre up the text. Use a guide to make sure the wording starts and ends
at the same angle.

Copy
and Paste the circular text shape and replace the wording with the
tagline ‘Reach your potential’. Use the little handle to adjust the text
to sit on the outside of the circle and towards the bottom of the logo.

In
the Type on a Path settings, adjust the Align to Path option to
Ascender, then make another subtle tweaks to the size to make sure the
text fits perfectly to the centre of the black ring.

A
couple of stars finish off the text by separating the two sets of
words. Scale and position one into place, copy and paste in front a
duplicate and move this duplicate horizontally while holding Shift.

The
vector version of our logo is complete. Illustrator’s tools made it
easy to create the overall structure while keeping everything scalable
and editable.

Let’s
finish off the logo with some cool textures in Photoshop. We could
import a texture, live trace and punch out some distressed marks with
the Pathfinder, but you just don’t get the same effect as real textures
in Photoshop.

Paste in the logo from Illustrator into a temporary Photoshop document and scale into place.

Use the super handy Subtle Grunge brushes from WeFunction to add grungy spots of white on a layer above the logo.

CMD+Click the logo layer’s thumbnail, press CMD+Shift+I to invert the selection and delete out the excess.

Tune
the grungy effect by adjusting the opacity of the layer. This simple
touch gives the logo that old, worn and distressed appearance of a
genuine badge, sticker or emblem.