How can you re-create this apparently simple picture as close as possible?

[rambomhtri]

Hello dear community,

A long time ago I was looking for a cover art for a classical music album, in digital format (png or something like that), but all online pics were kind of mediocre quality. I asked here somehow, and I got completely blown away by the reply of one user that basically told me "why don't you do it yourself?".

And I was like... what do you mean? You... you can't do this, hahaha, it's a cover art.

Then this guy started to make the background (exact color tone, exact texture, it had like sparkling effects, he made all of it manually, simulated perfectly the effect), found the exact font for all the letters, composed everything and shared the picture. I could not believe it. Simply would have never thought of that as a solution.

Anyways, now I want to do the same with an apparently much simpler picture:

That's a white background. I want to replicate the letters and design so I can make it way bigger than this. So far I've used a webpage called myfonts to analyze the fonts, top right is PF DIN text universal, the bottom is FF DIN Pro Condensed Bold, and I'm having trouble finding the hr font, really looks like Fuglesans Bold but the h is not really the same, and I am annoyed by that. Also, it's really hard to "guess" the little letter details to match perfectly the original design, like distance between letters, how "bold" they are, what variables in the font changed... Also, I don't know how to make the smiley thing in a correct way.

Once composed, how can I link everything together so I can change the image size all together?

Thank you!

[Conrad C]

I don't know how to make the smiley thing in a correct way.

By @rambomhtri

Many logos combine standard fonts with hand-drawn elements or altered font shapes. To me it looks like the “smiley” thing is a reference to the musical tie symbol, but it doesn’t quite have the same shape. They could have taken the tie symbol from a music notation font and altered it using the path editing tools, or they might have used the same tools to draw it from nothing, as shown in the demo below. This is much easier if you are familiar with using the Pen tool and path editing tools that are used to edit vector shapes in many Adobe graphics and video applications.

If you find a font character that comes close, you can select it, choose Type > Convert to Shape, and then use the path editing tools to alter the outline however you want.

Once composed, how can I link everything together so I can change the image size all together?

By @rambomhtri

Simply create a layer group. Select the layers that make up the design, and choose Layer > Group Layers. They will now appear to be contained in a “folder” in the Layers panel, and when that group is selected you can manipulate everything in the layer group as a unit.

[Lumigraphics]

If at all possible, do this logo in Illustrator or another vector-based app like Inkscape.

[Conrad C]

Good one, I should have mentioned that part and I completely agree. @rambomhtri, for a logo like this that is all type and hard-edged lines, using a vector application such as Illustrator or Inkscape is typically better because you can export it in a format, such as SVG, that preserves resolution-independent scalability of the type and vector shapes.

I was focusing on how it could be done in Photoshop, but I should have remembered that Photoshop is not the best for scalable logo design.