How to Design a 420 Smoke Logo in Illustrator

What You’ll Be Creating

In the following tutorial, you will learn how to create a 420 logo design using a cloud smoke font, basic vector-shape building techniques, and some effects.

You’ll start with a smoke letters font to create the starting shapes. After you expand these smoke letters, you will learn how to edit and stylize them using the Appearance panel.

Using simple shapes and a bunch of warp effects along with the Appearance panel, you will learn how to add a joint to your smoke logo design. Finally, you will learn how to add a subtle shadow and a simple background to complete this weed logo design.

If you don’t have the time to learn how to create your own cannabis logo, you can always try Envato Elements, where you will find a massive collection of weed logos. You can find everything from dispensary logos to smoke cloud logos, 420 cartoons, and 420 images. Or you can explore a cannabis logo maker as well! Here’s a nice cannabis logo that you can easily edit and recolor:

Prefer video tutorials instead? Why don’t you take a look at this new video from the Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel? Learn how to make a cool weed logo design by following this video tutorial:

What You’ll Learn in This 420 Logo Design Tutorial

How to use a smoke letters font
How to create a joint design
How to create a smoke vector logo

What You Will Need

You will need this font that looks like smoke to complete this 420 logo design :

Cotton Cloud smoke font

1. How to Create a New Document and Set Up a Grid

Hit Control-N to create a new document. Select Pixels from the Units drop-down menu, set the Width to 850 px and the Height to 600 px, and then click that Advanced Options button. Select RGB for the Color Mode and set the Raster Effects to Screen (72 ppi), and then click the Create button.

Enable the Grid (View > Show Grid or Control-“) and Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid or Shift-Control-“). You will need a grid every 5 px, so simply go to Edit > Preferences > Guides & Grid, and enter 5 in the Gridline every box and 1 in the Subdivisions box. Try not to get discouraged by all that grid—it will make your work easier, and keep in mind that you can easily enable or disable it using the Control-“ keyboard shortcut.

You can learn more about Illustrator’s grid system in this short tutorial from Andrei Stefan: Understanding Adobe Illustrator’s Grid System.

You should also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview of the size and position of your shapes. Don’t forget to set the unit of measurement to pixels from Edit > Preferences > Units. All these options will significantly increase your work speed. Now that you’re set, let’s see how you can create a smoke vector logo.

2. How to Create the Smoke Letters

Step 1

Select the Type Tool (T) from your toolbar and then focus on the control panel or the Character panel (Window > Type > Character). Select the Cotton Cloud Smoke font and set the size to 275 pt, and then click on your artboard and type in “420.” (don’t forget that point at the end).

Once you’re done, go to Type > Create Outlines to turn your text into vector shapes. Press Shift-Control-G to Ungroup your resulting group of shapes, and set the fill color to R=19 G=41 B=15.

Step 2

Use the Selection Tool (V) to select the “4” shape and add a copy in front (Control-C > Control-F).

Keep this copy selected and switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A). Use it to select one of the outside anchor points, press the Delete key once to remove the selected anchor point, and then press it one more time to remove the rest of the points that make up the outside of your shape.

Select the remaining shape that now fills your “4” and replace the fill color with R=241 G=251 B=255.

Step 3

Move to the other numbers and use the same technique to add the fill shapes. When you get to the “0”, remember to delete the shape highlighted in the second image.

In the end, things should look like in the third image. Have a look in the Layers panel (Window > Layers), and you should have four shapes for the outline of each number and another four for the fill.

Step 4

Let’s focus solely on the numbers for now. Select just the outline shapes and turn them into a single compound path (Object > Compound Path > Make or Control-8).

Continue with the tree shapes that fill your numbers, select them, and turn them into another compound path. Move to the Layers panel and make sure that this second compound path lies below the first one.

Step 5

Make sure that the compound path which fills your numbers is still selected and focus on the Appearance panel (Window > Appearance). Select the existing fill and go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Set the Offset to -4 px, click OK, and then go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Drag both Move sliders to 6 px, which will move your selected fill 6 px down and 6 px to the right, and then click OK.

Return to the Appearance panel and use that Add New Fill button to add a second fill for your selected compound path. Select this new fill, drag it below the existing one, and set its color to white (R=255 G=255 B=255).

Step 6

Make sure that your compound path remains selected and keep focusing on the Appearance panel. Select the stroke and set the color to R=186 G=213 B=242, and then click that Stroke text to open the Stroke fly-out panel. Increase the Weight to 10 pt, and don’t forget to select Width Profile 1 from the bottom drop-down menu.

Step 7

Pick the Ellipse Tool (L) and use it to create several circles and ellipses, as shown in the following image. Fill all of these shapes with R=166 G=223 B=232.

Step 8

Select all the shapes made in the previous step and focus on the Appearance panel. Add a second fill and set its color to white, and then go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Set the Offset to -3 px, click OK, and then go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Just drag that Move-Vertical slider to -3 px and click OK.

Return to the Appearance panel to select the stroke, set its color to R=19 G=41 B=15, and increase the Weight to 4 pt.

Step 9

Make sure that all your circles and ellipses are still selected and go to Effect > Warp > Flag. Check that Horizontal box and drag the Bend slider to 3%, and then click OK to apply the effect.

Step 10

Move to that point shape, select the shape that fills it, and focus on the Appearance panel.

Select the existing fill and go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Set the Offset to -3 px, click OK, and then go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Drag both Move sliders to 2 px and click OK.

Return to the Appearance panel to add a second fill for your shape, drag it below the existing one, and set its color to white.

Step 11

Select the outline and the fill shape that make up your point and press Control-G to Group them. Use the Selection Tool (V) to move this group as shown in the first image, and then go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the settings shown in the following image and click OK.

Using the Selection Tool (V), click and drag this group while holding Alt to add a copy. Place it roughly as shown in the second image, and use the bounding box to rotate it 90 degrees.