The logo I created closely mirrors the sketch I drew by hand. I struggled a lot to try to figure out a logo design that I felt good about. My inspiration came from logos you might see on motorsports gear and equipment. I knew that I wanted a silhouette of a bike with some text, but I didn’t want to make the design too simple. So I decided I needed a good background. The style of motorcycle shown is a dual-sport, so when I was designing the logo, I knew that I wanted to reflect that the bike is useful in more than one environment, both on-road and off-road.
I divided the square into two halves and used basic shapes to create either side of the image. One thing I struggled with here was adding color. In the final draft, I definitely want to add color to the logo. I will probably keep the bike silhouette and the stroke black while changing the roadway and mountains to a different color.
When it actually came to drawing the logo on Illustrator, I originally tried to trace a photo of a bike using the pen tool. I quickly realized that this would be a long process and that the result would be disappointing and hardly worth the effort. I opted instead to try using basic shapes to build an abstract model. This took some time but I ended up with a decent piece. In the final draft I’m definitely going to fix this because it’s really rough. I feel like if I were to place another photo, then lay shapes over top of it, I might end up with a more realistic looking model. After creating the bike, I grouped the objects and moved it over to the square.
Overall, I think the logo is coming along well, but I do have some major improvements in mind.
Dan's Moto Blog 
Dan, your logo looks very good. For creating all the shapes originally, you did a great job creating all the different parts.
I would recommend going back and cleaning up some of the points where the lines intersect with each other. Adjust the end of the lines so it doesn’t look like they are going past each other. As well adjusting the mountain range to be straight, so it doesn’t look like the mountain tops pointing at an angle (unless you want them to be angled that way).
One more recommendation I have is to incorporate one color into the logo to make it stand out more. This could be added to the either the mountain background or to the road. Also, changing the font of the text to a “rough” style to make it match the theme of your logo. I feel the current font does not go along with the design.
Overall, the logo looks great! With a few adjustments and adding a color, it will bring it together.
I hope these tips helped!
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In my final draft I plan to improve the look of my motorcycle silhouette by tracing an image instead of just creating one from shapes. I originally tried tracing one with the pen tool, but this became complicated because I got caught up in the detail. I think that if I tried again I would go about the task by focusing on the outline and general shape of the image rather than getting caught in the details. I also want to refine the background detail such as the mountains and the roadway. They are a bit rough at the moment so spending a few minutes touching them up would definitely pay off. A second improvement I would make is to add color to the image to make it stand out. I’m not exactly sure how I will do this but I think possibly changing the color of the bike to contrast with the background might be cool.
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