Adobe Tutorial: Recreating the “X”

Since I saw the “X” for our beloved OS on shuffle’s cover back in March 2007, I wanted to recreate it. I checked Michael Wagner’s site to see if a tutorial is available but I got lost after few url clicks. Well It wasn’t hard at all to redo the logo with black background and light drop, here you can do it just as well.

STEP ONE
Create a new document with a size of 500 x 500 pixels. Let it be a 72 pixel/inch, RGB and white background.

STEP TWO
Type letter X in the centre of your canvas, it needs a crisp sans serif font to do this effect. I used Myriad Pro, Semibold, size 400pt, and black.

STEP THREE
From the menu Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow, enter shown figures for distance, spread and size. Don’t press OK button yet.

STEP FOUR
Then click on the Gradient Overlay (click on text itself not the check box), from Style drop menu choose Radial, since we want white colour in centre and black on the edges, tick the reverse check box (make sure you have white on the left and black on right). Scale up the gradient effect by dragging the slider up to 134%. Don’t press OK button yet.

STEP FIVE
Click on Stroke at the bottom of left pane (the stroke word not its check box) change stroke size to 1pixel, Position it on the centre, and click on the colour swatch box to open a new window choose white colour for stroke, click OK and click the main OK button to close Style window.

STEP SIX
Fill background layer with Black by clicking once on the background layer, from the menu Edit > Fill, from the “Use” drop list choose Black, then click OK.

STEP SEVEN
Create new layer in between background and the X layer. Select Elliptical Marquee tool to draw a circular selection in the centre of your canvas. The selection should match the amount of white on the X layer. Fill this selection with white colour, and name this layer “drop light”.

STEP EIGHT
Keep drop light layer selected, visit the menu Filter > Gaussian Blur then drag the Radius slider up to 8 pixels, press OK. Reduce drop light layer’s opacity to 75% from the top of your Layers Palette.

STEP NINE
Duplicate the layer X by selecting it first then from the menu Layer > Duplicate Layer, and accept default settings. Now we need to convert the X type into drawing in order to apply brushed metal effect. Choose X copy layer and from menu Layer > Rasterize > Type

STEP TEN
Stay on the X copy layer, right-click/Ctrl-click on the right side of this layer, and select “Clear Layer Style” from the drop list to remove any copied style. This time we shall lock the layer’s transparent areas to apply visual effects only on the filled area. On the upper left side of Layers Palette, click on the first square that shows a checkered board symbol.

STEP ELEVEN
While still on the X copy layer, from menu Filter > Noise > Add Noise enter 100% from Amount, then choose Distribution: Gaussian, then click on the Monochromatic check box.

STEP TWELVE
On the X copy layer, enter menu Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and change values to Angle: 0, Distance 10 pixels, press OK. Reduce X copy layer opacity to 13%.

by Zaid Al-Hilali

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