Shlomi Fish’s Art - Back to my Homepage

As you can see I wanted to create a logo not unlike the one used for the film Back to the Future (See the Film’s poster for example, or search Google) - only saying “Back to my Homepage” instead. I also decided to use the cyan-to-blue gradient, instead of the yellow-to-red one, which is used in the original logo, because I felt it was nicer to the eye in this context.

The logo was created in the following steps using Corel-Draw:

1. The letters of the plain message were placed in their appropriate positions and sizes.
2. The Arrow to the right of the K was added.
3. The entire model was merged, and then an envelope effect was added in order to create the arc to the right.
4. I applied perspective to the arrangement.
5. It was then filled with a gradient.

Now for some details:

I used the font Futura XBlkIt BT for the letters (I think it ships with Corel-Draw, or at least version 4 of it.) Each of the three parts of the message: the “Back”, the “to my” and the “homepage” had to be drawn in a different size so it will all fit together nicely.

The arrow was first manually drawn using Corel-Draws grid, but then it was adjusted to the K using the program’s node and line editting facility. A lot of black labour, but then again, I’m not a very experienced art designer.

Merging the model involved grouping it, and from then on Corel-Draw knew how to apply the various effects on it as if it were a real object.

After the arrangement was complete, I used the envelope effect to make the right and left border-lines into right-adjusted arcs. The final step was applying a perspective to it.

Afterwards, all I had to do was to fill it with a horizontal gradient and add a silverish border. The gradient involved going from blue at the top to cyan at the middle and then to blue again at the bottom.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t apply the gradient when the image was in the non-effected state, and then see it shape with the perspective. (at least not on Corel-Draw 4.0 which I used to create this piece.) That’s one of the advantages of working with a bitmap graphics program such as the GIMP. But I doubt I could have applied the envelope effect there with the same ease.

The file “bk2hp.cdr”, contains the Corel-Draw 4.0 source of this image. This image and its source are distributed under the public domain, but please note that the font which I used is copyrighted.

The concept may also be copyrighted since it’s a direct rip-off of the Back to the Future one. I did not receive any angry threats from the producers’ lawyers yet, and I probably won’t, but since I am not a lawyer, its legal status in this regard is unclear to me, and may vary from location to location.