[davwms]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

TotalEnds, while you may not want to delve particularly deep into Photoshop, there is one thing you could learn which would really give you a lot more creative options, and is something which is relatively easy to use: Layer Styles.

These were introduced in Photoshop 7, and are pretty darn amazing. I assume you're aleady using layers to compose your logos, and if so, then using layer styles is a natural follow-up.

For your New York Knights, for example, you'd have "Knights" on the top layer and the "NY" on the middle layer, with the bottom layer being the grey background. With the two type elements each on their own layer and rasterized (that is, converted from text into pixels via the Layer > Rasterize option), you can then use Layer Styles.

All you have to do is select the layer you want to add a style to, then go to Layer > Layer Style and select the particular style you want. Among the choices are drop shadow, inner glow, outer glow, and bevel and emboss. Once added to a layer you'll see the results immediately, and you can add more than one effect to a single layer. Best of all, layer styles are completely editable.

There are a lot of various options available for each layer style, but just play around with them and you'll quickly see what each does. Layer Styles work quite nicely with type, so they go well with the straightforward type-based logos you're building.

Anyway, try 'em out!

Actually, I don't think that you need to rasterize the layer first.. I use layer styles with text all the time.. and it looks like he used them with his logos already.. Looks like he used STROKE to me..