Re-drawing logo

[daniellemarie]

Hi guys,
I need some help with re-drawing this logo in Illustrator and making it a vector image. I've attempted a fair few times now but can't seem to get it looking right! Any help would be very much appreciated

Thanks

[iamtheblues]

Welcome to the forum, daniellemarie. Hand tracing the letters with the pen tool is one way, but unless you are proficient with the pen tool, it could be difficult and time-consuming.
The lettering looks done by hand, and there is probably not a font you could use.
In Illustrator there is a Bitmap Tracer, which I think is the best way to do this. The results are vector with the bitmap tracer and look pretty reasonable.
Place your logo into Illustrator, click on the Live Trace button, then click the Expand button.
Saludos,
Bob.

[daniellemarie]

Thank you very much Bob! That was definitely of great help, could I ask what settings you have your Live Trace on as I followed your instructions but mine didn't turn out as good as yours!

Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated

Danielle

[iamtheblues]

In the drop-down box to the right of the Live Trace button, select “Tracing Options...” the dialogue box (attached) opens. Use the settings shown. I’ve highlighted the changes.
If you check the Output to Swatches box, you can use the swatch to adjust any colours in the trace that are incorrect to one of the three colours in the original logo.
After the trace has been done, you will have to click on the "Expand" button, then in the Object Menu choose “Ungroup” so that the imperfections can be selected and corrected from the swatch.
The higher the quality of your original .jpg file, the more accurate the result will be.
Saludos,
Bob.

[Albacore]

Bob likes Live Trace in Illy where I am not a great fan so the way that I would do it would be to get a font that nearly fits the bill.
You might want to change the tracking but since your are going to change the font to "Outlines" it seems hardly worth the bother.
One you have done that lock the bitmap in a layer.
Bring each letter on top of its corresponding shape on the bitmap.
Use the "Direct Selection Tool" and modify the shape and outline of the letter to get the desired shape.
Do this for all the letters.
Create one rectangle to the size that fits over the word TANK and then using the arrange menu move it backwards using (Ctrl+[) until its in the correct postion.
You might want to use the Pathfinder Tool on the word TANK to make it all one shape.

I think this method is fairly straight forward giving you the logo. If you use the trace function you may well have to do the same as I have described for each letter using the Direct Selection Tool to clean up the tracing. Please remember if the tracing give you many points it is very easy to simplify these points using the Object-Path-Simplify and tick Preview to reduce the number of points. The sketch here took just under 10 mins to do.