Hi everyone and sorry if I seem a bit rushed or scared but it's because I am... both rushed and somehow scared

I hired a freelancer to create a logo for one of my clients and the freelancer can't be reached anymore (I have no idea why, he just went offline yesterday after he gave me the files for my logo).

Anyway, long story short I have some .ai files and a few .pngs and I need to make some small modifications to them before I deliver the logo to my client and I don't know how to make these modifications or where to start.

I have about 12 hours before I deliver the logo in its final state and being so pressed by time I don't have the mental strength and motivation to start learning inkscape (it's the free program I found in google to be dealing with .ai files) in such a short time.

So again (sorry for digressing) I need to make these small modifications (change a color, a font type, maybe the position of a line, etc) to my logo in the next 10-12 hours and I don't know where to start or what to do exactly as I have never been into designing and inkscape (just like any other designing tool) looks very intimidating to me.

Can I please get a few tips (in the dumbest-proof way possible) on how exactly to edit the elements in the file? By the way, which file do I need to work on - the .ai or .png? I already opened a .png but I can't separate the elements (lines from text, items, etc) to work with each one individually and when I opened an .ai file inkscape crashed

Again, if you know what I must do and can share the knowledge, then I'm all ears.

Thanks and I look forward to your replies

John

Hello there!
Can't say much more than good luck as you didn't provide at least a screenshot of your design.
You should work on the .ai files.

Chooosing the right font is about half the design...
Or designing a custom logotype can be alone a logo.
Without a good backround in such area there is not much chance to end up with a good one in that short time.
There are some consideration that you will have to think of:
if you want the logo to be copyrighted, you will have to buy a font with the right licence.
If you don't have such, you could have issues with other companies that might want to sue the costumer.
If you use an open font, the logotype will hardly get a copyright protection.

Changing the colour is as important as the font.
If you don't have a right visual concept, you can't choose the right colour.
And, even if you choose one, the customer may want to print it, so
there might be problems of providing cymk files or files with pms colours.

Thanks for the tips. I will start with the ai file then and see if I know how to make the modifications myself.

Also, you have lost me after the "choosing the right font..." I have no idea what you're talking about copyrighting and suing consumers and stuff, nor do I care about all these at the moment

I just want to finish the logo and deliver it. That's all. It already has fonts, items, colors and everything, I only need to change the color of a shape and the color of the fonts.

oh man, you're sure in a rough spot, so sorry!
Are you trying to re-create the logo in Inkscape yourself - in 12 hours? not sure you could learn and also draw in that time, but good luck, we'll help if we can. I would recommend that you find an AI person real quick, (p.s. if Lazur above knows both program, maybe you can contact him via PM here and work out a deal), there may be a handful of people on here that know both programs, but, being an Inkscape forum, it might be hard to find someone who will come on and see this thread that quickly. Best to post the file (I see that you are new here, BTW - welcome, sorry it's a bad time for you) - you could do a screen post as suggested above, or upload it on a hosting site (Image Shack, Drop box, etc), then come back here and post the link.
Your first few msgs here get moderated, so you may not be able to directly add an attachment on here right now. You didn't say that the person gave you the svg file, that's the issue I see, because Inkscape can handle an svg file, but not an AI file to my knowledge. If it's a fairly uncomplicated design maybe one of us could re-create it. I really hope you can get ahold of the creator, and at least get an svg file.

Hi

flamingolady;

because Inkscape can handle an svg file, but not an AI file to my knowledge.

Best way to edit an AI file is to rename it as PDF.
Then open in Inkscape.

Cut from earlier post about palettes;
For an example; see this page; http://all-free-download.com/free-vector/vector-misc/palette_vector_162516.html
It contains a vector image as an Adobe Illustrator file;
To use in inkscape; - Download the Zip file - Unzip - Rename the palette_vector.ai file to palette_vector.pdf
Open the PDF file with Inkscape and save as SVG. ( Please don't tell anyone how easy it is to "convert" an AI file!! )
Result - as SVG file;

Right-Click image to download.

Good Luck - It's amazing what you can do when the pressure is on!
RGDS
Ragnar

flamingolady wrote:oh man, you're sure in a rough spot, so sorry!
Are you trying to re-create the logo in Inkscape yourself - in 12 hours? not sure you could learn and also draw in that time, but good luck, we'll help if we can. I would recommend that you find an AI person real quick, (p.s. if Lazur above knows both program, maybe you can contact him via PM here and work out a deal), there may be a handful of people on here that know both programs, but, being an Inkscape forum, it might be hard to find someone who will come on and see this thread that quickly. Best to post the file (I see that you are new here, BTW - welcome, sorry it's a bad time for you) - you could do a screen post as suggested above, or upload it on a hosting site (Image Shack, Drop box, etc), then come back here and post the link.
Your first few msgs here get moderated, so you may not be able to directly add an attachment on here right now. You didn't say that the person gave you the svg file, that's the issue I see, because Inkscape can handle an svg file, but not an AI file to my knowledge. If it's a fairly uncomplicated design maybe one of us could re-create it. I really hope you can get ahold of the creator, and at least get an svg file.

Hi and thanks for the welcome. Yeah, I am in a somehow bad position and I really don't know what to do. Luckily, the logo is almost ready. Actually it is already created and sent to me - like I said - in the form of .ai and .png files.

I only need to change the color for a shape and the outline of the text, and that's about it, which I assume won't be so hard to do since it's basic actions. But then, what do I know about log design since I never dealt with this before?

Also, I won't contact anyone with regards to this, not because I don't want to but because I can't afford paying anyone at the moment. Which is another reason I am so stressed. If I had the money I would have probably hired another freelancer to modify it for me real quick.

Anyway, here's the logo (if it still matters) http://postimg.org/image/e64lc0sav/

What I wanted to do was simply change the green line/shape to royal blue, and outline the entire text with orange color.

You can change the colours with better luck on the ai files.
Rename them as pdf-s, open with inkscape,
use the node editor tool -press F2 for it- to select the parts by clicking on them you want to add new colour.
When selected, press Ctrl+Shift+F for the fill panel, and set any colour.
After the work is done, press F1 or space and save work as pdf.

For the png-s, press Ctrl+Backspace until you can read a layer at the bottom box and not a group.
Then, select all by pressing Ctrl+A, and export to bitmap through the panel, called by Shift+Ctrl+E.

HA!

I can't believe I'm making progress

Here's what my newbie modifications turned the logo into (which is what I wanted it to look like anyway)

http://postimg.org/image/xxkijdwb7/

You know, this program's really not that hard to use. You just need to know the basics indeed. And the pressure... the pressure of delivering on schedule, it's always downletting if you're not master of your domain.

Anyway, thanks for the help fellow inkscapers

yay for you! Nice to see that you were able to deliver, and with the needed changes! (and without having to pay another person)! That's another reason why it's good to ask here - we're cheap/free, lol.
Hope you'll think about learning Inkscape, it is not hard to learn like you said, at least the basics aren't hard, and there are so many tuts on YouTube, plus the resources here, that you can't miss (and why pay someone else to do the design you've created...).

Thank you

And I think I'll play a little with the program indeed

Nice to hear you actually reached your goal.

Here is a list on what to avoid at logo designing -for future projects-:
http://www.graphicdesignblender.com/22-logo-design-mistakes-you-might-be-guilty-of
and some more good advices:
http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo-design-tips/
After reading them through you will find at least half dozen mistakes in that design you better avoided.

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