Alt3rn4tiv3's Tech Blog

If you ever had headaches creating logos before, you’d probably have tried running a query through Google - “logo creator” or “logo maker” or something like that. Two of the top online creators that are predominant in the first page are LogoMaker and InstaLogo.

Let’s make a logo in one of them -

To download your logo, you’d need to pay $39. Great marketing idea, really. You see your product right in front of your eyes and you’re a mere $39 from getting it. Damn it, where’s that “Print Screen” button?

It is at this juncture where you realize that there’s a grid behind your lovely logo, which acts like a (very bad implementation of a) watermark. Oh no. Your plan has been foiled! Not!

Courtesy of my brother -
Looking closely at the colour of the grid, you’ll realize that it’s just one colour, without any gradient or anything - #eceef2. Loading it into Photoshop, we are able to use the “Replace Colour” function -

Select the colour in the grid line and set the “Lightness” to 100% -

Grid lines gone!

The setback for users is that you can’t use colours that are the same as the grid lines while creating the logo. However, that isn’t a problem because you can set those colours in Photoshop.

Now, I’m not asking you to use this and cheat these companies of money. I’m just showing you a flaw in their otherwise-perfect marketing strategy. And also, I’m telling you what not to do so that you don’t get cheated in the same way, in a similar context.

So, what should you do?
1. Use gradients for grid lines
2. Use watermarks with a high z-index (i.e. above the logo)

Hope you learnt something