Today marks the debut of one of Deke’s most impeccably crafted courses to date, Creating and Adapting a Logo, in which he follows the process of developing, creating, and adapting a logo for a fictional space transport service.

For the “brainstorming” part of the process, Deke partnered with the imaginative, talented, and (in this case) prolific Danielle Fritz, who created these 45 sketches of possible ideas for Frontiers Unlimited:

There’s a free movie in which Deke discusses his review of this amazing collection, considering each idea and how it conveys the company’s brand objectives of Magic, Excitement, Prestige, and Safety. Check out this unlocked movie to hear about Deke’s initial reflections. (Bonus tip here: How to use Photoshop’s “counting” feature to enumerate these images for easier collaborative discussion.)

The follow up movie (exclusive to lynda.com members) takes you visually through Deke’s development process. Here are all the stops (including a few internal bits of advice) along the way:

(If you’re not a member of lynda.com, and would like to check this movie out, you can get a free 10-day trial at lynda.com/deke to check it out.)

Once you’ve got membership in hand, you can also check out this video about choosing the perfect, consistent, reliable Pantone spot colors to convey your company’s message:

If you’re not yet ready to subscribe (or take advantage of your free 10 days), there’s another great unlocked movie in which Deke shows you how to load the spot colors into the Swatches panel, and then apply them to different shape areas in the logo:

In the end, you’ll see how this process goes from the sketching brainstorm, through thoughtful color and type selection, and on to the creation of useful variations, including a horizontal variation and one that incorporates photographic elements. Along the way, you’ll learn valuable Illustrator and Photoshop skills that you can put to use in your own projects, logo or otherwise.