Using Illustrator CS3 Live Trace to Create a Logo

BellaOnline has a new project which is a literary review magazine. We decided on the name BeMused. A Muse is a classical Greek goddess who embodies the arts. We needed a new logo for the cover for the magazine and I decided to try my hand at creating a Muse. Most of the reference images I found were of women in classical Greek clothing and flowing hair. So I decided to make the subject of the logo her face and hair. I also wanted the image to not reflect any particular race or color. So the best choice would be a transparent face with only the details such as hair, eyes and mouth in dark gray. There are many ways to do this in both Photoshop^R and Illustrator^R. I decided to use Illustrator CS3 and the Live Trace feature.

Although the logo would only be one color, I wanted it to have some detail. So I decided to create a full color image in Illustrator and then experiment with the Live Trace feature to reduce the image to a single color logo. I used the Pen tool to draw the full color image. I drew basic shapes and then transformed them to my needs.

I started by blocking out the face and neck with the Pen tool which was set to a flesh colored fill and no stroke color.
I drew the mouth with a darker fill color and no stroke color.
I added the white of the eye, the blue of the iris and the black pupil.

Now I switched to a black stoke color and no fill color for the Pen tool.
I added the black curved line above the eye for the base of the lashes. The lashes were a good exercise in drawing curves.
Going back to no stroke color and a brown fill color, I added the brow.

I copied all of this and reversed it for the other eye.