To create logos in FM2010 is the same as FM2009, there is no difference to the style of the default logos I’ve just rewritten this guide to clean it up.
Preparing your Image
Before you can start creating logos you first need to prepare your images. To create logos your image needs to have a transparent background and the canvas needs to be cropped to the image.
In the below screenshot the left hand image is a prepared image as you can see it is cropped and the background is transparent, whereas the right hand image isn’t prepared, whilst it is cropped it has a white background that you don’t want showing in the game:
The steps taken to prepare your image depend on the state and format of the image you are using, these two guides show you how to prepare the common images you’ll obtain over the internet:
Starting with vector format files
Starting with jpeg/gif/png files
(Whilst they are for FM08 images, those parts still apply, and if you are using a program other than photoshop you’ll need to translate the dialog boxes for your program.)
Now you have cleaned up and cropped your images, I suggest you save the file to save you having to do it all again – save the files as png-24 files with the transparency option enabled.
Creating Football Manager Logos with the Photoshop Action File.
The only real change from FM08 is the small logos in FM09 and FM10 they are now 25x18 pixels, however the only time you now need to use the small-wide action is when the width/height ratio of your logo is greater than 1.388, if it is less than this use the standard action.
There should be four actions included in the file you can download further down the page:
All_standard - will create the background_left, background_right logos as well as standard sized logos for the normal and small logos.
small - will create the new FM09 sized small logo (handy for when you just need to update the small logo from FM08)
Wide-Normal - will create a wide version of the normal logo, for logos that are wider than they are tall.
Wide-Small - will create a wide version of the small logo, to be used when the width/height ratio is greater than 1.388.(25/18)
1. To open the action file just drag and drop it into Photoshop, whilst Photoshop is open. Or double-click it and it should open Photoshop.
2. Next you’ll need to pick somewhere to save the created graphics to on your Hard Drive, I’d select somewhere that can easily be found.
3. Once you have picked a location, create four new folders and call them background_left, background_right, normal and small. One for each type of logo. (For FM10 the huge and normal logos are from the same image, but with different config files).
4. Now you’ll need to edit the action file so that the export location corresponds to your chosen location.
5. First open any image in Photoshop, something small but it’s not important what.
6. In the actions panel Click on the small arrow > to the left of the action All_standard, so it expands the action, now scroll down until you find the first Export Command.
7. Double click on the Export Command and the Save For Web Dialog box should appear, now the file type you have to select is PNG-24, and also tick the Interlaced and Transparency boxes, click save and then select the location for the background_right folder you created earlier.
8. Now repeat for the other three logo types, next one will be the background_left logo, then normal and finally small.
9. You’ll also need to fix the Export command for the other 3 actions.
10. Now to run the action, open an image in Photoshop, select the All_standard action and tick the green arrow at the bottom of the actions panel. Photoshop will now create and save each of the logo types to the folders you picked earlier.
11. Alternatively if you have a complete folder that you want processing goto File -> Automate -> Batch. Under Set select FM09_standard and under Action select the action you want to perform. Under Source select Folder (unless you have opened all the images you want), then select Choose and browse to folder that the logos are located in. Select OK to run the action. Now just wait for the action to finish.
12. After the action has finished, browse through the completed logos to make sure they turned out fine.
13. For any image that is wider than it is tall you’ll have to run the Wide-Normal Action after running the All_standard action to replace the Normal logo. (You don’t need to replace the background logos).
14. For any image that has a width/height ratio greater than 1.388, you'll need to run the Wide-Small Action after running the All_Standard action to replace the small logo.
15. And that’s it, now all you need to do is make the config files, and put them into you User Data Folder.
Download the FM Logos Action File
Creating Football Manager Logos Manually
If you don’t have photoshop (or just want to know the manual steps) you can still create logos, though making the background logos is a little harder.
You should be able to use any image editing program as long as it supports transparent images – free alternatives are paint.net and The GIMP. (Adobe also normally offer a free trial of Photoshop, which may be handy if you are only going to create logos once).
Huge/Normal Logos
The Image Size needs to have a max. Dimension of 180 pixels – tall logos give a height of 180 pixels, wide ones a width of 180 pixels, the other dimension doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t exceed 180 pixels.
To save the file ensure you save it as a png file, with transparency enabled.
Small Logos
The Image needs to have a max. Height of 18 pixels and a max. Width of 25 pixels. Again depending on the logo set either the height or width dimension.
Next we need to set the Canvas size, the canvas needs to have a Height of 18 pixels and a width of 25 pixels, with your logo centred. You will have already have set one of these at the resize stage, now we set the other one.
To save the file ensure you save it as a png file, with transparency enabled.
Background Right
First we give the Image a Height of 200 pixels.
Second we set the canvas to have a width of 170 pixels and a height of 100 pixels, with the image centred (don’t worry if the canvas is smaller than the image, this is what we want).
Third we now expand the Canvas Width to 300 pixels, with the logo attached to the right of the canvas.
Now we apply a Gradient to the image, now depending on what program you are using your instructions will be different, but what we want is a gradient applied horizontal to ~135 pixels from left of the image, it needs to be linear with dither, transparency, and reversed. So what you want is for a wide image to be faded to transparency on the left (such as the competition logo for the English Blue Square Premier Division in the game).
So with the gradient set we now reduce the Opacity of the logo to 10%.
Finally we save the image as always as a png file, with transparency enabled.
Background Left
Creating the left background logo is largely the same as the right one, we just change the side of the canvas we stick the logo to and the direction of the gradient.
First we give the Image a Height of 200 pixels.
Second we set the canvas to have a width of 170 pixels and a height of 100 pixels, with the image centred (don’t worry if the canvas is smaller than the image, this is what we want).
Third we now expand the Canvas Width to 300 pixels, with the logo attached to the left of the canvas.
Now we apply a Gradient to the image, now depending on what program you are using your instructions will be different, but what we want is a gradient applied horizontal to ~135 pixels from the right of the image, it needs to be linear with dither, transparency, and reversed. So what you want is for a wide image to be faded to transparency on the right (such as the competition logo for the English Blue Square Premier Division in the game).
So with the gradient set we now reduce the Opacity of the logo to 10%.
Finally we save the image as always as a png file, with transparency enabled.