A simple Transform trick and your on your way to creating endless custom shapes for reuse in your projects, or simply experiment to your hearts content to create that perfect logo.

  1. Set Foreground color to your preference. (I used black)
  2. Select the Custom Shape Tool.
  3. Set ‘Shape Layers’ Options Bar feature.
  4. Select any custom shape from the preset picker.
Create your own Custom Exotic Shapes
Next, hit the ‘Ctrl + Alt + T’ keys on the active ‘Shape 1’ layer to begin the Transform, as indicated by the bounding handlers below.
Create your own Custom Exotic Shapes
Click and drag INWARD from any of the corner handler/anchor points, as captured below, then hit the ‘Enter/Return’ key to commit.
Create your own Custom Exotic Shapes
  1. Switch to the ‘Path Selection Tool’
  2. Set the Options Bar ‘Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas’ feature (encircled in red) to create a knockout, as captured below..
Create your own Custom Exotic Shapes
With the Path Selection Tool still active, click and drag from upper left to lower right to select both paths. In doing so you should see a static marquee selection as captured below, and all anchor points will be highlighted as a result.
Create your own Custom Exotic Shapes
Now that all anchor points are selected, Ctrl + T to get to the Transform handlers again. Resize inward and rotate just slightly, as I have captured below, then hit the ‘Enter/Return’ key to commit.
Create your own Custom Exotic Shapes

Finally, hit the ‘Shift + Ctrl + Alt + T’ multiple times to repeat the last transform, and the below is the effect.

Create your own Custom Exotic Shapes

Experiment with other preset shapes for 1000’s of various effects using the above transform technique. Other examples:

Create your own Custom Exotic Shapes

Refer to ‘Adding Custom Shapes to the Preset Collection‘ tutorial for more details.