CAP111 Tut Ornam

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Computer Arts Projects_June 2008 www.computerarts.co.uk

44 Project two Decorative fonts

Illustrator CS3

Create acustom typeillustration

Whether youredesigning lettering for a

print headline or a t-shirtlogo,Jeremy Pettisshares some essentialtechniques for creatinga striking ornamentaltype illustration

When asked to create an ornamental type illustration,I had a vision of horrid cheap club flyers and MySpace graphics.

So, my first advice is to put away your ornamental dingbats andEPS libraries and start your custom type from scratch.In this project, Ill show you how, with preparation and

planning, a word can be manipulated to interact within itselfornamentally. Here you can see the finished design, and over thepage Ill walk you through the process. These ideas will help andinspire you to start creating your own type illustration, without theuse of Photoshop filters to twist your words and add flourishes.

Inspiration and patience are the main ingredientsneeded. So, before you begin, get down to the library and read somedesign annuals from 1960-1984. Also check out some typographypools on Flickr to see what other designers have been creating.

DesignerJeremy Pettis wasborn and raised inthe Midwest of theUSA.As seniordesigner atDesignScout,Pettisdesigns everythingfrom apparel linesto coffee shopcollateral.Inspiredas a kid by graffiti

under bridges,and

SkillsSketching andtracingOffset Path andPathfinderSmoothtransitioning3D effects andgradients

01First, some general advice. Think ofyour word as a puzzle and eachletter as a piece. You must find theright combination of letter styles

and kerning to make your puzzle fittogether. Everything should appearin a particular place that makessense with the rest of the letters.

02

The pieces of your puzzle mustrelate to each other but not beexact duplicates. Try to set upstandards for the various piecesof your letters. For instance, mycapital A has a descender on thefirst stem with a barbed hook atthe end. I also applied this stylingto the arm of the R.

comics by RobertCrumb,Pettis hasbeen experimentingwith type for most ofhis life.See more ofhis work at www.

jeremypettis.com.If youd like help orfeedback on yourown custom type,send a screenshotto mrpettis@

gmail.com.

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www.computerarts.co.uk June 2008_Computer Arts Projects

05I have always stood by the saying

less is more. This definitely appliesto flourishes. Generally the flourish

is an attention-grabbing featurethat really defines the piece asbeing ornamental. Think about

how many flourishes you need, andwhat their purpose or function is.

Here, I used the flourishes to unifythe beginning and end of the word.

03

What youre making is a vectorgraphic that can be scaled to

virtually any size. Subtle detailscan make or break your piece, so

try not to let any misaligned pathsor jagged edges remain in your

final piece. Use the Outline view(Ctrl+Y or Cmnd+Y) to see only the

shapes of your work. Errors willusually appear a little darker.

04

My college professor, Dale Shidler,taught me that using onecontrasting element grabs the

viewers attention and producesintrigue. In this piece, I used a

flourish that visually crops piecesoff all of the letters (particularly

the A and R). This was a good wayto break out of the tightly knit

group of characters.

Custom type illustration 45

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03Scan your sketch into Illustrator orkeep it handy for reference. Try notto trace your drawing exactlybecause the final work is going tobe much tighter. Determine whichpieces of your type are going to bemulti-purpose before you startusing the Pen tool. I started withthe stems of the straight letters,Option-dragging them into theirgeneral positions. This would

also be a good time to settle on anx-height, baseline and any otherguides youd like to follow.

04

Make sure that your letters havethe same visual weight bysquinting and seeing how darkeach letter appears to be. Withsome earlier versions of thisillustration my execution of the Ascrossbar made it way too heavy incomparison to the other letters. Iended up using a chunk of the R.

05

Every time you get a new idea, tryit. But duplicate all of your work byunlocking it and then Option-dragging it off the art board. If youridea fails, dont delete it because itmight be useful later. Dont beafraid to scrap everything andstart over it may be scary, butyoull always come back stronger.

01

Always start working on paperunless youre basing your designon an existing font. In that case youcan set the type in Illustrator, print

it, then trace the base letters. Butremember, the results are alwaysmore interesting when you startfrom scratch.

02

Dont bother thinking about whichcolours youll be using at this stage.Your work must function in black-and-white perfectly before anycolour can be applied.

01

02

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Write down the exact measurement of spacebetween each character so you can achieve the

tight relationships of some of the more elaboratecharacters. Use Illustrators Offset Path and thePathfinder to achieve these results. Think about

which letter will be cutting into another and add themeasurement taken above to the Offset Path. Send

this new larger shape to the top of the Layerspalette (Ctrl/Cmnd+Shift+ ]), then select the letteryoure cutting. With both selected options, click the

Subtract from shape area button under Shapemodes in the Pathfinder window.

07

After youve solidified your lettering,you need to incorporate the

flourishes. I felt that using delicate,long flourishes to intersect the piecesof the letters would be a great way to

break the structure of the type andgive it some fluid visual motion. Be

careful not to cover up or manipulatekey pieces and distinguishing

features of the letters. Flourishes areattractive, but the viewer still needs to

understand the message.


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01

Once youve got something that resembles your original sketch but better, its time to skim it over and look forthe tiny rough connections. You need to create smooth transitions for these.

02

Once youre done with your overall construction of the type, Option-drag it and prepare for touch-ups. With yournew clone selected, Option-click the Add to shape area button under Shape modes on the Pathfinder window.Switch your view to Outline (Ctrl/Cmnd+Y). Look for wonky curves and crooked or misaligned paths. To fixcurves, run the Smooth tool (located under the Pencil tool) over the weird curve a few times in the generalshape youd like the curve to be. You can also redo curves with the Pen tool if necessary.

03

After your type is all cleaned up,select it and create another OffsetPath of the same measurementyou used earlier. Select the newbloated shape and copy it to yourclipboard, then select the originaltype too and group the twotogether, then paste the newbloated shape to the front (Ctrl/Cmnd+F). Create a newcalligraphic brush with 0%roundness, at whatever angle andthickness youd like your 3D to be.Apply this brush to the bloatedshape you just pasted and expandits appearance. Send the new solid3D to the back so its behind theoriginal group. Now select the old

group and the new 3D and alignthem to match one another.


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04After creating your 3D, you may

want to add some shading oreffects to it. The easy way to do this

is to un-group your type from itsOffset Path. Then select your 3D

shape and create an Offset Path ofyour magic distance but make it

negative. Now take this smaller 3Dshape and select your originaloffset path from the type and

subtract it by using your Pathfinderagain. This leftover shape will be the

template for which your shading orbars can follow.

05

Create your gradient out of somesquares. Pretend there is a light andplace them where you think it would

hit the 3D. After youve laid out allyour bars, select them and combine

them into one shape with thePathfinder. Now select your template

too and use the intersect button ofthe Pathfinder this will leave

shapes only where they overlapped.

06The final stage of this project is tocolour everything. This should befun and spawn many variations.Ask your friends and clients fortheir opinions once youve corralleda herd of colour variations.


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