Day 52 – Lesson 12 (Illustrator Essentials)

In lesson 12 of Illustrator Essentials I worked with different ways I could edit text to make it more interesting using a poster.

There are two ways to add text to a page using the text tool. I could use point type, which is simply click anywhere on the document then begin typing. This allows me to type as much as I want without having to adjust the type field. Then there is area type, which is clicking and dragging over an area to create a type box.

I can also change either field into its opposite by selecting the field, going to the Type menu then click “Convert To Point Type” or “Convert To Area Type.”

lesson-12-creating-type_converting

I then went through and formatted the text how I wanted it to look on the poster by first selecting “The Great Justini” and changing the font color to white, then changing the font type to Playbill. After making those adjustments, I increased the font size to 72 pt and the text spacing to 15. Once I had finished with editing, I moved the text to center of the poster.

With the information I typed earlier in the area type field, I went to an RGB Basic color swatches to have more options for font color. I chose a light brown, then changed the font to Trajan Pro before increasing the font size of the “One Night Only” and decreasing the size of the rest. I aligned the text to center before moving the text field to center.

I then learned more about text wrap in Illustrator. I’ve used this in InDesign, but this is the first time I’ve gone over text wrap in Illustrator.

In order for Text Wrap to work on the text, I first had the select the object I wanted it to wrap around. Once I’d done that, I went to the Object menu, scrolled to “Text Wrap” then clicked “Make.”

The text doesn’t wrap around the object just yet until I right click on the object (or control+click), scroll down to Arrange then click on “Bring to Front” (or Shift+command+J). With the object now in front of the text, the text wraps around it. I adjusted the wrap by going to the Object menu, scroll to Text Wrap and click on “Text Wrap Options…” I change the Offset from 6 pt to 4 pt to finish.

Finally, to add another effect to the type, I used the “Type on a Path” tool.

I first, moved the heading “The Great Justini” to my pasteboard, then used the Pencil tool (N-key) to draw a smooth, curved line across the poster. I used the “Type on a Path” tool and clicked on the pencil path to begin typing “The Great Justini”, then added the Heading paragraph style to use all the adjustments I made to the previous heading to this one.