Typography

Have you ever wondered just what exactly typography is and how to do it?  I'm a huge fan of typographic art and choosing the perfect font for my graphic designs.  Get started below with these key typography resources!

10 Common Typography Mistakes

Typography is Sexy Part 2

Minimalist Typography Examples

Typography Served (Typography Gallery)


Typography From Behance (Gallery)


30 Creative Examples of Typographic Art






Typographic Art Photoshop Tutorials:




Know of any other cool typography resources? Let us know in a comment below!

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ASK MORDY: Threaded Type on a Path

Today's question comes in from Donna Tracy:

Is there a way to create text in a circular shape with a text flow like in InDesign text boxes?

This is a great question (and kudos to Donna for also including an image in her email which made it easy to understand what she was asking for), as it exploits one of the strengths of Type on a Path in Illustrator -- which is that Path Text objects can be threaded. If you're unfamiliar with the differences between Point Type and Area Type in Illustrator, refer to this post. Since Illustrator CS, when the newer text engine was introduced, Type on a Path in Illustrator acts like Area Type - and can be threaded just like text frames can be threaded in InDesign.

Rather than try to explain to Donna how to perform the technique she was after, I recorded a quick video, which you can view below. You can also download a full-res version of the video here.

Illustrator Type on Path Tutorial from Mordy Golding on Vimeo.

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New Script "Sews" Illustrator Text Together

Many are familiar with a common challenge in Illustrator -- a bunch of text that should all be contained within a single string of text, but that instead is broken up and spread about your file as multiple individual text blocks. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but most commonly it is because you've moved text from the newer text engine that was added in Illustrator CS to an older version (or "legacy" version) of Illustrator, or because you've opened a generic PDF file.

Many people aren't aware that you can simply select all of the individual text objects, choose Edit > Copy, and then simply paste into an existing text object -- all the text will be magically "sewn together" into a single string. There are also several scripts out there (Rick Johnson's Concat Text being one of them) that help this process along as well, without the manual process of copying and pasting.

Now, Justin Putney and Amy Petersen of Ajar Productions, have developed a script as well, which when run, throws up a dialog box asking how you'd like to join the text (other scripts usually rely on stacking order or the order in which the text was created). In addition, the script is installed using Adobe's Extension Manager, which is actually a nice little AIR application that Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks have utilized in the past, but it's refreshing to see it being used now with Illustrator as well (CS4 required for that version of the script).

More detailed information as well as the script itself can be had here. Once the script is installed, launch Illustrator, select your chopped-up text and choose File > Scripts > MergeText_AI. Season to taste, and enjoy!

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ASK MORDY: Limitations between Flash and Illustrator

As they are both lumped together in the category of "vector" applications, one can easily assume that objects can be moved freely between Illustrator and Flash. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Today's question comes in from Elisabeth:

I work for scientists and make presentations for them in Flash. I create the storyboards to go with them in Illustrator. In doing this I often have to copy and paste text from Flash to Illustrator and instead of text I get vector objects. Is there any way to get around this?

The reality is that when it comes to integration between these two powerhouse applications, there's a big fat "one way" sign, and the arrow points from Illustrator and leads to Flash. Try going from Flash to Illustrator and you're faced with a huge "Do Not Enter" sign instead.



Actually, go back a few versions and you couldn't even find a reliable way to go from Illustrator into Flash. While Illustrator and Flash are indeed both vector-based applications, their graphic engines and the way they export those vectors aren't the same. In fact, if you think about it, Flash was built to display artwork in one place, and one place only -- the Flash Player. Even as recently as Flash 8, importing Illustrator artwork into Flash resulted in some pretty ugly paths. In the CS3 release, Flash actually implemented Illustrator's vector graphics engine under the hood, which finally allowed Flash to interpret and maintain the integrity of each anchor point and respective control handle.



To understand the significance of this, take into account the screenshot that appears above. I drew a circle in Illustrator and copied and pasted it into Flash. The circle on the left is how the circle appears when pasted into Flash CS3. The circle on the right is how the same circle appears when pasted in Flash 8. Sweet, eh? In fact, Flash CS3 is pretty intelligent when it comes to pasting content from Illustrator -- live drop shadows from Illustrator become live editable drop shadows in Flash, gradients come in as gradients instead of bitmaps, clipping masks come in correctly, text become editable -- the list goes on.

Here's the thing though -- the code for bringing artwork into Flash was updated, allowing art to move from Illustrator into Flash, but the code for exporting artwork FROM Flash hasn't changed at all. Meaning that while there's a way to get awesome graphics INTO Flash, there's no way to go the other way around. Hence, if you try drawing a circle in Flash and then copy and paste it into Illustrator, you'll get the same result as you see in the circle on the right, in the above image. Likewise, text is also lost when going the "wrong way".

As I mentioned in a previous post, Fireworks CS4 now shares the same text engine as Illustrator does, making it now possible to move text easily between FW and AI -- but sadly, that isn't the case for Flash.

Looking forward, Flash Player 10 (recently released) does have support for something called FTE (Flash Text Engine -- formerly known by its codename, "vellum"), although support for this isn't available within the Flash application itself just yet. I would guess the hope would be that at some point, the FTE technology and the ATE technology (Adobe Text Engine) found in Illustrator, Fireworks, Photoshop, After Effects, etc, would be able to communicate with each other to allow text to move freely between all of these applications.

To wrap up, my understanding is that MOST people need to bring content from Illustrator into Flash, and so that workflow has a higher priority, and those pain points were addressed first. Workflows where designers need to bring content from Flash into Illustrator aren't nearly as common (although I'll admit I've been hearing more people ask for this lately). But since this workflow isn't as mainstream, it doesn't get a high priority at Adobe. If you're a designer and you feel differently, let Adobe know. Either comment here, or contact Adobe directly with your requests (yes, Adobe actually does listen).

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TECHNIQUE: Emboss Text Effect

One of my dear friends, Bert Monroy, has a wonderful podcast on Revision3 called Pixel Perfect. Some of you may remember that I've appeared as a guest on Bert's show in the past, where I've spoken about using Illustrator and symbols, 3D, animation, and the awesome Live Paint feature.

Recently, Bert did an episode on how to create a license plate in Photoshop. As always, the techniques that Bert teaches on his show are great. But I couldn't help myself in thinking that creating a license plate in Illustrator would not only be possible, it would end up looking better, and it would be scalable to boot.

The challenge though is quite apparent -- license plates feature text that is embossed into the metal -- and Illustrator, with all of the wonderful effects it offers, doesn't have an emboss effect. I know, kinda silly, right? Is that an oversight? Not exactly. An emboss effect a la Photoshop's Layer Style and now InDesign CS3's emboss effect, has been a pretty popular feature request over the years. There were some Illustrator plugins that created a simulated emboss effect that have come and gone over the years, but they were vector and never looked realistic enough.

In reality, Illustrator DOES have an emboss "effect" via the 3D effect. One could, in theory, apply a 3D Extrude, specify a Rounded bevel, and set the position of the rotation to Front. However, even with complex lighting settings, the emboss never looked good enough for me. Especially when you consider that depending on the typeface, you'll always get really odd self-intersecting errors, which don't help either.

So I spent a few minutes with Illustrator with this challenge, and came up with the following:



Not bad, eh? I think the emboss effect on the text looks realistic enough. In fact, if you zoom in close, you'll find that I've also applied a texture effect to the plate itself, in trying to simulate that metallic look. In the end, I was able to achieve the emboss effect using a single text object that is editable, meaning you can change the text to read whatever you like. I also created a Graphic Style of the effect, making it possible to apply that exact same appearance to anything else with a single click.



What was that? Oh, you want me to tell you how I did it? Ha -- you know me -- I wouldn't make mention of something here if I wasn't intent on sharing the knowledge. Well then, let's begin...

DISCLAIMER: I don't specify exact values for the techniques here, just the steps you need to take. The values will vary depending of size, font, and desired effect, so the point here is to encourage you to play and experiment.

1. The obvious point of this tutorial is the emboss effect, so I won't spend much time on the license plate itself. But it's pretty simple to create one anyway. A license plate is 12" wide by 6" tall. I used a CMYK document and set my Document Raster Effects Resolution to 150 (which would be enough for what we'll need in this technique). I rounded the corners (a license plate has a radius of .5"), drew out the holes for the screws and created a compound path so that the holes were punched out of the overall shape.

2. I filled the shape with a gradient and then applied a slight drop shadow for that realistic touch. To add the texture, I choose Effect > Effect Gallery and applied the Grain Texture effect. I then added the remainder of the graphics -- the background at the top and the New York State text. Finally, I added the text of the license plate itself. I hope you like my custom plate (no, it's not my real license plate -- I'm not the type to get "vanity" plates -- besides I'm sure they would look AWESOME on my "hey I'm a dad!" minivan). I should also point out that I chose Helvetica Rounded Bold Condensed for the typeface -- besides for the fact that license plates have a pretty "soft" emboss, I wanted to get that rounded look. You can experiment with different fonts on your own, but I would suggest that you avoid using a serif typeface.

3. As a reminder, the key here for me was to have everything included as a single appearance, which would allow us to keep the text editable and to apply it with a single click as a style to other objects, as needed. In the end, I accomplished the emboss effect using 3 fills, and built it in such a way that would work over any color background. So to begin, we need to wipe the type object clean. Select the type object with your Selection tool and set your fill and stroke to None.

4. In the Appearance panel, choose Add New Fill, and specify 50K for it. With the Fill still highlighted in the Appearance panel, use the Effect > Distort and Transform > Transform effect to offset the fill up and to the left. Then, duplicate that fill and change its Transform effect so that it is offset down and to the right. Your text should look something like this:



5. In the Appearance panel, select the fill that is offset to the bottom right and apply the Multiply blend mode. This will ensure that the color on this side of the text will always appear darker.Select the fill that is offset to the top left and apply the Screen blend mode. This will ensure that the color on this side of the text will always appear lighter.



6. In the Appearance panel, select one of the fills and choose Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur. I chose 10 pixels but as I said earlier, you should experiment to see what works best. Don't worry -- as it's a live effect, you can always go back and tweak this to perfection later. Once you've applied the effect, select the other fill and apply the exact same Blur effect.




7. At this point, you can already see the embossed effect within the metal. Now all we need to do is add the inked letters themselves, which we'll do by adding yet another fill. In the Appearance panel, choose Add New Fill and make sure the fill is at the top of the object hierarchy. Apply a solid color. In my case, I chose a blue color.



8. There are two problems with the new blue fill we just added. First of all, the sharp edges "kill" the nice soft embossed look, making it look like the letters are sitting above the emboss instead of being part of it. Second, the text has no highlights or shading, making it look rather fake. We can solve both of these problems with one setting. In the Appearance panel, select the top-most blue fill and set its blend mode to Multiply. This will allow the inside of the blurred offset fills to act as shading for the blue fill.



At the end of the day, your Appearance panel should look like this:



Naturally, you can now simply drag the text object into the Graphic Styles panel to define a style. That way, you can apply this emboss effect to other text objects. As an added bonus, you can download my emboss graphic style right here. I'm sure you can tweak it to perfection for your own needs.

As long as you stay within Illustrator, or place native AI files or PDF files in InDesign, the license plate is infinitely scalable. Just make sure you have the Scale Strokes & Effects setting checked. I hope you have as much fun with this technique as I did putting it together -- and I want to give a special thanks to Bert Monroy who provided the inspiration for this technique. And now that I have the license plate, I'll have to find a Lamborghini to go with it... :)

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ASK MORDY: Movie Credits Text

I noticed a recent post on the Illustrator User to User forum from Plumeragent:

I'm laying out a DVD slip sheet and was wondering if there is a standard template for the credits text as shown on the back of a hollywood-style DVD jacket, usually near the bottom. The part that I'm concerned with is the titles for each credit such as PRODUCTION DESIGNER or MUSIC BY or DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY...where the print is very small next to the person's name and uses 2 horizontal lines while the name is as tall as the 2 lines on only 1 line. Is this just a layout trick using separate text boxes for each credit or some fancy Character/Paragraph palette adjustments, or? It looks almost like having superscript and subscript text in the same position...see your nearest DVD back cover for an example of what I'm talking about.

In addition, John Nack recently posted a link to this cute clip which talks about how just about every movie poster uses the font Trajan. I take it to heart only because I've made a similar observation in the past (only I've kept it to myself and my close friends -- amazing what the 'net does...).

Obviously, it's no coincidence that these two items became known to me in such a short span of time. It must be a sign from above that I should post a technique on how to achieve this particular text effect (using Trajan of course) in Illustrator. I know what you're thinking -- a type treatment like this surely should be done in a program like InDesign. And ordinarily you'd be correct. But today is different. To achieve this effect easily in Illustrator, you have to look towards the East. No, farther than that... more... keep going... that's right, I'm talking about the Far East (well, for Kyle Barrow and others who are already IN Japan, well, you get the point...).

Back in version CS, Illustrator received a new text engine. Yes, this caused some initial grief with backwards compatibility, but the new technology brought tons of new text features (think Optical Kerning, Every-Line Composer, Optical Margin Alignment, OpenType support, etc.). For those who use Illustrator in Asia, where typography is far more complex than it is here in the US (US Roman typography is a super soaker compared to Asia's 2-byte tomohawk missle fonts), the upgrade in the Text engine in CS was, as Donald Trump would say, "HUGE". The good news here is that unlike InDesign, which has those features locked away in a separate "J" version of the product (which you'd need to buy), Illustrator includes ALL of the Asian text features in the English product. The folks at Adobe just didn't want to confuse us with all these Asian-specific features, and so they politely turned them off by default. However, it turns out that some Asian features may actually be useful to those using Roman fonts in the US. One of those features is called "Warichu" and happens to be PERFECT for our little task of setting some text for a movie poster or DVD. Let's begin:

1. Turn on the Asian text features. In Preferences, navigate to the Type panel and click the box marked "Show Asian Options".



2. Set your type, as you would normally, all in one line. Style it accordingly. While I set a single entry in this example, you can set ALL the text in a single string if you'd like.



3. Select the words that need to be stacked in two lines. In this example, that would be the words "Production Designer".

4. Open the Character panel and choose "Warichu" from the panel's flyout menu.



5. To get the settings as you'd like, choose "Warichu Settings" (with the text still selected) and choose the appropriate settings. Lines: Controls how many lines you want the Warichu text to become; Scale: Controls the size of the reduced text; Line Gap: Controls the "leading" of the Warichu text; and Alignment: Controls how the Warichu text is aligned (left, right, etc).



6. To really make this effect useful, create a Character style. That way, you can apply this effect, with all the correct alignment settings, with one click.



Because Illustrator's text engine has all of this built in, you can open this file on another computer, even if the Asian Text Options aren't turned on. The text will appear correctly. Heck, you can even copy and paste the text into Photoshop (which shares the exact same text engine that Illustrator does). So you don't have to worry about sending this file off to print -- it will be fine.

One thing I will note: It's best to turn the Asian Text Options off if you aren't using this effect. Leaving it on will only add all these Japanese words and settings all over your application and could confuse you. In addition, it will replace your English language paragraph composers with its Japanese counterpart. But it's easy enough to simply turn the preference on and off when you need it. That's my opinion anyway.

In fact, if you turn on the Asian Text preference, and then create a Character style for your Warichu text, you can then turn off the Asian Text preference -- and the Character style that you created will STILL WORK. So if this is a kind of text effect that you use often (yes movie poster designers, that includes you), set up a couple of character styles and then turn off the Asian text features altogether. Any time you need to use this effect, simply load the necessary character styles into your document. Or if you REALLY use this a lot, add the character styles to your NDPs (New Document Profiles).

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ASK MORDY: Rounding SOME Corners

nanimoshiranai offered this comment on a recent post:

I created now a style with rounded rectangular shape, another one with (only) rectangular form.
Question that arises afterwards: can I create in the same manner a style that has on the left hand corners rounded, but on the right hand side normal rectangular corners? (And vice versa, in order to quickly build a menu bar as on the apple.com website...)

Nanimoshiranai is referring to this post where I linked to a video podcast tutorial I did for Terry White's Creative Suite Podcast. The podcast offered a technique to create dynamically resizable buttons to match the look and feel of Apple's "Leopard" look. The whole original idea came from a tutorial that Veerle posted on her blog.

The result of the tutorial ended up looking something like this:



With the added benefit that the whole thing was a Graphic Style and that NO OBJECTS WERE DRAWN. The button was actually just some text typed on the screen. As you typed the text, the shape of the entire button simply resized itself to match the text.

But the question is actually a really good one. I imagine that what you're looking to do is something along the lines of this:



And yes, what you see in the screenshot above is actually created in the very same way -- although they are now three separate styles. One style has rounded corners just on the left side of an object, one has no rounded corner effect at all, and one has rounded corners only on the right side.

In fact, I can't even begin to tell you how often I hear requests from folks who want to round only SOME of the corners of an object in Illustrator (I can hear those FreeHand users giggling because FreeHand can do that). This requests comes from many web designers who are looking to create tabs or buttons that are rounded at the top of an object but that are squared off at the bottom.

So how did I do it? Simple. Let me show you with a regular rectangle -- then you can figure out how to simulate the effect for the Leopard buttons... I simply used TWO fills -- one fill that had a rounded corner effect applied, and one without. Then I used the Transform effect to offset the fills slightly so that rounded corners were only visible on one side (or just on the top or bottom). Like this:



Here are the steps to do this yourself:

1. Draw a rectangle. Fill it with your favorite color.

2. Use the Appearance panel to add a new fill.

3. With the new fill targeted, choose Effect > Stylize > Round Corners. Do your thing and give yourself some nice rounded corners (if you're working with text as in the leopard button example, you'll use the Effect > Convert to Shape > Rounded Rectangle option instead of course).

4. With that fill still targeted, choose Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Under the Move section, adjust your fill slightly so that it's offset from the original fill (you'd use horizontal movements to add rounded corners to the left or right, and you'd make vertical ones to add rounded corners to the top or bottom).

If you wanted everything to be centered, you'd apply a Transform effect to another fill (without rounded corners) with the exact opposite settings.

You like? Yeah, I kinda thought you would...

OK, so all you FreeHanders are still snickering because FreeHand can round just ONE corner, or opposite corners. Well, I have news for you -- I can use the same technique I just employed to do just that -- round ANY specific corner, some, or all. And of course, once it's a style, it's one click to apply it.

Pop quiz, Hotshot. The question you have to ask yourself is, can you figure it out on your own before I post the answer sometime over the weekend? Oooooh, a challenge! What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?

(sorry for the dialog stolen from the movie Speed).

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