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Useful Typography Tips For Adobe Illustrator - Smashing Magazine

Useful Typography Tips For Adobe Illustrator - Smashing Magazine
Advertisement Typography is not only an all-important aspect of design, it is also an art form in and of itself. Choosing the right font, the perfect spacing and even the correct shape of text can be an important factor as to whether a project fails or succeeds. Although Illustrator is not really used for multiple-paged projects, many would agree that it is one of the most powerful applications for creating vector graphics, such as logos, and it is also often used for one-page documents, such as business cards, posters, or postcards. Since we can easily transfer graphics from Illustrator to Photoshop and InDesign, designers often use Illustrator to create vector type that they can then incorporate into projects in another program. For instance, you can create a nice type design within Illustrator, then add some extra effects in Photoshop. 1. Kerning is an important aspect of design. To turn off kerning between selected characters, set it to “0”: 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Open Paths Closed Paths 7. 8.

Create a Variety of 3D Lettering Effects for Poster Design In this tutorial I will showcase three different approaches for creating simple 3D lettering effects in the context of poster design. Onward and upward we go! Introduction I will start off by drawing the letter-forms for the three words "ONWARD," "AND" and "UPWARD." From there I will show three ways to create simple, yet interesting 3D effects. 3D is the latest craze (See: nearly every movie that has come out in the last two years) but my interests are in 3-Dimensional lettering that has old school, subtle, simple, imperfect, more humanistic qualities. Drawing inspiration from vintage poster lettering, and overall aesthetics, everything will be wrapped together to create the full poster design. Drawing Lettering As always, good lettering starts with a sketch. Step 1a This sketch is very rough and is basically there to reference when actually creating the lines in Adobe Illustrator (AI). Step 1b Open a new document in AI and paste in the sketch. Step 2 Step 3a Step 3b Step 3c Step 4a Step 4b Step 4c

The Art of Typography #43 A picture says more than a thousand words!…But what if those words make a picture? Every friday we deliver you new fresh typography inspired pictures. About the author Hi, my name is Houke de Kwant. Add depth to your art with expert shading techniques - Illustrator Tutorial With all the tools and effects that Adobe Illustrator has to offer, it can sometimes be hard to achieve a sense of depth and atmosphere within your images. Often they can come out looking flat and very two-dimensional. In this tutorial, Bristol-based artist Ben Steers will show you how he uses gradient effects and opacity masks to overcome this, as he takes you through how he created his piece, Gone Karting. Ben has used these techniques to great effect in this artwork, which is based around a lonely bear character who enjoys playing amongst the woods in his time off from fishing and felling trees. Step 1 I wanted to take my rather flat 2D illustration and give it some real depth. Step 2 Next, the mountains need a layered effect.

100 amazing Adobe Illustrator tutorials | Illustrator Since its release, Adobe's Illustrator has grown to become the designer's right-hand man when it comes to creating premier vector graphics and elements. There's so much you can do with it that it can be difficult to know where to start. Happily, we're here to round up the best Adobe Illustrator tutorials, covering everything from illustration to logo design, adding depth to your typography and much more, to help you get the most from this amazing app. With so many to choose from, you're sure to find a project to inspire you, whether you're using an older version of Illustrator or are signed up to the Creative Cloud. Adobe Illustrator for beginners: 11 top tips If you're just starting out with Illustrator, here's a fantastic guide to some of its tools. Setting up a new document In this video tutorial presented by Angie Taylor, you'll learn how to set up a new Illustrator document. Essentials of the Pen and Pencil tools Creating objects with the Shape tools Empty list Master artwork techniques

10 Must Have Free Adobe Illustrator Scripts at DzineBlog Learn how to earn $125 or more per hour as a freelancer - Click Here Looking for hosting?. We recommend MediaTemple for web hosting. Sometimes when working with Illustrator tools is not sufficient when it comes to vector editing. When activated, these scripts perform operations within Illustrator or may involve other programs such as word processing, spreadsheet and database programs. Installation Place the script in the Adobe Illustrator CS3 (CS4 or CS5)/Presets/Scripts folder. The script will appear in the scripts submenu (just head to the top menu and go to File > Scripts to find your script). Metaball (Arc), Metaball – Download This script can create Metaball-like shapes. Metaball (Arc) uses arcs to connect while Metaball uses suitable bezier curves. Note that combining the shapes using script may result in several overlapping anchor points. Calendar Pre-Maker – Download With this script you can create a calendar in just a few clicks. Adjust Dashes (offset), Adjust Dashes – Download

The Font-Face Rule and Useful Web Font Tricks - Smashing Magazine Advertisement The possibility of embedding any font you like into websites via @font-face is an additional stylistic device which promises to abolish the monotony of the usual system fonts. It surely would be all too easy if there was only one Web font format out there. Instead, there’s quite a variety, as you will get to know in this article. This quick introduction to @font-face will lead you towards a guide through the @font-face kit generator. If you want to make Web use of your already licensed desktop fonts, read up on how to embed them from your own server. Web Font Formats EOT, TTF, OTF, CFF, AFM, LWFN, FFIL, FON, PFM, PFB, WOFF, SVG, STD, PRO, XSF, and the list goes on. TrueType This format was developed in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe’s Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. OpenType Microsoft and Adobe teamed up in developing this font format. OpenType fonts with TrueType Outlines (OpenType TT) and OpenType fonts with PostScript Outlines (OpenType PS) @font-face Revolution

Adobe Illustrator tutorials | Dream Infinity Studios / Chris Takakura | Art Direction + Design These are some unique tutorials for Illustrator that can help you understand the core system of Illustrator and how it works. There are many tedious things that are posted on these tutorials so please read them carefully. This page also features video tutorials from the official Dream Infinity Studios YouTube Channel. Basics of Illustrator Learn how to use the Artboard tool in Illustrator to save time and follow smooth production flow. Learn the usage of crop marks and how to create them in Illustrator CS3 and older and Illustrator CS4 method. Learn how to create dashed lines in Illustrator. Learn how to place images efficiently using Illustrator’s “place” tool. Global color swatches is a dynamic function that allows you to update colors of multiple objects with a click of a button. Basic tutorial on how to create rounded corners to your lines and shapes. Advanced Illustrator Tutorials This tutorial shows you how to create type that follows a path or shape in Illustrator.

Graffix plugins for Adobe Illustrator Concatenate plugin Concatenate is a plugin filter for Adobe Illustrator that connects two or more paths into one continuous path. You tell it how close the endpoints should be to combine the paths, how close to tangent the endpoints must be, and whether to average the endpoints and control handles together. It's especially useful for cleaning up CAD drawings and EPS files that have been converted to Adobe Illustrator or, for example, connecting and filling state/country borders in vector map files. The plugin also includes Assimilate , which will search out unselected paths that are within the distance and angle you specify, and concatenate them. Also included is Connect , which adds line segments connecting selected open paths. Concatenate 10.5 is recordable as an Action, and can be assigned an F-key shortcut. Download Concatenate 13 plugin Universal Binary for Mac Illustrator CS3-CS5 Download Concatenate 12 plugin for Mac Illustrator CS2 Download Concatenate plugin for Mac Illustrator 7-9

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