How to Increase or Decrease the Size of a Path

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About this lesson

As we start playing around with the text we will look at the Offset Paths feature and how to create extra outlines and highlights.

Quick reference

How to Increase or Decrease the Size of a Path

As we start playing around with the text we will look at the Offset Paths feature and how to create extra outlines and highlights.

When to use

Any time that you want to expand or contract a selection you can use the offset feature in Illustrator.

Instructions

  • Begin by opening the How to Increase or Decrease the Size of a Path - Exercise.ai file
  • Select your merged Bulls text and then go to the Object Menu and choose Path > Offset Path
  • You should now see a dialog box appear where you will want to make sure the Preview option is checked off
  • In the Offset field you can enter either positive or negative values to expand or contract your shape
  • Let's enter a value of -8px and then press the Enter key to apply the changes
  • Press Command/Ctrl+X to cut the new inline shape
  • Select your original text and then lock it by going to the Object Menu and choosing Lock > Selection
  • Press Command/Ctrl+F after locking your original text to paste your new inline copy in front
  • Now when you select your text you may notice that there appear to be two extra shapes inside of the openings of the letter 'B'
  • Zoom in and use your Direct Selection Tool (A) to select these shapes and simply delete them
  • Now we can select all of the inline letters while holding down the Shift key to select them all together, and then press Command/Ctrl+G to group the inline shapes together
  • Grab your Eyedropper Tool (I) and sample some of the white from the background so you can see your new shape on top of the original black text
  • Grab your Selection Tool (V) and make sure you have selected your grouped, white, merged text 
  • Press Command/Ctrl+C to copy the text and then Command/Ctrl+F to paste it in front
  • Now use your Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample the black color of your original text 
  • You should now have a black copy of the inline text just above the original inline text that we filled with white
  • Select the black inline copy of your merged text that is on top
  • Use your arrow keys to move the black text down and to the right to reveal the top and left edges of the white copy beneath
  • Once you offset the top copy of your black text you may notice that it intersects or cuts into the white copy in certain spots, particularly on both of the L's in the text
  • Zoom in and move the points on the bottom of the L's so that there are no points jutting into the white areas
  • Make sure everything is unlocked by going to the Object Menu and choosing 'Unlock All' from the menu
  • Switch to your regular Selection Tool (V) and click and drag around your entire shape and then bring up the Pathfinder
  • With all of your shapes selected, choose the Merge option from the Pathfinder to merge all of your shapes 
  • We will now use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to click on any of the black inside of our shape before going to the Select Menu and choosing Same > Fill and Stroke
  • Once all of the black is selected, we will lock it once again by pressing Command/Ctrl+2 or by going to the Object Menu and choosing Lock > Selection
  • Use the same selection tool to select an area of white and then once again go to the Select Menu and choose Same > Fill and Stroke
  • Make sure that the white highlights are the only thing selected and then use your Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample some of the colors from your main logo to see how it looks
  • Once you are happy with the highlight colors unlock everything by going to the Object Menu and choosing 'Unlock All' once again
  • Now use your regular Selection Tool to click and drag around all of your merged shapes and press Command/Ctrl+G to group it
  • Make a copy of your newly grouped text by dragging downwards while holding the Alt/Option+Shift keys
  • Grab the new copy and press Command/Ctrl+C to copy it and then Command/Ctrl+F to paste it on top
  • Use the merge option from the Pathfinder to merge your new copy together and then press 'D' on the keyboard to fill it with your default colors
  • Click and drag the black stroke color to the fill swatch so that you have a solid black fill with a solid black stroke
  • Zoom in and use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to remove the black fills from the inside of the letter 'B' by clicking and deleting them before merging the shape once again
  • Select the top copy of your merged text which is now filled with black and go to the Select Menu before choosing Arrange > Send to Back
  • You should now have your original copy on top with the solid black shape in back
  • Lock the top copy of your shape and select the solid black copy that is now in the back
  • With the back copy selected, change the stroke weight to 22pt using the Stroke Panel
  • With your copy still selected, go to the Object Menu and choose 'Expand' and ensure that 'Fill' and 'Stroke' are both checked off in the dialog box before pressing OK to apply the changes
  • Your strokes and outlines have now been converted into solid shapes
  • Return to the Pathfinder Tool and Merge the newly expanded shape 
  • After expanding the shape you can use the Eyedropper Tool (I) to sample some colors from the logo and choose the darker orange shadow color
  • Clean up any extraneous points using the Direct Selection Tool (A) while zoomed in to tidy things up and remember to re-connect your points after removing them to ensure that the shape is closed
  • In some spots you may want to fill any small gaps of white with a solid color that matches the color of your text in the back
  • After doing that you can merge it together once again to simplify the shapes and then send it to the back
  • Unlock everything and then use your Direct Selection Tool (A) to select each of the black letters while holding the Shift Key and sample the yellow color from the horns or the nose/mouth area
  • Press Command/Ctrl+A to Select All, and then use the regular Selection Tool (V) to click and drag around the newest copy of the 'Bulls' text so everything accept for that is selected and press Command/Ctrl+2 to lock everything else
  • Now use your Direct Selection Tool (A) to select any of the mid-tone orange highlights inside of the letters
  • Go to the Select Menu and choose Same > Fill and Stroke 
  • Switch to your regular Selection Tool (V)
  • After selecting all of the highlights we want to cut them by pressing Command/Ctrl+X and then pasting in front by pressing Command/Ctrl+F and then we can group the highlights by pressing Command/Ctrl+G
  • You should now be able to select any part of your highlights and the whole group will be selected
  • Change the highlight color to white and then save your work

Hints & tips

  • When merging things together it can be helpful to expand any strokes or outlines you have first to get the width you want first
  • Try to be mindful of the order of your shapes and simplify them as much as possible
  • It can be helpful to lock shapes that you don't want to select in order to grab the ones that you do want to select
  • Try and group similar shapes together such as the highlights, base text, and offset text all the way in the back
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  • 00:00 At this point we've converted our text to outline, and
  • 00:04 we've added some cool shapes to make it a little bit more interesting.
  • 00:10 So what I wanna do now is actually take this one step further by using
  • 00:14 its feature called Offset Paths.
  • 00:16 And I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with Offset Paths or not.
  • 00:19 It's something that I think I touched upon briefly in the basics course.
  • 00:23 But it's basically a way for you to either expand or
  • 00:26 contract a selection or an outline in Illustrator.
  • 00:30 So let me show you how this works.
  • 00:32 Once I select my text, I can come up to Object > Path > Offset Path.
  • 00:38 And we can either put in a positive value that will extend our path or
  • 00:43 the outer boundaries of our text by 12 pixels, or
  • 00:46 by any amount of pixels that you want to input.
  • 00:49 As long as you have Preview checked off,
  • 00:50 you'll be able to see what it looks like in real time.
  • 00:53 But in this case, I'm actually going to use a negative value
  • 00:57 of maybe a little bit more than that, maybe let's say negative eight pixels.
  • 01:02 And you can see that it's now creating a copy of the text,
  • 01:04 basically an inline effect.
  • 01:07 So let's go ahead and hit OK to apply that.
  • 01:10 And what I wanna do now before I do anything else is to cut this by pressing
  • 01:13 Cmd+X.
  • 01:15 And what that's going to allow me to do is select my main text here and
  • 01:19 lock it by either pressing Cmd+2 or coming up to Object > Box selection.
  • 01:24 And now I can paste that back in front by pressing Cmd+F.
  • 01:28 And this will make sure that if I try to select it, I'm only going
  • 01:31 to be selecting the letters that I just created using the Offset Path effect.
  • 01:37 Now, when I select these letters, you'll see that there's these
  • 01:40 lines inside of the B or inside of the counters that we don't want.
  • 01:44 So I'm just gonna select those really quick and delete them, so
  • 01:48 that all I have now are the name and line pieces that I want.
  • 01:53 So what I can do from here is select each of these, press Cmd+G to group them,
  • 01:57 and then I'm going to sample some white, so that I can make it
  • 02:01 just the background color and you guys can see it a little bit better.
  • 02:05 And it's also grouped now so we can use it and move it around as one shape.
  • 02:09 Now, for this particular effect, what I'm going to do is select the white,
  • 02:13 press Cmd+C and then Cmd+F to paste another copy in front.
  • 02:17 And this time, I'm gonna grab my Eyedropper and sample some black.
  • 02:20 So right now, it's pretty much all covered up and
  • 02:22 you can't really see the white shape beneath.
  • 02:25 But if I select my black and
  • 02:27 then I use the arrow key, To kind of set that off center, then
  • 02:32 you can basically see that it's created this kind of cool highlight effect.
  • 02:37 And if I take another look at my logo, the light source is coming from the top and
  • 02:42 kind of the left based on where the shadows are.
  • 02:44 So I want my text to look the same way.
  • 02:47 So I want to make sure that the light source is coming from that same direction,
  • 02:51 which now it is.
  • 02:53 But there's still a few weird points in here that look a bit odd.
  • 02:58 So I wanna correct that before I merge these things together.
  • 03:02 So let me zoom in here on the L and just take a look at this shape.
  • 03:05 I can grab my Direct Selection tool by pressing A on the keyboard.
  • 03:08 Select this point, hold down the Shift key and
  • 03:11 select this point all the way in the bottom.
  • 03:12 And then just use the arrow key to tap it up a little bit, so
  • 03:16 that it doesn't intersect or cut through this bottom piece of the letter.
  • 03:20 I'll go ahead and do the same thing on the next L as well.
  • 03:25 Just tap that up a bit.
  • 03:27 And now what I can do is click and drag around all of this.
  • 03:31 But first before I do that, I need to unlock my original back copy.
  • 03:36 So I'm gonna come up to the Object menu and choose Unlock All, and
  • 03:40 now I've unlocked that text.
  • 03:42 So now with my regular selection tool, I can click and drag around all of this
  • 03:46 text, bring up my Pathfinder once again, and this time we're going to choose Merge.
  • 03:51 And that's going to merge all the black together and the white shapes as one.
  • 03:56 So now, what I should be able to do is select any of the black here.
  • 04:02 Come up to Select > Same > Fill & Stroke.
  • 04:05 And we're going to lock it so
  • 04:06 that everything that is filled with solid black is locked.
  • 04:10 And if you remember the keyboard shortcut for
  • 04:11 that, it's just Cmd, or Ctrl+2 on the keyboard.
  • 04:16 So once that's locked, I should be able to come in here and
  • 04:18 click on this element that is filled with solid white.
  • 04:22 And I can do the same by coming back up to Select > Same > Fill & Stroke.
  • 04:26 And that's gonna select everything else in here that's white.
  • 04:29 I just wanna make sure that's all I have.
  • 04:32 Now, I should be able to grab my Eyedropper tool and
  • 04:34 just sample some of this yellow color, or the orange color,
  • 04:38 any color that I want, and it's going to change it to that color.
  • 04:41 And when I'm happy with it, I can choose Object > Unlock All.
  • 04:44 And that's going to unlock all of the black, as well.
  • 04:47 So now I can grab this whole thing and
  • 04:49 group it by pressing Cmd+G, and I can move it around as one shape.
  • 04:53 So you can see how the Offset Path feature can be really useful for creating kind of
  • 04:57 a highlight effect and giving a little bit of extra depth to our letters.
  • 05:01 So once we combine this with some other cool tricks,
  • 05:05 we can really make this feel integrated once we connect it with our logo.
  • 05:09 So now that you've seen one way the Offset feature can be used,
  • 05:11 let's take it a little bit further.
  • 05:13 I'm gonna create a copy of this by holding down the Alt, Option and Shift keys and
  • 05:16 then dragging down.
  • 05:17 Just so I have a copy to go back to in case we mess anything up.
  • 05:21 And I'm just gonna move this up a little bit more and
  • 05:23 make a little bit of space here.
  • 05:28 All right, and I'm going to grab this bottom copy.
  • 05:29 Press Cmd+C to copy it, Cmd+F to paste it in front.
  • 05:33 Then let's go ahead and bring up our Pathfinder.
  • 05:36 Now from here, I'm gonna choose Merge to merge that all together into one shape and
  • 05:40 then I'll press D on the keyboard.
  • 05:41 Now this will give me my default colors where I can drag my stroke color,
  • 05:46 which is currently set to black, over to the fill color so
  • 05:49 that they're both set to the same value.
  • 05:52 Then I can zoom in and press A to grab my Direct Selection tool and
  • 05:55 just cut the counter from the letter B here.
  • 05:58 And that way I'll have a merged copy on top.
  • 06:01 But just in case, let me grab it again, grab my Pathfinder > Merge.
  • 06:08 Now, I have merged all of that and
  • 06:09 you no longer see the separate shapes that we had created before in our cutout.
  • 06:13 And if I select this and press Cmd+X, you'll see our original text underneath.
  • 06:19 So I'm just going to zoom out and press Cmd+F to paste it in front.
  • 06:23 And then we're going to come up to Object > Arrange > Send to Back.
  • 06:27 Now from here what I can do is press D once again,
  • 06:29 to make sure that I've got solid black and a black stroke.
  • 06:34 And for some reason we have to remove these counters once again with
  • 06:37 the Direct Selection tool.
  • 06:38 But now, you'll see I have two copies.
  • 06:41 I have our original copy on top and I've got the black copy behind it.
  • 06:45 So I'm gonna lock this copy in front by coming up to Object > Lock > Selection or
  • 06:49 by pressing Cmd+2 on the keyboard.
  • 06:51 Then I'll just click and I should automatically be selecting the object in
  • 06:55 the back, which is our shape filled with black in a black stroke.
  • 07:00 But now what I can do is come over here to the Stroke panel and increase the weight
  • 07:04 of the stroke to about, let's say 18%, or we can even go a little bit more.
  • 07:10 So we can try maybe around 20 or even let's try 22.
  • 07:15 So you can manually input values like this, okay?
  • 07:19 And now what I'm gonna do is come up to Object > Expand.
  • 07:23 And expanding this should allow us to check off Fill & Stroke.
  • 07:26 Now we're going to hit OK,
  • 07:27 and that's just going to change all of my outlines into a solid shape.
  • 07:33 So basically instead of being able to change the stroke now,
  • 07:36 you'll notice over here I don't have that option any more.
  • 07:38 And that's because it's been combined into one solid shape.
  • 07:42 And that's from doing our Object > Expand option, all right?
  • 07:46 So hopefully you guys are with me.
  • 07:48 Now, I can come back up to the window menu, grab my Pathfinder once again, and
  • 07:53 just merge it.
  • 07:54 So just like we did before, we've merged our shape into a solid object.
  • 07:59 From here I can grab my Eyedropper tool.
  • 08:01 I'm just gonna sample this dark red brown color that we're
  • 08:04 using as a shadow on our logo.
  • 08:07 And from here I can zoom in, and
  • 08:10 I can now select this back shape without selecting anything else.
  • 08:14 But before we go on, I just wanna clean up a few of these points in here.
  • 08:17 So I'm gonna zoom in, click on this point, and delete it, click on this point, delete
  • 08:22 it, and so forth until I can remove any unnecessary points.
  • 08:26 And I'm just holding down the space bar to navigate around the document as I scroll
  • 08:31 and make sure that we don't have any extraneous points going on, okay?
  • 08:39 So I'm just going to zoom out a bit, once again.
  • 08:43 And let's come in here and clean this up a little bit, too.
  • 08:46 I'm just gonna learn my Direct Selection tool to delete that point.
  • 08:49 Click on this point and drag it down a bit.
  • 08:52 Grab my Pen tool and just connect these two.
  • 08:56 And while we're at it, let's go ahead and delete this point as well.
  • 08:59 We just need to reconnect these two to close the shape.
  • 09:03 And even here in our S, we can probably just fake it and come in and
  • 09:07 draw a little piece over it like that.
  • 09:12 Now, I can grab that shape,
  • 09:14 grab the main block behind it and then use my Pathfinder to merge them together.
  • 09:22 And I'll come up to Object > Arrange > Send to Back, and
  • 09:25 I've now sent that entire shape to the background.
  • 09:30 So I can come back up to the Object menu, and now unlock our front copy.
  • 09:35 Use the Direct Selection tool to click anywhere inside of the black, and
  • 09:38 then while holding down the Shift key, select each of the other letters.
  • 09:42 And you should notice that you just have a solid black fill selected.
  • 09:46 So now zoom out, grab your Eyedropper tool, and
  • 09:49 sample some of this yellow color from the nose, okay?
  • 09:56 Now, what I wanna do is press Cmd+A to select everything and
  • 09:59 hold down the Shift key and just drag a box around our text here.
  • 10:02 Now, press Cmd+2 to lock everything.
  • 10:06 And if you zoom out and try to press Select All again or
  • 10:09 Cmd+A, the only thing that should be selected is your text.
  • 10:13 So everything else is locked.
  • 10:16 Go ahead and zoom in, grab my Direct Selection tool and
  • 10:19 click on any of this mid-tone orange color.
  • 10:22 Come up to Select > Same > Fill & Stroke, and
  • 10:25 then I'm going to cut it by pressing Cmd+X.
  • 10:28 Okay, now I can paste it back in by pressing Cmd+F, and
  • 10:31 Cmd+G to group it together.
  • 10:34 Okay, so now I should be able to select all of these highlight colors separately
  • 10:38 from the yellow, and separate from the red behind it.
  • 10:42 So I'm gonna select my mid-tone orange, and grab my Eyedropper tool and
  • 10:45 just make it white, and we now have the base for our text effect.

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