Distorting Type

Quick reference

• 00:04 In the previous section,
• 00:05 I showed you guys how you can deal with type in Adobe Illustrator.
• 00:09 And remember again, to get the Type panel,
• 00:11 if you don't see it automatically, you can come to the Window menu and
• 00:14 choose Type, Character, Paragraph or any of these other options here.
• 00:19 But right now, we have it docked over here on the side with our other panels.
• 00:23 So the next thing that I'd like to show you guys is how you can distort type
• 00:27 using some built in envelope filters, or the envelope distort filter.
• 00:31 And we've already seen how we can put type along a path,
• 00:34 just by creating a simple line like this.
• 00:38 And then, using the type on path tool.
• 00:41 But there's a bunch of other ways that you can actually create shapes from your text.
• 00:45 And I'm gonna show you guys some of those ways right now.
• 00:48 So in order to do that,
• 00:49 first thing you're gonna do is just type out a couple of words.
• 00:53 And then we're gonna come up to the Objects menu and
• 00:55 choose Envelope Distort, Make with Work.
• 00:59 No once you do that, you'll see our type has already kind of warped here and
• 01:04 using the arc style and we have a couple of options.
• 01:07 We want to make sure that the preview box is checked off first and foremost,
• 01:10 so that we can see the effect that each of these options is having.
• 01:14 The first thing that you'll notice is that as I decrease the bend
• 01:19 It's starting to arc downwards.
• 01:21 So you've got this whole range that you can play with and experiment with for
• 01:24 how drastic or how subtle you want this effect to be.
• 01:29 In addition to that you can also choose whether you want it to be horizontal or
• 01:32 a vertical arc, so you can play around with that.
• 01:37 But there's a whole bunch of other options in here.
• 01:39 If I click on this drop-down menu where it says Style.
• 01:42 And you can choose from some other things such as Arch, Bulge.
• 01:48 There's a few others here like Flag that's pretty cool.
• 01:51 You can try Wave, Rise and any number of these.
• 01:56 And you can also kind of distort it, so
• 01:58 it's maybe a little bit larger on one side than the other.
• 02:02 And again, using the negative and positive values to do that.
• 02:07 Okay, but once you have something that you're happy with you can just hit OK.
• 02:12 And if at any point you're not happy with this so you wanna go back and
• 02:16 make adjustments.
• 02:17 When I select this now, you'll notice up here on the toolbar,
• 02:20 that it's showing me the style, the type of horizontal warp or
• 02:24 vertical warp and it's showing me the amount of the bends.
• 02:27 So I can still modify this if I wanted to increase or decrease that setting.
• 02:33 And I also have the option to release this.
• 02:36 If I come back up to the Objects Menu.
• 02:39 Back here to Envelope Distort.
• 02:41 I can always chose Release.
• 02:43 And when I do that, you'll see that it's now just created a gray shape,
• 02:47 basically in the shape that our text was created in previously.
• 02:50 And now, it has released the text to be separate as it was originally.
• 02:56 If I apply that again, I'll show you guys another way to do that.
• 03:00 So instead of coming up to the Object menu and going Envelope Distort make with warp,
• 03:05 back up here in our tool bar there's actually this little icon here that says,
• 03:09 make envelope.
• 03:11 And if you click on that you get the same panel.
• 03:14 So it's kind of a short cut or a faster way to get here.
• 03:18 So just remember that this little kind of warped grid here will take you to your
• 03:22 warp options, where you can again set these effects however you like, all right?
• 03:26 But keep in mind that once you do this, I'm not gonna be able to come in here and
• 03:31 modify the text unless I release the envelope, right?
• 03:35 So you'll see how it's kind of created this grid here with these points.
• 03:40 But if I grab my direct selection tool,
• 03:43 I can select any of these points that I want and I can manipulate them further.
• 03:48 If I wanted to make this curve more drastic,
• 03:53 you can just move some of these points up.
• 03:54 And you can use the handles as well.
• 03:57 To just really extenuate that curve there.
• 04:00 So again, using the direct selection tool with the envelope distort options,
• 04:05 allow you to push this effect even further.
• 04:10 Right, so experiment with some of these envelope warp options.
• 04:14 You can come up here you can release them and you can reset them.
• 04:18 And you can do a lot of things with this.
• 04:19 So it's actually a pretty fun way to get even more creative with your text.
• 04:24 The other thing that I wanted to show you guys really quick is another way
• 04:27 to distort your text.
• 04:28 If I select my text here I can come back up to Object > Envelope Distort.
• 04:31 And instead of make with Work, let's choose make with Mesh.
• 04:36 Now this time its going to ask you how many rows and how many columns.
• 04:39 And you'll see if I check off the preview box, what that's doing.
• 04:42 So just as we had done before,
• 04:44 by grabbing our direct selection tool, we can actually select these points.
• 04:48 You can select individual points or
• 04:50 multiple points by clicking on them while holding the Shift key.
• 04:53 And then you can move these around.
• 04:54 And this is not only specific to text.
• 04:58 You can also actually also do this with shapes,
• 05:01 with regular shapes like a rectangle.
• 05:04 If you had a couple of lines here like this, you can do the same thing,
• 05:08 go to envelope distort, make with mash.
• 05:11 And you have the ability to change the curve or
• 05:15 the direction of all of these points.
• 05:18 So you can create some pretty cool and interesting looking shapes.
• 05:22 So remember, it's not only effects that can be applied to type, but
• 05:25 it's also effects that can be applied to shapes as well.

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