Chapter 2

Creating Text and Gradients

Creating Point Text

• You can create text anywhere on the artboard by:– selecting the Type tool– clicking the artboard– then typing

• You can enter text horizontally or vertically.

Creating Point Text

• Text generated by the Type tool is positioned on a path called the baseline.

• You can select text by clicking anywhere on the text or by clicking on the baseline, depending on how your Type preferences are set.

Creating Point Text

• The Character and Paragraph panels contain all of the classic commands for formatting text.

• You can use the Character panel to:– modify text attributes such as font and type size,

tracking, and kerning.– adjust the leading, which is the vertical space

between baselines, or apply a horizontal or vertical scale, which compresses or expands selected type.

Creating Point Text

Leading

Baseline

50% horizontal scale

50 % vertical scale

Examples of text formatting

Creating Point Text

• Tracking inserts uniform spaces between characters to affect the width of selected words or entire blocks of text.

• Kerning is used to affect the space between any two characters and is particularly useful for improving the appearance of headlines and other display text.

Creating Point Text

• Positive tracking or kerning values move characters farther apart; negative values move them closer together.

Creating Point Text

• Illustrator can track and kern type down to 1/1000 of a standard em space.

• The width of an em space is dependent on the current type size;– In a 1-point font, the em space is 1 point.– In a 10-point font, the em space is 10 points.

Creating Point Text

• With kerning units that are 1/1000 of an em, Illustrator can manipulate a 10-point font at increments of 1/100 of 1 point!

Examples of kerning and tracking

Creating Point Text

Creating Point Text

• Illustrator has a Preferences panel dedicated to hyphenation;– Hyphenation in Illustrator is applied

automatically based on the language dictionary that is in use.

– You can turn automatic hyphenation on and off or change the hyphenation default settings in the Hyphenation dialog box.

Creating Point Text

• Two factors that make selecting text and other objects difficult are the number and proximity of objects in the document.

• Hiding objects is a simple way to avoid this problem, just don’t forget they are there—they won’t print if they are hidden.

Character panel options button

Character panel

Creating Point Text

Flowing Text into an Object

• Using the Area Type tool, you can flow text into any shape you can create.

• Text in an object can be formatted as usual, changing attributes such as:– Fonts– Font size– Alignment

• Text that you create inside an object is called area text.

Flowing Text into an Object

An object filled with text

Flowing Text into an Object

• When you first flow text into an object using the Area Type tool, the object loses any fill or stroke color applied to it.

• However, you can add different colors to the object and the text.

Flowing Text into an Object

• You can also select text flowed into an object with the Type tool.

• You can even use the Direct Selection tool to distort the shape, and the text will reflow within the modified shape.

• You’ll often find that centering text in an object is the best visual solution.

Positioning Text on a Path

• Using the Type on a Path tool or the Vertical Type on a Path tool, you can:– type along a straight or curved path– move text along a path to position it where you

want– “flip” the text to make it run in the opposite

direction, on the opposite side of the path– change the baseline shift to modify the distance

of the text’s baseline in relation to the path

Positioning Text on a Path

• A positive value “floats” the text above the path, and a negative value moves the text below the path.

• You can modify text on a path in the same way you would modify any other text element.

Text on a path Text flipped across a path

Positioning Text on a Path

Text flowed along a sharply

curved path often presents

kerning challenges

Manipulating Text with the Touch Type Tool• The Touch Type tool is the newest addition to

Illustrator’s typing tools and has the power to truly alter what designers do with type in Illustrator.

Manipulating Text with the Touch Type Tool• The Touch Type tool allows you to scale, rotate,

and move each character in a type object independently of the other characters. Rather than have to input values in the Character panel, you can manipulate individual characters by hand, scaling and repositioning them, as desired.

A single text object

Manipulating Text with the Touch Type Tool

Transform options with the Touch Type tool

Manipulating Text with the Touch Type Tool

Rotate

Vertical scale

Move; moves the character

anywhere

Horizontal scale

Uniform scale

Manipulating Text with the Touch Type Tool• What’s truly revolutionary about the Touch Type

tool is that:– the other letters in the word move to

accommodate any transformation you make.– you can freely move type characters closer

together or farther apart as you transform them.

Creating Colors and Gradients

• A gradient is a graduated blend between colors.• The Gradient panel is the command center for

creating and adjusting gradients.– In the panel you will see a slider that represents

the gradient you are creating or using.– The slider has at least two colors.

• The leftmost color is the starting color.• The rightmost color is the ending color.

Creating Colors and Gradients

• The colors used in a gradient are represented on the Gradient panel by small house-shaped icons called stops.

Type list arrow

Gradient Ramp

Stops

Two-colorgradient

Rotation text box

Creating Colors and Gradients

Gradient panel

Creating Colors and Gradients

• The point at which two colors meet in equal measure is called the midpoint of the gradient:– The midpoint is represented by the diamond

above the slider.– The midpoint does not necessarily need to be

positioned evenly between the starting and ending colors.

– You can change the appearance of a gradient by moving the midpoint.

Creating Colors and Gradients

• The Swatches panel contains standard gradients that come with the software.

• When you create your own original gradients, you can:– modify an existing gradient on the Gradient

panel.– change either or both the beginning and ending

colors.

Creating Colors and Gradients

• When you create your own original gradients, you can: (cont.)– change the location of the midpoint.– add additional colors into the gradient or remove

existing colors.– define a gradient as linear or radial.

Creating Colors and Gradients

• A linear gradient can be positioned:– left to right– up and down– on any angle

• You can change the angle of the gradient by entering a new value in the Angle text box on the Gradient panel.

Creating Colors and Gradients

• Think of a radial gradient as a series of concentric circles;– The starting color appears at the center of

the gradient.– The blend radiates out to the ending color.– A radial gradient has no angle ascribed to

it.

Creating Colors and Gradients

• The Color panel is where you:– move sliders to mix new colors for fills,

strokes, and gradients– can adjust the color in a filled object

Creating Colors and Gradients

• The Color panel has five color modes:– CMYK– RGB– Grayscale– HSB– Web Safe RGB

Creating Colors and Gradients

• The panel will default to CMYK or RGB, depending on the color mode you choose when creating a new document.

Creating Colors and Gradients

Current filland stroke

colors

Slider

CMYK spectrum

Color panel

Creating Colors and Gradients

• There are two ways to change the color stops on a gradient:1. Create a new color or adjust an existing

color.

2. Type values directly into the text boxes.

Creating Colors and Gradients

• Once you have defined a color or a gradient to your liking, it’s a smart idea to save it.

Adding the new Squash swatch to the gradient

Creating Colors and Gradients

Applying Colors and Gradients to Text

• New text is generated by default with a black fill and no stroke.

• To change the color of text, you must select the text by:– highlighting it with a type tool– or switch to a selection tool

Applying Colors and Gradients to Text

• When you switch to a selection tool, the text is selected as a single object (a blue baseline and anchor point are revealed), and any color changes you make will affect the text globally.

• If you want to change the fill or the stroke of an individual character, you must select that character with a type tool.

Applying Colors and Gradients to Text

• About the only thing you can’t do to Illustrator text is fill it with a gradient.

• To create that effect, you first need to convert the text into objects.

• The letterforms, or outlines, become standard Illustrator objects with anchor points and paths that you can modify like any other object.

Applying Colors and Gradients to Text

• Create Outlines is a powerful feature. Beyond allowing you to fill text with a gradient, it makes it possible to create a document with text and without fonts.

• Once text is converted to outlines:– you can no longer change the typeface– the type loses its font information, including

sizing “hints” that optimize letter shape at different sizes

Applying Colors and Gradients to Text

• Therefore, if you plan to scale type substantially, change its font size on the Character panel before converting to outlines.

Applying Colors and Gradients to Text

Outlines filled with a gradient

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• The Gradient tool is used to manipulate

gradient fills that are already applied to objects and it only affects the way a gradient fills an object.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• When you click the Gradient tool, the

gradient control bar appears in the object itself.

• For linear gradients, the gradient control bar begins at the left edge and ends at the right edge by default.

• You can change the length, angle, and direction of the gradient by dragging the gradient control bar.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• The following figure shows the gradient

control bar starting outside the object at the top and ending below it.

• Where you begin dragging and where you end dragging determines the length of the gradient from the beginning color to the ending color, even if it’s outside the perimeter of the object.

Changing the position of the gradient control bar

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• You can further modify how the gradient fills

the object by modifying the gradient control bar itself.

• When you click the gradient control bar, the color stops that compose the gradient appear.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• You can change the color of the stops on the

gradient control bar and even add or delete stops.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• The best method for working with the gradient

control bar is to first click and drag the Gradient tool as close as possible to where you want it to begin and end.

• Then, use the gradient control bar for tweaking the position of the gradient and the position of the color stops within the object.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• If you select multiple objects then click a

gradient swatch on the Swatches panel, the gradient will fill each object individually.

• However, with all the objects selected, you can use the Gradient tool to extend a single gradient across all of them.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• When you convert text to outlines and apply a

gradient fill, the gradient automatically fills each letter individually.

• In other words, if you fill a five-letter word with a rainbow gradient, each of the five letters will contain the entire spectrum.

• To extend the gradient across all the letters, drag the Gradient tool from the left edge of the word to the right edge, or vice versa.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow

Using the Gradient tool

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• With radial gradients, the gradient control bar

shows the length of the gradient from the center of the circle to the outermost circle.

• When you click the gradient control bar on a radial gradient, a dotted line appears showing you the perimeter of the gradient, whether that’s within or outside the actual object.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• Radial gradients are not limited to concentric

circles: you can also create radial gradients with concentric ellipses.

Adjusting a Gradient and Creating a Drop Shadow• Applying a shadow behind text is an effective

design tool to distinguish the text from other objects and add dimension to the illustration.

Applying Gradients to Strokes

• You can use the Gradient panel to apply a gradient to a stroked object and to determine how the gradient is applied.

Applying Gradients to Strokes

• The Gradient panel offers three buttons you can use to determine how the gradient is applied to the stroke:– Within Stroke: the gradient moves left-to-right

across the object.– Along Stroke: the gradient moves clockwise

around the object.– Across Stroke: the gradient radiates from the

outside to the inside of the stroke.

Applying Gradients to Strokes

The within stroke option for the gradient

Applying Gradients to Strokes

The along stroke option for the gradient

Applying Gradients to Strokes

The across stroke option for the gradient

Applying Gradients to Strokes

• If you want to specify how the stroke aligns to the object—inside, center, or outside—use the Align Stroke options on the Stroke panel before using the Gradient panel to apply a gradient to the stroke.

• You cannot apply a gradient to a stroke on live type. You must first convert the type to outlines, then you will be able to apply a gradient to the stroke.