How-To’s Day: Illustrator: Apply Multiple Strokes To One Path In Illustrator CS (Part 3)

By popular demand (and because of length) this is part three of a two-part tutorial.

Please read Part 1 and Part 2 before the below.

In this, the third and final installment of Apply Multiple Strokes To One Path In Illustrator CS, we’ll complete our seal by adding the embossed, live, and editable type around the edge. It isn’t simple type on a path, and it doesn’t use a drop shadow either.

Question: How would you get a drop shadow to cast outside the text all around the circle?

Here’s another question: Can Illustrator apply a gradient to live type?

1. Create a circle of the desired diameter.

2. Using the Type on a Path tool, click on the circle to make it a type path.

3. Type in your designed text and style it as appropriate. To make sure your text can be read on your seal, use a color that contrasts with the background.

Now comes the fun part.

4. With the type selected, click on the flyout menu (the right-facing arrow, top-right) on the Appearance palette and choose Add New Fill. Ignore the fact that your type will turn black (or whatever your default foreground color is).

5. Now fill it with a gradient. For dimensionality I used a subtle white-10% black-white linear gradient rotated 45 degrees, thus playing into the lighted checkmark effect.

6. Create a new black fill below the gradient fill—on the Appearance palette drag the black fill to the right position.

7. With the black fill still selected, goto the Effect menu and choose Distort & Transform > Transform. Scale the fill both horizontally and vertically to 102%. Hit OK. The black fill should now look off, wider than the front fill.

8. Keeping the fill selected, choose Gaussian Blur from Effect > Blur, and set a 1 px blur. Now your black fill looks more like a cast shadow.

9. Now make a third fill between the front and black with the following settings: Canary Yellow color, scaled to 99% both horizontally and vertically, and a 0.5 px Gaussian Blur. This is the highlight of the embossing.

10. On the Transparency palette leave the highlight fill at normal blend mode but 65% opacity, and set cast shadow fill to Darken mode at 35% opacity.

Depending on the size of your drawing and how deep you want the text to emboss, you may need to adjust the scaling and/or blur. The colors and blend mode may need to be tweaked too with your drawing.

Now you have embossed text that is still live, editable text. As long as Scale Strokes & Effects is checked in the Preferences’ General tab, your seal will look great at any size. The pixelation is just a screen artifact; it will print out at high resolution.

More importantly, if you completed all three parts of this Apply Multiple Strokes To One Path In Illustrator CS tutorial, you know have strong grasp of the awesome power and creative freedom of Illustrator’s secret weapon, the Appearance palette. You now have tremendous vector power.

But remember what Uncle Ben said:  With great power comes great responsibility. Use your Appearance palette-based vector power for good design, not bad design.

• Part 1:  Multiple Strokes
• Part 2:  Multiple Strokes Bring More Control Than Just Multiple Strokes
• Part 3:  Multiple Fills and Special Effects (aka The Cast Shadow Tutorial)

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TAGS:  design howto quark indesign adobe graphics  

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