Recently I picked up Adobe Illustrator to create and toy with Ballie and Tallie. Honesly it’s really a great tool. It’s better than what I have expected. This software is actually a vector graphic illustration tool. If you have to deal with high resolution graphics, vector graphic tool is the option for you.
In this article I’m going to walk you through the step to create a simple outline for texts. It is basically usable for regular object type as well, but there is simple complication to text object type. Hope the following 7 steps are helpful for you.
7 steps in summary
- Create a Text object
- Duplicate the layer
- Move the new layer to below the Text object
- On new layer, go Type => Create Outline
- Still on the same layer Object => Path => Offset Path…
- Modify the offset path properties
- Update the Text colors
1. Create a Text object
This should be straightforward. Select Type Tool (T) from the Toolbar (by default it is on the left) and type your desired text. If necessary, align the text paragraph to center and the Text object to the center of the art board or canvas (totally optional).
2. Duplicate The Layer
Then you need to duplicate the layer because we want to have a separate layer as the outline and behind the actual text. From the Layer panel, make sure the layer is selected (see blue square icon to on its right that marks it as selected here) and click the “three lines” icon to bring the menu. Select Duplicate to duplicate it to another layer.
3. Move the New Layer to Below the Text Object
After that move the new layer that we just created to below the Text object. This is to make it render behind our text since it’s an outline. We don’t want it to cover our text by standing in front of it since it’s going to be bigger.
4. Create Outline
Make sure you the new layer is selected. Go to top menu Type, choose Create Outline. This step actually makes the Text object modifiable through usual object modification tools such as Direct Selection tool. But we don’t need to use that now. This simply helps us make it able to create Offset Path in the next step.
5. Create an Offset Path
With the new layer still selected (actually selecting the object instead if you have other objects in the layer), from the menu select Object, go to Path and choose ‘Offset Path…’. This step creates a nice outer-rim-like for the selected object.
6. Modify the Offset Path Properties
You can play around with the Offset Path properties as you want. I would recommend to use the default Offset of 10px and change the Joins to ‘Round’ to give a nice rounding corners. Leave the Miter limit. Do a preview to see how the look changes. You should spend some time playing with this to get the best look you want.
7. Finally, Change the Colors
Update the Text Fill color on the upper layer and the outline Fill colors on the new layer to your liking. I assume you know how to do this. Easy.
Play with various fonts and sizes until you find one that you really like. I am using ‘Bangers Regular’ font on this. You can find this font from Google Font. There are numerous fonts that are fun and nice to look at. Hope you like this tutorial.