Category: Typography
Create 3D Gothic Text In Photoshop
28th October
This tutorial is just in time for Halloween, with an eerie background and 3D text with textures. In Photoshop CS5 the Repousse abilities give you a lot of flexibility, especially with textures, so you can create some really interesting work. This is only available in CS5.
I created a new Photoshop document with the setting 1024 x 768.
I created an eerie background using black as my foreground color and a deep, bloody red as the background color. Then I went to Filter> Render>CLouds. For more contrast, I went back into Filter> Render and this time I chose Difference Clouds.
Then, I went online and found a decent gothic font, like Old London, which will go well with our vampire look. You can download it from Dafont here. Install it in Fontbook, or Extensis, whichever one … Read More »
Playing with Opacity and FX In Illustrator
Opacity has a lot of uses for different types of effects. We like to see certain things bleed through in some areas, while in others we want a shape or text to be a certain color. Recently, I was playing around with opacity in the appearance panel in Illustrator, and found a pretty practical use for it.
Some may argue that you can do the same thing in Photoshop, but I have found that you don’t get exactly the same results. For example, when we place a stroke around text, if the edges of the text are sharp or squared, then we want the stroke to follow the same contour. In Photoshop, is doesn’t always do that. You can align the stroke to the outside, the center, and the inside, which is handy, but they all tend to have undesired effects. … Read More »
Create a Hand Written Neon Effect with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
I recently posted a tutorial on the blob brush in Illustrator. Using this tool, you can create some nice hand written effects. First, open up Illustrator and grab the blob brush tool. Go into your brushes panel and create a new brush. I will note that this is much easier using a Wacom tablet, rather than a mouse, simply because it is more natural to write with a pen than a mouse.
When creating your new brush, set each setting to pen pressure, so that it flows more smoothly. Then, set the variations to the settings shown. The color choice doesn’t matter, because we won’t be using the fill for anything. I like to add variation for a more natural look. Write out whatever word or phrase that you … Read More »
Typography: x-height and descenders
X-height refers to the height of a lowercase letter in a typeface or the top of the midpoint of lowercase letter such as d, p, q and so on. Some typefaces have a tall x-height, some medium, and some have a short x-height. This drastically changes the look of the text depending on the x-height. A taller x-height can give a typeface a thinner appearance, and a shorter x-height can make a text look fatter or more round in appearance.
Take a look at the different x-heights in the letters above. The middle line is present to make it easier for comparison. Also, notice how all of the typefaces, even though they are the same point size, have variations in size appearances. This makes a typeface look smaller than it really is, so it is important … Read More »