Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics with another video tutorial.
Today I'm going to show you how to create cool typography illustrations the easy way,
using the power of vector graphics to craft your design, rather than use the traditional
pen and paper technique, which is much less forgiving.
We're going to base today's example on the side profile of a 1970 Dodge Charger, combined
with a movie quote from a film this car appeared in.
Let's see who recognises this one.
Add a comment if you do!
The main graphic is a simple silhouette of the vehicle, then the text is distorted and
disfigured to fit within the outline of the car body to create a cool composition.
This effect also works great with other subjects too, like this Buffalo example I created using
the classic song lyrics.
So to begin, find an image to use as reference for your subject and open it with Adobe Illustrator.
Scale the image to fit the artboard, then in the Transparency panel drop the opacity
to 50%.
Go to Object and select Lock to prevent the reference image from being accidentally selected,
then grab the Pen tool and clear out the default white fill, leaving just a black stroke.
Begin tracing around your subject to create an outline.
There's a few techniques you can use with the pen tool, but I like to simply click and
drag each point as I go, then hold the Alt key to eliminate any bezier handles wherever
I need a sharper corner.
Once you've traced the main body, create outlines of the windows.
Make sure these are complete shapes, so close each path back where it started.
Select all the objects and switch the black strokes to black fills.
Select one of the window shapes, then shift click the main car body and use the Minus
Front button from the Pathfinder panel to punch out the window shape.
Repeat the process with any other windows.
Grab the Circle tool and switch the black fill back to a stroke.
Zoom in to one of the wheels and drag out a circle from the centre while holding Shift
and Alt.
Go to Edit > Copy, then Edit > Paste in Front to make a duplicate of the circle, then scale
it down to match the inside of the tyres while holding Shift and Alt.
Select both circles, then click the Minus Front option from the Pathfinder panel to
punch out the shape.
Switch the stroke to a fill to see the filled ring shape.
Press CMD+F, or go to Edit > Paste in Front to paste in another circle.
Scale this one down further, aligning it with the wheel.
Paste in another circle and scale this one down towards the centre cap.
Use the Pathfinder tool to create another ring shape and give it a black fill.
Paste in another circle and scale this one down all the way to the centre.
Give this shape a black fill.
Zoom in and draw a circle within the inner ring to represent the pattern of the wheel.
Hold the Shift key and add the centre cap to the selection, then give the centre cap
circle an extra click to make it the key object.
Click the Horizontal Align Centre button from the Align panel to line these shapes up.
Hold the ALT key and drag a duplicate of this circle towards the opposite end of the wheel.
Shift click the original again, then copy and paste in front a duplicate of them both.
Hold Shift while rotating them to constrain the angle to 45 degrees.
Paste in more copies and rotate each one to create the circular wheel pattern.
Make a selection of all these circle shapes while holding the Shift key, then go to Object
> Compound Path > Make.
Add the inner black ring to the selection and click the Minus Front button from the
Pathfinder panel to punch out these shapes.
Select all the shapes that make up the wheel and scale them up slightly for added coolness,
then copy and paste a set for the front, or rear, depending which side you started on!
Select the main car body and go to Object > Path > Offset Path.
Enter 3px, then hit OK.
Right click and go to Arrange > Bring to Front, then make a copy of this shape so we can use
it again in a second.
Add one of the tyre shapes to the selection along with this new offset path, then hit
the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel to trim the wheel to add an outline
effect.
Press CMD+F, or go to Edit > Paste in Front to paste back in the copy we made and repeat
the process with the other wheel.
With the main silhouette graphic complete we're now ready to add the text.
Use the Type tool to enter your chosen wording or quote.
Select a hand drawn font so the distortion still looks fairly natural.
Right click your text element and select Create Outlines, then right click and Ungroup the
letters.
Head back and select all the letters that make up each word and group them together.
Give the text a random fill to make them easy to see against the black background, then
move each word into place on the silhouette shape, roughly scaling each one to size to
fill the available space.
Select the first word and go to Object > Envelope Distort > Make with Mesh.
Reduce the number of Rows to 1, then add 3 columns.
Use the Direct Selection tool and move each points of the mesh to warp the text to follow
the outline of the silhouette, leaving a consistent gap around the edge.
Move the bezier handles to allow the text to follow the curvature of the shape.
Select the next word and add an Envelope Distort mesh.
This word is slightly longer, so add 4 columns.
Move and position each point to fit into the design.
Sometimes if a word is really stretched, you might need to evenly space out the mesh points
so it's not awkwardly distorted.
Add just two columns for small words, then adjust the text to follow both the main silhouette
and any existing words.
Continue adding meshes to the following words and mould the text to the outline.
Doing this manually with pen and paper would take some serious sketching and planning,
but in Illustrator we can simply move the points around until we're happy.
Once the layout is complete, select all the words and go to Object > Expand to permanently
apply the Envelope Distortions.
Create a Compound Path, then add the car body shape to the selection and click the Minus
Front button from the Pathfinder panel to delete the text shapes and allow any background
colour to show through.
This style is meant to replicate real hand crafted typographic quotes, so to add some
realism, Group all the objects and add a Roughen effect from under the Filter > Distort and
Transform menu to simulate the irregularities of hand drawn art.
Check the Absolute and Smooth options, then enter a Size of around 0.5px and Detail of
around 20.
Hand crafted styles of art also look great with some texturing.
Download my free vector grunge textures and copy one of the light grainy samples.
Under the Transparency panel, click the Make Mask button, then click the thumbnail on the
right to enter into mask mode for the artwork group.
Paste in the texture and scale it down to size.
You can build up extra texture by pasting in and overlaying more textures.
Just make sure the entire design is covered.
Click the thumbnail on the left from within the Transparency panel to exit out of mask
mode to see the final design.
The overall effect looks just like those hand crafted typographic illustrations, except
Adobe Illustrator has allowed us to avoid the frustrations of plotting the words manually
with pen and paper.
I'm using this style to produce a little series of movie car quotes, but the possibilities
are endless when this effect is used with song lyrics and feel good quotes to produce
awesome poster art.
So I hope you enjoyed this video tutorial, if you did and you want to help spread the
word a Like on YouTube or a share with your friends on Twitter or Facebook would really
help out.
If you want to be the first to see my upcoming tutorials, subscribe on YouTube, or visit
my website at http://spoon.graphics for plenty of free design resources and written tutorials.
So as always thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one.