Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics
back with another video tutorial for Adobe Illustrator, plus a little Photoshop if you
stick around until the end.
Today I'm going to show you how to create a colourful retro text effect with several
text elements that are progressively spaced further apart and transition through the colour
spectrum to produce a rainbow effect.
It reminds me of the kind of design you might see on an old VHS tape box or an ad for an
80s technology brand.
Illustrator's Blend Tool will be used to create the basic stacking text effect, but I will
also show you a trick to alter the spacing of the text with a cool easing effect and
show how to give the vector artwork the look of an old, damaged VHS tape box by adding
textures in Adobe Photoshop.
The textures I'll be using in this tutorial can be downloaded from my Spoon Graphics website
by following the links in the description.
The creased and tears that gives the appearance of an old VHS box is from my set of Retro
80s Cover Art textures.
You can download this individual texture as a free sample, but check out the full pack
of 15 Cover Art Textures to replicate the appearance of old, damaged VHS boxes, album
covers, game boxes, and book covers to create your own retro-style artwork.
To create this retro VHS inspired rainbow text effect, open up Adobe Illustrator and
create a new document.
Make the document size 2000 x 3000px, with the RGB colour mode so we have nice vibrant
hues to choose from.
Enter your desired wording with the Type tool.
I'm using the font Proxima Nova ExtraBold with the word color set in Regular.
Give the text a white fill and move it off the artboard so you can actually see it.
Draw a rectangle surrounding it and give it a black fill.
Right click and choose Arrange > Send to Back to place it underneath the text.
Select both the text and rectangle and use the Align panel to centre them up.
You may notice that they don't align right by default, but there's a relatively new setting
under the Align panel menu.
Choose Align to Glyph Bounds > Point text.
You'll now be able to align the text centrally with the rectangle with an equal gap above
and below.
While these two objects are selected, right click and choose Group.
Zoom out and hold the ALT and Shift keys to drag a copy vertically.
We're going upwards rather than down because it will place the new copy on top.
Otherwise the stacking order will be wrong after the next step.
Shift and click to select both groups, then go to Object > Blend > Make.
Head straight back to Object > Blend > Blend Options.
Choose Specified Steps and set the value to 20.
You'll see how the black rectangle helps to generate a gap between each line of text,
rather than have them completely overlap.
To create the easing effect where the words get closer together towards the end of the
blend, find the Convert Anchor Point tool from under the Pen tool group.
Find the end point of the path that forms the blend effect and click and drag to add
bezier handles.
Hold the shift key to keep the line straight.
The more you drag, the more densely packed the text will be at the bottom and the more
spread out they will be at the top.
Use the Direct Selection tool to select just the top text element that forms the blend.
You can create a cool effect by simply swapping over the fill to a stroke to give just this
top word an outlined appearance.
Increase the stroke weight to 5pt to beef it up.
Move the text effect into place on the artboard.
If you want to see more ways you can create interesting text layouts like this, check
out my video "Retro Text Effects with Illustrator's Blend Tool".
Draw a rectangle with a black fill to cover the artboard.
Send this to the back to place it underneath the text.
If you need to adjust the blend to better fit the artboard, right click and choose Isolate
Selected Group.
Here you can move one end of the blend to stretch or compress it.
Click the little arrow icon in the top left corner to exit back out of the group.
To create the colourful rainbow effect, draw a rectangle that covers the text.
Give this rectangle a gradient fill, then begin setting up the gradient with new colour
swatches, starting with a bright blue of 0, 200, 255 in RGB values.
It might be necessary to change the colour mode of the Color Panel via the corner menu.
Add a new swatch to the gradient and position it at 25%.
Give it a darker blue fill of 0, 50, 130.
Add a colour at the 50% halfway point and fill it with 150, 0, 100.
Add another at 75% and use 255, 0, 0 for a bright red.
Then give the last swatch a yellow fill with 255, 255, 0.
Set the gradient to 90 degrees to flow vertically, then set the blending mode to Multiply in
the Transparency panel so it only applies to the white text.
That's the colourful rainbow text effect complete in Illustrator, but let's move over to Photoshop
to finish it off with some texturing to really give it a retro vibe.
Select everything, then go to Edit > Copy.
Create a new document in Photoshop and paste the artwork.
Choose Smart Object from the options.
This will retain a link to the original vector design so we can update it if necessary.
My Retro Cover Art textures are ideal for giving a design the appearance of an old,
damaged VHS box.
This particular texture is available as a free sample from Spoon Graphics.
Open the texture in Photoshop and go to Select > All, followed by Edit > Copy.
Close the image, then go to Edit > Paste to place the texture over the rainbow text effect.
Go to Edit > Transform > Scale and fit the texture to the canvas size.
I've cropped it slightly so not to include too much of the wear and tear around the edge.
Set the blending mode to Screen to allow the creases to interact with the artwork underneath.
Adding a quick Sharpen filter can help to bring out the details.
Download my free pack of Photocopy textures from Spoon Graphics.
Open one up into Photoshop.
This time incorporate the shortcuts CMD+A, CMD+C, CMD+W, and CMD+V to copy across the
image in half the time.
Use CMD+T for Transform to scale the texture to fit.
Set the blending mode to Screen to allow this grainy texture to interact with the artwork
too.
Adjust its appearance with a Levels adjustment using CMD+L. Move the sliders to balance the
overall brightness of the grainy texture.
Add one more Photocopy texture, but this time use the CMD+I shortcut for Invert and set
the blending mode to Multiply.
This texture will apply black grain to the coloured areas.
Use the Levels to adjust how much additional grain you want.
One perk of using a Smart Object for the vector text effect is the ability to edit the source
artwork.
Double click the Vector Smart Object layer thumbnail to open it back up in Illustrator.
Make any changes, such as alterations to the gradient or edit the text, then save the file.
Back in Photoshop, the design will automatically update with the new artwork, all texturing
still in place.
This colourful text effect looks just like the designs you could find on old VHS tape
boxes.
Illustrator's Blend tool makes it easy to recreate such layouts, especially with the
extra little easing trick that helps to create unique stacking effects.
Then the addition of textures really enhances the retro vibe by simulating decades of wear
and tear.