Hi, this is Anne with Graphic Design How To, and today I'm going to show you
how to add a line or a path exactly in the center of a letter in Adobe Illustrator CC. Alright,
let's get started. Okay, I'm here in Adobe Illustrator, and I'm just going to Create New.
I'll come up here to Print, and then I'll choose Letter. We'll come over here to Create. So now I'm
going to type a word. I'll hit T on my keyboard, and just click once, and I'll type 'blend.'
I'll get back on my Selection tool, grab a corner and hold SHIFT and make it quite a bit bigger.
And we'll need kind of a thick font so we can have something inside it.
I'm going to choose Montserrat. And we'll go with Montserrat Extra Bold. I'll just make it a little
bit smaller. Now the best way that I found to do this is with a blend, but you'll have to do it on
each section of the letter, if that makes sense. So I'm going to click and drag and then hold SHIFT
and OPTION or SHIFT and ALT to make a copy. And then I'm going to create outlines from this copy.
So I'll hit SHIFT CMD O, or SHIFT CTRL O on a PC. So now our text is no longer editable.
I'm going to hit D on my keyboard to get a white fill and a black outline. Now I need
to have each of these be two paths each. So to do that, let's start with the easy ones. First,
let's we'll do the L, I'm going to hit A on my keyboard, I'm just going to select this right here
and delete, and then select this line and delete. So now we have two lines that we can
make a blend from. I'm just going to go ahead and make the blend on this one, so you can see what
happens. So first, we cannot have a compound path, and these are actually a compound path. So we'll
have to release that. I'm going to come up here to Object > Compound Path and Release. And now
I can come to the Blend tool. I'm going to click it and then hit Return or Enter on my keyboard.
And we'll want to change this to Specified Steps, and one. So basically, we want one
step in between these two lines. We'll say OK, and then we'll hit OPTION CMD B on our keyboard,
or ALT CTRL B on a PC. And that'll add a line exactly
in between them. Now if we hit CMD Y or CTRL Y, you won't see that center line because this is not
expanded. I'm going to hit CMD Y or CTRL Y to get back. And so let's go ahead and expand it. I'll go
to Object > Expand. And we'll expand everything and say OK. Now you can see that center line.
If we wanted to make this dots or something like that, we can do that. Now, let's go to our stroke
panel. If you don't see this panel up, you can go to Window, and then Stroke right here. And
all these other panels are also available under Window. Okay, let's make this a lot thicker.
And then we'll make it a dashed line. I'm going to round the cap and corner.
We can see we have a dotted line, we just need more of a gap in between it. So I'm going to
highlight this area, and then just use my arrow keys to increase the distance between them.
And I also like to choose this option over here. it aligns the dashes to the corners.
So that's always a nice thing. Now we actually have a white fill on this and a black outline,
I'm going to switch those and just get rid of the black fill. So now I'm going to move this white
up here onto the L. So that is basically what you'll do with all of the letters, it gets a
little hard to do that sometimes especially with something like a B. So I'll show you the way that
I go about doing that. So I'll go ahead and show you all the rest of the letters now. But if you
wanted to know how to do it quickly, this is the best bet. Now of course is going off the edge, so
we can just use our A tool, and then use our arrow keys and SHIFT to bring it in. And same here.
Okay, let's continue on with the next easiest one, which is the D. I'm going to use A to get my
Direct Selection tool. I'm going to highlight both of these, and then cut them with CMD X and paste
in front with CMD F or CTRL F on a PC. Also CTRL X for cutting. We've got two pieces we can make a
blend from here. First, we have to make sure they are not a Compound Path, it doesn't look like they
are. So let's go ahead and hit OPTION CMD B to make a blend from this. That's ALT CTRL B on a PC
and it does this little weird thing, and that's because these are not equal. But this is exactly
halfway and that's all we really need. So I'm just going to go ahead and go to Object > Expand.
We'll say OK, and then I'll use my A tool, click on this and come right up here.
Okay, and now I'm going to delete these two pieces that we used to make this blend. I'm
gonna go ahead and select everything and get rid of that fill. So I'll just hit the question mark
or backslash key on my keyboard. So now we have an outline only, I'm going to get to my Direct
Selection tool by hitting A on my keyboard and select both of these points and then hold SHIFT
and just move them with my arrow keys until they're about equal to the others. Now another
thing, when I tried to select this, I'm getting a lot of things. So I'm going to go ahead and just
ungroup everything will SHIFT CMD G, or SHIFT CTRL G on a PC. I'm going to hit it a lot of times to
make sure that everything is ungrouped. Now when we select the C, we only have those two pieces.
Okay, now this is a compound path, so we'll have to release that, you can hit SHIFT OPTION CMD 8,
or SHIFT ALT CTRL 8 on a PC. And that will give us paths, and then we can do our blend here.
By the way, for a blend, you can also go to Object > Blend, and Make.
Okay, and that'll give us our center point, then we'll need to expand with CMD E or CTRL E. So now
I'm going to delete my outer two edges, because all I really need is this part. And I'll hit Z
on my keyboard to zoom in. You'll see that these don't line up. So I'm just going to use my A tool,
Direct Selection tool, to move those in until they're right about here.
And then I'll highlight these two and join them with CMD J or CTRL J. And I'll join these two
also. Okay, so this one is ready to go. I'm just going to leave it down here for now. I'm going
to go ahead and work on my end. Now I'll hit A to highlight this piece, and this piece I'm holding
SHIFT to get them both and then deleting them. So this is going to make the line go right here.
They're a compound path, so I'll hit SHIFT OPTION CMD 8, SHIFT ALT CTRL 8 on a PC,
and then I'll make a blend. Now when I make this blend, it looks kind
of weird, because this part up here is a line and this is a point, so it doesn't really know what
to do. So to fix that, I'm going to go ahead and expand it with CMD E or CTRL E on a PC. I'll just
highlight this piece with my A tool. And I'll bring it up to where it looks nice. I'll do the
same with this one, just bring it down a little bit. Okay, let's get rid of the outer pieces.
Okay, now with this E, I think what we'll do is make a blend between these and then make another
blend here. So to do that, I'm going to hit A on my keyboard to get to the Direct Selection tool.
I'm going to highlight these two pieces. So I have this one and this one selected.
And I'm going to cut them with CMD X or CTRL X on a PC. And now I'll just delete this piece.
I'll paste in front with CMD F or CTRL F. Now let's select this outer piece. I'm going to
join it - right now it stops here and stops here - so I'll hit CMD J on my keyboard. And
so we have one shape right here. I'll hit A and draw a rectangle around that piece,
hold SHIFT and get this one and delete. These are a compound path, so we'll have to release that,
and then we can make our blend. I want to expand
with CMD E or CTRL E on a PC. And we'll say OK, and now I can just delete these pieces.
Now this one for some reason is not wanting to make a blend between them.
So when I come across that situation, usually it's with two horizontal lines.
For something like this, it's easy to just kind of 'eye' it. So I'm going to grab this piece, I'm
going to cut it and paste it in front. And I'll just move it to what I think looks like halfway.
Alright, and then we can just delete these other two pieces. I'll use my A tool to extend this
right to here. Okay, I'm going to CMD minus or CTRL minus to zoom out.
All of these letters are done, but now we need to work on the B. A 'B' is pretty tricky. So
I think what I'll do is select just the top half. I'll use my A tool to draw a rectangle
just around these pieces. I'll hold SHIFT and get this one here.
And then I'm going to copy and paste in front. And I'll just hide this with CMD 3. I'm going to
do the same thing down here. So I'm going to hit A to get to my Direct Selection tool. And I'll
draw a box around these things, not these points, I do want this one. And I'm going to cut that and
paste that in front, and then hide that with CMD 3 or CTRL 3. And now I'm just going to delete this.
Okay, I'm going to unhide, which is Object > Show All. Okay, I'm going to select these pieces,
and just hold SHIFT and hit my Down Arrow a couple times. And now we can see what we've got,
we've got kind of the top half, and we've got the bottom half. So I'm going to select
this with my A tool and just bring it up holding SHIFT. And I'll bring this one down,
so it's right about on the same plane as the other one. Okay, now I'm going to select these, they
are not a compound path, so that's good. We'll make the blend. And then on this one, somehow,
we lost the upper part. So I'm going to hit P on my keyboard to get to my Pen tool,
just click here, and then drag up to about here. And then I'll make a blend with these two,
which are a compound path. We'll have to release that. So Object > Compound Path > Release.
And then we'll go ahead and make the blend. So now I'm going to select
all of these and just expand them with CMD E or CTRL E on a PC, we'll say OK. And then I'm going
to move this one back up. I'll select all these and hold SHIFT and do the same number of arrows
as we did when it went down there. Okay, so now we can delete our original pieces.
And we're left with just this part. I'll go ahead and join these. And then for this,
I'm just going to try to draw a centerpiece with my pen tool. Alright, so we've got all
the pieces that we need, I'm going to delete the L pieces, because that's already up there.
I'm going to highlight all of them, and group them with CMD G.
We'll just move them up on top of the text. And you can kind of see the N is going to go
off the edge just like the l did, so we'll have to adjust that. But it's kind of nice, because you
can see exactly where it should go that way. Now let's hit I on our keyboard. And we can just click
on these white dots to apply the white dots here too. And we do want to get into our stroke panel
and click on this to align the dashes to the corners and ends. Okay, that looks so
much better. Now we need to adjust these. The B looks pretty weird, so I'm going to come in here
and I'll just click and move this over the same over here, I'm holding SHIFT so it stays on the
same plane. Yeah, I'm liking that. Same here, I'm just going to move this over a little bit.
I'm going to select my text and just CMD 2 or CTRL 2 to lock it so I don't select it. I'll hit A
on my keyboard to get to my Direct Selection and highlight all three of these points,
and then just SHIFT and move them over. I'm gonna do the same here,
hold SHIFT and move it down a little bit, and then select this one and move it up. And that's it. Now
another cool thing we can do besides a dashed line is add a brush so we can get a different effect.
So let's go to our brushes panel. I'm going to pull it out here. I'm going to come over here
to the flyout and come down here to Open Brush Library and then go to Artistic Calligraphic.
So we've got a bunch of options in here. And if we apply one of these,
it just gives it a different look. We definitely need to fix this B if we are going to use this
but you can play around with a lot of different brushes if you're looking for a different look.
So there is a lot of adjustment that goes on when you do this, but I think the effect
looks really nice. Alright, if you like the way I teach, I also have full courses on Skillshare.
And there's a link in my description for a free two week trial. If you use
that you can take all my courses for free. Alright, I'll see you in the next video!!!