Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics back with
another video tutorial for Adobe Illustrator.
Today I'm going to share some useful techniques for creating a vintage style engraved text effect
just like the illustrations you see on paper money or banknotes.
By applying transformations and effects using Illustrator's Appearance panel
we can preserve the live text, rather than have to first outline the text into shapes,
which means it can't then be edited.
Using this same technique, you can combine various colours and effects
to craft a variety of retro and vintage text styles, just like my free download
of Retro Text Effect Graphic Styles for Adobe Illustrator on Spoon Graphics.
If you want access to ready-made text effects,
or millions of other design assets, you might be interested in Envato Elements...
To create the engraved money-style text effect, set up a new document in Adobe Illustrator.
Since this is digital artwork, set the units of measurements to Pixels and the Color Mode to RGB.
Use the Type tool to set out the wording for your effect. The font named Madrone from the
Adobe Fonts library looks just like the iconic lettering style on dollar bills.
Before creating the effect, quickly draw a couple of squares to set out
the colours we're going to be using. Saving the colours as custom swatches
would probably be easier, but this is an old habit of mine.
The first colour I picked out is #30342A
ALT+Drag the square with the Move tool to create a duplicate, and change its fill to #CFCCB6.
Select the text and clear out its default black fill.
Open the Appearance panel. I keep mine in the bottom right of my interface layout,
but you can find it under the Window menu.
From the corner menu icon, choose Add New Fill.
Use the eyedropper tool to select the darker of the two colours we set,
or click the custom swatch if you used that method.
Add another fill using the Appearance panel, this time choose the lighter colour.
Select the first fill in the Appearance panel and click the Fx icon at the bottom of the panel.
Choose Path and Offset Path.
Enter a value of around 5px to add a border effect around the text.
Add another effect, this time choose Transform.
In the Transform Effect settings, enter 1px in the Horizontal and Vertical move
options, then add 20 Copies to generate a faux-3D effect.
Add another new Fill, then drag it to the top of the Appearance
panel so it sits on top of the lighter colour.
In the Swatches panel, click the corner menu icon
and choose Open Swatch Library > Patterns > Basic Graphics > Lines.
Find a ready-made swatch with a nice density of evenly spaced lines.
Make sure the Fill is still selected, then go to Fx > Path > Offset Path.
Enter a minus figure to leave a gap around the edge of the lines.
Add a Transform effect too,
but this time enter 45 degrees in the rotate angle. To make the rotate effect only affect
the lines pattern and not the text outline, uncheck the Transform Objects setting.
You can then fine-tune the angle to find a value them runs parallel
to the outline of the letter shapes, particularly the serifs on the letter E.
What's particularly useful about this technique of creating text effects with
the Appearance panel is it retains the live type, meaning you can still edit the wording.
This effect can also be saved as a Graphic Style so it can be easily
applied to other objects with a single click.