Use the Style Inspector along with Artboard’s new transform settings to create a popular letterpress vector style treatment. It’s super easy to apply the style to type and other shapes.
Final Image
Below is the final type treatment we will be working towards.
Tutorial Details
Program : Artboard 1.1 for Mac OSX
Difficulty: Intermediate
Topics Covered: Style Inspector
Estimated Completion Time: 15-20 minutes
Step 1
Open a new drawing and choose File > Drawing Size & Units from the main menu and set “pixels/points” as the units of measure. Use the Rectangle [r] tool to draw a rectangle the size of your drawing canvas and fill it with a light green color (any color treatment can be applied). Having a background color from the beginning will make it easier to see the changes we will be making to the text.
Step 2
Add a new layer by clicking the “+” at the lower left corner of the Layers panel. Drawing on a new layer keeps your drawing objects separate from the background will help prevent accidentally selecting the background. With the Text Box [t] tool, drag out a large text box. Double-click the text box with the Select [s] tool to edit the text. Use the Font panel to choose a font family, typeface, and adjust the size. Our example uses 96pt for big header text, but you can adjust the text to fit your needs. After you get it just how you want it, convert the text to a shape (once you do that the text will no longer be editable). Choose Graphic > Convert To > Shape from the main menu (or right click, Convert To > Shape).
Step 3
Open the Style Inspector – Expert pane (EDIT: As of Artboard 1.3 the “Simple” and “Expert” buttons have been removed from the Style Inspector (it edits all expert styles by default)). With the text selected, click “New” to create a new style. Click onto “Stroke” in the components list and click the “–” to remove it. Click onto “Color Fill” in the components list and click the color-well to choose a medium green color.
Step 4
From the Style Inspector, click the “+” to add a new “Color Fill.” Drag the fill component to the top of the components list (so it is visually below the first fill). Click the color-well and choose dark green from the Colors panel. Click “Transform…” to open the transform dialog. In the Transform dialog, change the Y Offset to -1.5pt and click “Done.”
Step 5
From the Style Inspector, add a new “Color Fill” like in the previous step. Drag the fill component to the top of the components list (so it is visually below the other fill). Click the color-well and choose white from the Colors panel. Click “Transform…” to open the transform dialog. In the Transform dialog, change the Y Offset to 1.5pt and click “Done.”
Step 6
With the text still selected, from the Style Inspector click the “+” button to add a new “Core Image Filter” from the style components drop-down list. Click the little arrow icon in front of “Core Image Filter” in the list to expand the image filter group. You won’t see anything under the group until you add it, so click the “+” and add a Color Fill. Click onto the color-well in the fill and pick your light green color matching your background color. Now, click again on “Core Image Filter” in the style component list. Choose “Gaussian Blur” from the Filters drop-down list, keeping the default settings for Gaussian blur (inside clipping path and 10-radius). That’s it!
Step 7
You’ve created a great ad-hoc style with popular letterpress treatment. Optionally, you can save the style to easily apply to other vector objects in this and other drawings. Simply click onto “Style” in the components list to return to the main window. Add a name for your new style and press enter. Click “Add To ‘Collection’…” to add it to an available My Library user collection. Pretty cool!
Final Image
At this point you can make the treatment better by jazzing up the background with some texture, different colors, and simple offsets to other text.
Credit
In the sincerest form of flattery, this tutorial was inspired by “Creating Editable Letterpress Styled Text” tutorial on the Vectips website, and a request for this feature from our users.
It sounds like you need to change the color lighter so you see the effect on the inside. When you add the “fill” style component under “Gaussian Blur” make sure it is your lightest color (in this example it is the light green of the background rectangle, not the green of the text. Use the default “inside” path setting and you should see the results straight away.
I cannot see doing the gaussian blur anything at all to the text. Could you please say something more about respective setting, is it “none”, “inside” or “outside” path? With none and outside, there is blur around the text which does not look like in the tutorial, with inside, there is no effect at all. I only get these sharp texts with different colors above each other. As this effect is quite cool, it would be good with more info