Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
so you can experience visual feedback on the page, an
important human designer skill.
Select the text with the Selector Tool—you cannot convert
4.
text to shapes while the Text Tool is the active tool.
Press
5.
CTRL - SHIFT - S with the text selected, and you have
text shapes that are no longer editable as text (using the
keyboard) but completely editable as shape objects.
Press
6.
CTRL - U ; Xara groups converted shapes automatically.
Press CTRL - U a second time to ungroup to individual
characters.
Press
7.
ESC to deselect all the letters. Hold SHIFT to select
the first two letters—the m and a in “marmalade”—and
then press CTRL - K to duplicate these letters. You do this
because the Combine Shapes operation in the next step
will delete the parts of the letters you don't need, but
you'll still need the original letters under the duplicates.
Press
8.
CTRL - 3 to perform Arrange | Combine Shapes |
Intersect Shapes. The result is a little wedge—apply a
deeper shade of orange or even brown to this shape.
Repeat steps 7 and 8, working from left to right, character
9.
by character (for example select the a and r , followed by
the r and m , and so on), until all the new intersect shapes
are in place. The clone shapes will temporarily hide the
previous wedge shape, but you'll resolve their invisibility
once you perform the Intersect Shapes operation.
This playing-with-characters section would be incomplete
if you didn't play with the orientation of text characters. For
example, text is still legible if highly recognizable characters
such as S and U are flipped vertically and horizontally. “Topsy-
Turvy” is a good example. The text is still legible, and the
logotype can look fresh and original, even though flipping
characters might not sound like an undiscovered idea. It's all
in the treatment and how you bring text together graphically to
make a visual idea in addition to what the text literally says.
Use Wide Character Tracking
It's fashionable to create wider spacing between characters than the
font creator meant for you to use. However, large tracking values
 
 
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