Illustrator Tutorial

Illustrator Tutorial: Bling Bling Text Effect By Vectordiary Posted on January 16th, 2009 (8 votes, average: 4.38 out of 5) Loading ...

I’ll be teaching you how to create this eye catching bling bling effect in illustrator. You will learn how to create the texture and apply it to any text. So let’s get started… 1. Drawing the Bling Bling Pattern

First, you will need to turn on the grid by pressing Ctrl/Command+’. Also make sure to turn on View>Snap to Grid. This will enable you to snap your graphics to the grid. Let’s start by drawing a triangle using the Pen Tool. Next, apply a gradient from light pink to dark pink. Draw another triangle beside it in facing down. Apply a white gradient to it.

Select both triangles and hold Alt/Option and drag a copy beside it. Press Ctrl/Command+D to automate duplicate more copies until you have a row. Select the whole row and drag a copy down and move it slight to the right as shown.

Select both rows and drag more copies down until you formed a pattern. Using the rectangle tool, draw a square that will determine the area of repetition for the pattern. Make sure the top and bottom will tile properly. Sane goes for both the left and right sides. Randomly select some of the triangles and change the tint to give more variety to the pattern.

Once the pattern is done, select the square and set the Stroke to none. Press Ctrl/Command+shift+[ to send it to the bottom layer. This will determine the repeat area when you create your pattern swatch. Select all the shapes and resize it smaller by pressing Shift. Open up your swatches and drag your pattern to the swatches. Your pattern is now created.

2. Applying the Texture to Text

Type out your text and adjust the kerning to increase the spacing between the letters. Next, fill the text with the glitter pattern.

Open up your Appearance window and click the options at the right corner of the palette. Select Add New Fill to it. Go Effect>Path>Offset Path and offset it by 5px.

Drag the new fill to the bottom so that it sits below the pattern fill. Change the Filll to a gradient as shown. This will create the highlight for the text edge.

3. Adding Special Effects

Select the text and go Stylize>Outer Glow. Use the settings above. to create a glow around the Pinky text.

Next, draw a big rectangle over the Pinky text and create a gradient as shown above. Go to Transparency Palette and change the mode to overlay. Reduce the Opacity to 45.

This is the final effect with the overlay..

We will continue to add glitter to the text. Using your Star Tool, click and drag to draw a star on the canvas. Without releasing the mouse, click the Down Key to reduce the star to 4 corners. Hold Ctrl/Command as you drag to adjust the star radius to get a thin glitter star. Apply a radial gradient to it as shown above. Finally, set the glitter to screen mode from the Transparency Palette.

Drag the glitter on the Pinky text to create the sparkling effect. Duplicate more glitter to create our final effect. Hope the girls like this. Let me know what you think…

Author: Rype Ryan Putnam (Rype) is a professional vector illustrator and master of Adobe Illustrator. He runs the blog Vectips. Final Image

Below is the final type treatment we will be working towards. Want access to the full Vector Source files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join VECTORTUTS PLUS for just $9/month.

Step 1

Download the Anivers Font and install it on your system.

Step 2

Create a new document and type some text. Apply the Anivers font to your text.

Step 3

In my example, I have two lines of text. To visually distinguish the main part of the text from the tag line, play with the tracking and caps. For the tag line in my example, I changed the font to All Caps, changed the Tracking to 400, and changed the font size, all from the Character Panel.

Step 4

With the text selected, outline the text by going to Type > Create Outlines.

Step 5

Next, we are going to add a simple element to the text. We are going to create a stylized spoon to go with the "Spoonfed Vectors" tagline. You can recreate this spoon or create you own element with the brush we are going to create. Before that, select the main text and Ungroup (Command + Shift + G) the text by going to Object > Ungroup.

Step 6

In this example, we are going to delete the O. If you are using different text, choose which letter you want to delete and be replaced with an element.

Step 7

Now we can make the Art Brush we will be using to create the spoon. Start by Drawing a 40 px by 40 px ellipse with the Ellipse Tool (L). Fill the ellipse with black and no stroke. With the Direct Selection Tool (A), select the right anchor point and drag it to the right - doubling its length. With the point still selected, the Control Panel defaults to the Anchor Options. To the left of the Control Panel, press the Corner button, converting the anchor point to a corner.

Step 8

With the new shapes selected, drag it into the Brush Panel, and Choose New Art Brush from the New Brush dialog. When the Art Brush dialog appears, change the Colorization Method to Tints from the bottom of the dialog.

Step 9

With the Spiral Tool click on the artboard to bring up the Spiral dialog. In the dialog, change the Radius to 40 px (this size might change later when you scale the spoon shape to fit the empty letter area), Decay to 80, Segments to 8, and check the second Style option.

Step 10

Place the spiral shape where you deleted the letter. Rotate and scale the shape until it fits in the space.

Step 11

Apply your brush to the path by selecting it in the Brush Panel. You might have to change the Stroke Weight from the Stroke Panel if the stroke is too thick.

Step 12

Create four more paths with the Pen Tool (P). Make one path for the handle of the spoon and three smaller paths above the spoon.

Step 13

Select these paths and apply your custom brush. Adjust the stroke if needed.

Step 14

Select the spiral, handle, and sprite paths that you applied the brush to, then go to Object > Expand Appearance to outline the brush stroke. Next, it's good practice to clean up the leftover paths by going to Object > Path > Clean Up.

Step 15

We have created the type treatment and now it's time add some color to it, but first let's add a background. Create a rectangle the size of your document and fill it with a Radial Gradient from the Gradient Panel. Change the first swatch to a 90% black and the second swatch a 100% black.

Step 16

Fill your type treatment with white and place it in the center of your document over the gradient rectangle.

Step 17

Select the main text and fill it with a Linear Gradient. Change the first swatch to white and the second swatch to a 30% black. Next, Use the Gradient Tool (G) and click and drag from the middle of the main type to the bottom, making the lightest part of the gradient at the top of the type.

Step 18

Select the tag line and fill it with a 30% black.

Step 19

Select all of the spoon elements and fill it with a Linear Gradient. Change the first swatch to a light cyan color and the second swatch to a cyan color. Use the Gradient Tool (G) and adjust the gradient by clicking and dragging at the top of the elements down to where the handle starts.

Step 20

Select all the text and spoon elements and Copy (Command + C) and Paste in Back (Command + B). Change the fill of the copied elements to black.

Step 21

With your arrow keys move the copy down and to the left slight. Next, set the copy to Multiply and change the Opacity to 40 from the Transparency Panel.

Step 22

At this point the treatment is looking pretty good. You can even stop here if you'd like, but I will show you how to add a little more movement to the type treatment. For these next steps I use the Brush Tool (B), but you can easily use the Pen Tool (P) if you wish. Start by creating a flowing line over you text. Adjust the Stroke Weight to your liking.

Step 23

Add some leaf like strokes around the outside of the stroke you just created. The Stroke Weight for these is going to be smaller than the main stroke.

Step 24

Continue creating brush strokes like in the previous steps.

Step 25

Select all you swirly elements and go to Object > Expand Appearance. Clean Up the paths like you did before and send the shapes behind the type treatment artwork.

Step 26

Fill the elements with a Radial Gradient with the first swatch a 85% black and the second swatch black. Use the Gradient Tool (G) to click in the middle of the document, then drag to the top of the document, making the lighter color in the center and the darker color blend into the background.

Final Image

That's it! Wasn't that easy? Below is the final image again. Now try applying these techniques to other type treatments and illustrations.

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How to Create a Trendy Retro Type Treatment Sep 11th in Text Effects by Rype

In this Illustrator tutorial, I'll show you how to create a trendy retro type treatment with a free font, gradients, blends, and some scatter brushes. It's a relative easy tutorial containing techniques that can be quickly applied to many other type treatments and various graphic elements.

Author: Rype Ryan Putnam (Rype) is a professional vector illustrator and master of Adobe Illustrator. He runs the blog Vectips. Final Image Preview

Below is the final type treatment image to show you what we're working towards.

Step 1

Before we get started in Illustrator, download the Museo Font, and install it on your system.

Step 2

Create a new Letter sized document, then use the Rectangle Tool (M) to create a rectangle that is the size of your document.

Step 3

Fill the rectangle with a Radial Gradient from the Gradient Panel. Change the first swatch on the Gradient slider to a violet color and change the second swatch to a dark violet color.

Step 4

With the Line Tool (\), draw a line at a 45 degree angle that stretches from the bottom left corner to the top right side. Change the stroke to 5 pt and change the color to white (so you can see it against the background, but we will be changing it soon).

Step 5

Select the line with the Selection Tool (V) while holding down Alt, and drag out a copy to the right and down so the copied line is still inside the background.

Step 6

Select both lines and and create a blend by going to Object > Blend > Make. Next, go to Object > Blend > Blend Options, to bring up the Blend Options dialog. Change the Spacing to Specified Steps from the drop-down menu and change the option to 15.

Step 7

With the blend selected, go to Object > Expand to separate the blend. With the lines still selected, expand again, to outline the stokes.

Step 8

Fill the outlined line with the same Radial Gradient that you used for the background, but change the first swatch to a lighter violet than before.

Step 9

Select the lines and the background, then use the Gradient Tool (G) to adjust the gradient. Click in the middle of the rectangle and drag to the top of the rectangle. This will match up the transitions on the gradients.

Step 10

Create a ellipse with the Ellipse Tool (L) that is 10 px by 10 px. Fill it will a violet color.

Step 11

With the ellipse selected, go to Object > Path > Offset, to bring up the Offset Path dialog. In the dialog, change the Offset to -4 px. Change the offset ellipse to a light orange.

Step 12

Select the bigger ellipse and change the opacity to 0 from the Transparency Panel. Select both ellipses and create a blend by going to Object > Blend > Make.

Step 13

Before you start making a brush in this step, save a copy of the blend for later use. Select the new blend and drag it into the Brush Panel. When the New Brush dialog opens, select New Scatter Brush from the dialog. When the Scatter Brush Options dialog opens you are going to need to change a couple of settings. First change all the drop-down menus to Random except the Rotation. Change the first field for the Size to 20 and the second field to 100. For the Spacing, change the first to 15 and the second to 115. For the Scatter, change the first to -220 and the second to 175.

Step 14

With the Brush Tool (B), draw a wavy brush stroke in the middle of your background, creating a scatter of your blend.

Step 15

With the brush stroke selected, change the Blend Mode to Overlay from the Transparency Panel and give it an Opacity of 25.

Step 16

Draw four to five more brush strokes, then change all of them to Overlay. Change the opacity on the stroke, but vary the percentage as well as the stroke weights.

Step 17

Select the blend copy that you saved from Step 13 and scale it to 52 px by 52 px.

Step 18

Set the copied shape to Overlay and it place over your brush strokes.

Step 19

Copy (Command + C) the blend ellipse and Paste (Command + V) a couple more times. Scale the copies separately to get varying sizes, then place them in different spots over the brush strokes.

Step 20

That should do it for the background. Now let's take a look at the text. Type out some copy and change the font to the Museo font you downloaded. Change the Tracking to -100 from the Character Panel. Outline the text by going to Type > Create Outlines.

Step 21

With the outlines selected go Object > Ungroup (Command + Shift + G).

Step 22

In this step we're going to modify the text. If you typed something different, the basic idea of connecting the letters will be the same. With the Direct Selection Tool (A), press Shift and select the top right line on the V. Drag the line until it's overlapping the E. You might need to modify individual anchor point as well. In the example below, I dragged the top right anchor point to the right to close up the gap.

Step 23

Continue doing this to the other horizontal elements of the outline text until all the text is connected.

Step 24

Fill the text with a Linear Gradient. Add another swatch to the Linear Gradient by clicking right below the Gradient Slider in the Gradient Panel to give you a three swatch gradient. Change the first swatch to white, the second swatch to a light blue-green color, and the last swatch to a dark blue-green color. Use the Gradient Tool to adjust the gradient so the white color is on top.

Step 25

Place the text in the middle of your document over all the other artwork.

Step 26

For this next step, we're going to create another brush. Draw a 14 px by 14px ellipse. With the Direct Selection Tool, select the right anchor point and drag it to the right - doubling its length. With the point still selected, set the Control Panel defaults to the Anchor Options. To the left of the Control Panel, press the Corner button, converting the anchor point to a corner.

Step 27

Fill the shape with black, drag the shape into the Brush Panel, and Choose New Art Brush from the New Brush dialog. When the Art Brush dialog appears, change the Colorization Method to Tints at the bottom of the dialog.

Step 28

For this step I'm going to use the Brush Tool (B). If you're not comfortable with the Brush Tool (B) for making paths ,then you can use the Pen Tool (P) and apply the brush to the stroke. Create a brush stroke to the bottom left of the V. It is a good idea to change the stroke color to a lighter color than black so you can see it.

Step 29

Drawn another brush stroke above the previous one.

Step 30

Expand the brush strokes by going to Object > Expand Appearance. Next, it's a good idea to clean up the leftover paths by going to Object > Path > Clean Up.

Step 31

Fill the outlined brush stroke with a Linear Gradient. Make the first swatch a blue and the second swatch a dark blue. Select the text and bring it to the front by going to Object > Arrange > Bring to Front.

Step 32

Copy (Command + C) and Paste (Command + V) both shapes numerous times around the text. On some of the copies, change the swatches on the Linear Gradient to a pink color and a dark pink color. Adjust the gradient so the darkest part of the gradient is closet to the text. When you place the copies around the text make sure to rotate and flip the shapes. All done!

Final Image

Below is the final type treatment image again.

Subscribe to the VECTORTUTS RSS Feed to stay up to date with the latest vector tutorials and articles. Step 1

Download the 04b_03 font from Dafont and install it on your system.

Step 2

Create a new document and type out some text with the Text Tool (T) and apply the 04b_03 font. Once typed out, outline the text by going to Type > Create Outlines (Shift + Command + O).

Step 3

Change the color of the type to an orange so we can see the shading effect when we use the Extrude and Bevel Filter, but we will be changing the color later.

Step 4

With the outline text selected go to Filter > Effect > 3D > Extrude and Bevel to open up the 3D Extrude & Bevel Options dialog. Once in the dialog, keep the default measurements except the Extrude Depth. The default setting should go as follows: -18 for the Rotation around the X axis (red arrow), -26 for the Rotation around the Y axis (green arrow), 8 for the Rotation around the Z axis (blue arrow), 0 for perspective, and 50 for the Extrude Depth. Once the settings are set to the default, change the Extrude Depth to 40.

Step 5

With the 3D text selected, go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 6

Use you Magic Wand Tool (Y) and click on the lightest orange color. This will select all the objects containing the lightest color. Change the fill of the selected orange to a Linear Gradient from the Gradient Panel. Make the first swatch in the Gradient Slider an orange color and the second swatch a darker orange.

Step 7

Next we are going to adjust the gradient on each individual letter with the Gradient Tool (G). Start by select the shapes of the first letter with the Direct Selection Tool (A). If you use the Selection Tool (V), you will select all the text, we just want the to select the gradient in the first letter. With the Gradient Tool (G), click at the top of the letter and drag to the bottom of the letter, making the lighter orange at the top of the letter.

Step 8

Repeat the previous step to all the letters of your type.

Step 9

Use your Magic Wand (Y) and select the the second lightest orange.

Step 10

Fill the selection with a Linear Gradient, and make sure the first swatch in the Gradient Slider is the dark orange from the previous gradient and the second swatch is a dark orange-red color.

Step 11

With the new Linear Gradient still selected, change the Location in the Gradient Panel to 180 so the darkest part of the gradient is on the left side of the letters.

Step 12

Use the Magic Wand and select the last dark orange.

Step 13

Fill the selection with a Linear Gradient, and make sure the the first swatch in the Gradient Slider is the dark orange-red from the previous gradient and the second swatch is a darker orange red color.

Step 14

With the new Linear Gradient still selected, change the Location in the Gradient Panel to 90 so the darkest part of the gradient is at the top side of the letters.

Step 15

Now that the type is done, we can start looking at the background. Create a rectangle with the Rectangle Tool (M) that is the size of your document and place ti behind all your other artwork.

Step 16

Fill the rectangle with a Radial Gradient from the Gradient Panel, and change the first swatch in the Gradient Slider to a light cyan color and the second swatch to a cyan color.

Step 17

With the Gradient Tool, adjust the Radial Gradient by clicking close to the first letter of the text and drag right to the center of the document.

Step 18

Create an ellipse with the Ellipse Tool that is 730 px by 730 px with no fill and a white stroke, then place the center of the circle over the first letter of your text. Once placed, send the artwork behind the text.

Step 19

With the ellipse selected, change the Stroke to 800 pt from the Stroke Panel. While still in the Stroke Panel, check the Dashed Line check box and change the Dash to 50 pt, giving you a nice radial burst.

Step 20

With the ellipse still selected, change the Transparency to 20% from the Transparency Panel.

Step 21

Now we can start creating the cloud shapes. With the Ellipse Tool (L), create ten to fifteen ellipses overlapping each other to create a cloud shape.

Step 22

Send the set of ellipse behind the type, Copy (Command + C) and Paste (Command + V) the ellipses and place them around the text.

Step 23

Create another set of clouds with ellipses and send them behind the original clouds.

Step 24

With the new set of clouds selected, fill them with a Linear Blend with the first swatch white and the second a light blue.

Step 25

With the Gradient Tool Adjust the gradient so the white is at the top of the clouds.

Step 26

Copy (Command + C) and Paste (Command + V) the gradient clouds a couple more times around the first set of clouds.

Step 27

Almost done, but let's add some shadows to the text. Create an ellipse that is 70 px by 70 px. Fill the ellipse with a Radial Gradient, and make the first swatch if the gradient a dark cyan and the second swatch white.

Step 28

With the Selection Tool (V), squish the ellipse to about a third of its original size and place it behind the bottom of the first letter.

Step 29

Copy (Command + C) and Paste (Command + V) the ellipse under every letter. If the shadows overlap, chose Multiply from the menu. All done!

Final Image

Below is the final type treatment. I suggest trying this treatment with other fonts, or draw your own pixel letters to experiment!

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Gigposter Design: The New Sex Thu, May 3, 2007 Illustrator, Photoshop, Tutorials

Tutorial Introduction:

A lot of people are making them. A lot of people suck. We don’t suck, and neither do you. This tutorial requires NO drawing talent… so don’t trip folks. You will however need Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or higher and Illustrator CS2 or higher. My name’s Dave, and this is my first ever solo tutorial. I’m very unorthodox and direct… so forgive me if I lose you guys during any part of this. I’ll do what I can to answer questions for people who think my tutorial is too confusing. So we’re going to make a gig poster! Subject matter: Deftones and The Fall of Troy in Cleveland, Ohio at the House of Blues on May 30th. Why are the Deftones not first, you ask? Because I like The Fall of Troy better… and this is an unofficial poster, so who cares?

Let’s get to business. So what to make? Hmmm… something fierce. Maybe something militaristic? Considering the legendary event of the fall of Troy… we’ll go that route. After searching through some public domain photos from

We’re going to use this as the base of our initial illustration… but the hand, it lacks emotion. It’s ok. We’re all designers and we can fix this, right guys? Istockphoto.com (a lifesaver for all stock photo needs) will be our resource. If you do not have an account, get one. If you would rather go the free route – www.sxc.hu, better known as Stock Exchange, has a slick selection of free stock photos. You’ll still need an account, but it’s free.

I found this chick holding a gun on istock. We’re gonna get the cheapest one because the resolution doesn’t matter so much in this tutorial yet. Her hand will become Ike’s hand… holding a gun. Next we have to cut out Ike and the girl’s gun so we can combine these different pieces into the same image. We’re going to use the pen tool to cut these out. I trust we can all accomplish this through knowledge gained in previous tutorials. WARNING: Using the pen tool in Photoshop is tricky… to keep your anchor points from drifting off into oblivion, you have to alt+click them (The same way you would click your anchor points in Illustrator). Make sure your shapes fill color is an obnoxious color so you don’t lose it in the photo.

Once you have the shapes made to cut them out (and it’s ok if it took 3000 shapes and layers to make it) you’re going to merge them all to one layer. Ctrl+click your “shape layer” to make a selection and then click the actual image’s layer. Press Ctrl+C to copy and then press Ctrl+V to paste it into it’s own layer. Do the same for the girl’s gun. Save your PSD’s in case you fumble up. The hardest part is over.

Now take both shapes and tastefully combine them on a fresh canvas. Some airbrushing or cutting may be needed to make it look real. It’s up to you. The rotating of the hand will be needed to make it fit on Ike’s arm. Make your image 300 dpi (image>image size) and don’t worry about the image quality. Merge the hand layer with the Ike layer and make it gray scale.

You now have Ike pissed off and holding a gun. Here is where it gets a little interesting and it might be hard to follow here. Create three files in Photoshop that overcompensate in size for the Ike-shape - you don’t have to save them or anything. They’re there for copying purposes only. Throw a copy of Ike into each of them. Make sure they all remain on their own layers. We’ll be playing with the contrast next.

Above are the setting you’re going to make Ike the first two files. The third will be -100% on both Brightness and Contrast. It will result in just a shape of him in solid black. Now open Illustrator and make a new file at 11×17 portrait orientation. Size down the Photoshop window and drag over each of the layers that have been brightness/contrast-adjusted into Illustrator. Line them up horizontally and start Live Tracing them one-by-one using the “Black and White logo” option. The option is located on the top tool bar once your photo is selected. Copy these attributes in the photo below.

Live Trace is basically Illustrator’s tool for deciphering and creating graphics into vector art automatically. It was a new feature in CS2 and it’s way cool, but can have some backlashes. Like all automated solutions to things done best by hand, there are sacrifices made with the result. A lot of times, your Live Traced images get lossy. Having them at a high resolution most times solves this but not always. In our case though… the dirtier, the better.

Now make sure each image is expanded. Use your magic wand tool and select the white areas that Illustrator assumed when you dragged in the Photoshop layer. They’re there, trust me. Once all selected – delete them. They’re not needed. Now’s your time to start figuring out a color scheme for this big project. Here’s what I chose.

Having 1 dark color, 1 to 3 medium tones, a light color, and a wild-card color is pretty mandatory when making 4 to 6 color prints. They work better. Although this wouldn’t be a silk screened poster, following this limited color rule assists in giving it an authentic gig poster appearance. Doodads are always the hot ish in your designs, so we’re using some from our arsenal, the Go Media Vectorpacks. Along with a few we’ll be making from scratch. Below is what we’ll be using from the packs. (side note: we’ll be using a bunch of stuff from Go Media’s Arsenal. If you haven’t any cash to purchase some of the packs, we’ve got some samples here).

We’re using 5 splatters from the various Splatter packs and one wheel-type doodad from Set 5’s Decorative Ornaments pack. Now we’re going to get all these shapes ready and drag em over into

our Illustrator file. Mind you we have not touched Ike yet… don’t worry about him or the colors. Let’s get trendy. Make a long, skinny rectangle and duplicate it about 80 times (alt+click and drag it to copy it once, and then press Ctrl+D over and over again until you get a lot of bars) or more depending on your preference. Align them to the center and space them evenly. Now use the add function in your pathfinder box and expand the selection. Now that it’s own shape – rotate it 45 degrees (holding shift + rotate will rotate the shape in increments of 45 degrees). Duplicate that shape about 3 or 4 times.

Now duplicate/take a splatter from the vector art we’ll be using and place it on top of that shape you made. Select both objects and intersect them (it’s an option in the pathfinder box as well). Expand the appearance of your object.

You now have a distressted pattern of diagonally running lines. It’s a pretty neat trick to add some organized distress to your designs. Do this a few times with different splatters. That is why I’m encouraging duplicating your objects and not just dragging and dropping. A lot of these shapes need to be kept preserved because they’ll be used over and over again throughout this project. Now make sure your actual poster area is clear of any objects. Moving them to the sides of the artboard and separated is always a good thing to do so you can just drag in what you need when you need it. Make a rectangle in the 11×17 area. Bleed of the edges a little bit for good measure. Now fill it with a gradient of color 1 and 2. Throw a medium color in there if you want it to blend smoother (I added some earthy-red in the middle). It might help, or it might not, who knows. Experiment and be different.

Now we turn to the Go Media Texture Packs. I want a concrete-looking surface to start this off with. We’re going to use Concrete8.jpg. It’s a nice and has lots of good grainy tones. Place it into your file (file>place).

Stretch the image to fit the poster size. Now go to your transparency settings and choose the multiply setting. All the dark ridged areas of the texture are now accented onto the gradient. Drop the opacity down to like 30% or so. Lock these two objects in place at the very bottom and we’re onto designing the focal piece of the poster.

So now back to good ole’ Ike. Make the Solid shape of his body Color 3, The medium-detailed shape Color 4, and the least detailed shape Color 2. Align them in this order – Color 3, Color 4, Color 2. You have your focal image almost intact. Add a stroke of the same color to Color 3’s shape to bring it all in. Expand the stroke if you need to, in case we do any abnormal sizing to the figure. Group the three objects, and there you have Ike.

Take the wheel object we chose from Set 5’s Decorative Elements pack and place it right in the middle of the poster (above the gradient/texture combo). Size it up huge if you have to. It will accentuate Ike’s figure in the design. Fill it with Color 1 and drop the opacity down to 30%. We’re done with that.

Grab all those crazy diagonal line objects we made and fill them with color 3 or 4′ (your call, color 3 was too strong for my liking – I chose 4). I duplicated them and threw them in the middlearea of the poster, kinda outlining where Ike will be. Grab Ike and throw him in the mix. Make sure he’s the top layer. We’re almost there. Let’s play with our text options. I want something nice and organized, but already beaten up with some grunge. I don’t want it a grungy impact font because those are way too common for posthardcore bands nowadays… Luckily we created the Affliction font (located at our Arsenal site). It’s styled well and beat up tastefully. We’re using it!

So we’re gonna play with the font and sizing. After a few options, I think stacking the text all the same size by breaking up “THE FALL” and “OF TROY”and adjusting the tracking and leading should do it. Check out the settings I used below.

Duplicate that in case it gets messed up and right click the text and create outlines. Color it with color 3 and place it right above Ike in the poster. Add the Deftones with a larger tracking size and smaller font size and we’re in business.

I added a rectangle at the bottom for the venue information. I applied a stroke to the rectangle, broke up Ike’s group, and wedged it between the Color 4 object of him and the Color 2. Since we won’t be moving Ike at this point, we’ll leave him ungrouped, but the effect just created makes Ike’s figure look almost like a part of the rectangle; eliminating the look of the area being an afterthought. Now add your venue’s information and all that good stuff. Adjust your bleeds, save it out… and you are DONE!

Thanks for reading my first tutorial, I hope you learned something. I’m now going to go eat a hot dog.

-Dave