Fonts For Crafting: Adjusting Text PART 3

 

Welcome to Part 3 of my Fonts For Crafting series.

Click here for Part 1.

Click here for Part 2.

And Now On to Part 3!

My class is having its "OMG, has it really been that long since we graduated?!?!" party this weekend. It got me thinking of ideas for stickers that alumnae may want to have as a reminder - things like the above football shaped logo for all of my fellow (now former) cheerleaders. 

In Silhouette Studio, warping text to look like a football or other shape is surprisingly simple and only takes a few minutes. Getting the shape perfect may be a little fiddly, but once you understand how it works, it's not too difficult to churn out designs will all sorts of fun text shapes. 

Warping Text

First, start with picking the right font. Generally speaking, sans serif fonts work best when warped. These fonts are the plain style fonts that do not have any squiggles or lines at the ends of the letters - fonts like Arial or Helvetica or Verdana are the most common sans serif fonts. 

I ignored my own advice and used Cooper Black because it's somewhat similar to the font I recalled seeing used for our uniforms. Astute observers will note that my memory is incorrect - I checked a few minutes ago and it's definitely not Cooper Black, but I have already made the design, taken the screenshots and written the blog post, so I'm not going to change it now. It's close enough to use as an example. 

Recalling Part 1 of this series, click on the text tool (if you need a refresher, click here), select a font and type in your text. I adjusted the vertical spacing between the words to 70% because I wanted the lines closer together. Line spacing and font cannot be changed once Warp has been applied, so you must make the necessary spacing changes before proceeding.

Although Warp works fine with the default unfilled version of the text, it is much easier to work with when the text is filled in with a color. 

With the text box selected, click on the fill icon to open the fill panel and assign a color. I started with red to hide the cut lines, but then remembered that Bourne's colors are purple and white, so changed the text to purple in later steps. 

 Once the text is colored, click on the Warp icon to open the Warp Panel. If your computer's screen is small like mine, it may be hidden - click on the arrow-like triangle near the bottom of the right side bar to open the additional icons bubble to find the button for the warp panel. The Warp icon looks like a bent mesh. 

Note the triangle which opens a mini bubble of additional icons that don't fit down the right side. This happens because my computer has a small screen with low resolution.

Select your text then click on "Warp Selected Shapes". This will turn on the green Warping mesh surrounding your text. 

The number of warpable columns and rows may be changed if finer shaping control is required. Below shows the settings changed from default 1 column 1 row to 2 columns 2 rows: 

If the number of rows or columns are changed after some warping has been performed (perhaps because you realize you'd really like to have more places to pull on the letters), it will reset to its original straight shape and you will have to warp it all over again.

It seems that the maximum number of "handles" is 3. The "handles" are the red dots which can be pulled in any direction to warp the text. Click on any intersection of lines within the mesh and move the mouse around to see the effect. Grabbing a point and pulling will change the shape of the text. Continue grabbing and moving the points until the text has reached the desired shape. 

Sometimes, if you wish to conform to a more complex shape - such as a whale or a wine bottle - it may be easier to bring in an image of the shape, send it to the bottom layer and then manipulate your text using that shape as a guide. 

Above, you can see the final shape of the football logo. I found that pulling the red dots on left and right outward and vertically to center and pulling the central red dots downward and horizontally to center did a reasonably good job of fitting the letters to a football shape. There are internal points available which can be dragged to further push parts of the letters to give the illusion that the letters are printed upon a 3D football. 

Much of the manipulation of the text using Warp is strictly artistic. You will have to fiddle with the points until it looks the way you want it to look. 

The good news is that the Warp Panel has a " restore original shapes button which will undo all the warping and reset the text to it original straight shape. 

The Release Warp button will remove the warp mesh and make the letters individual objects. It leaves the letters in their final warped shape.

Let's Do the Text Warp Again

As usual, there are many options for handling text warping. You may wish to try some of the Warp Templates available on the second tab of the warp panel.

Warp Templates

The templates are great for common warping shapes, so try out a few to see if they work for your project. It is possible to warp text using the template then further manually edit it if the shaping the template provides is not exactly the desired look. Some of the templates may warp text into an unreadable mess if the text size is too small so perform initial text manipulation with a large - at least 72 pt - font size then resize to required design size after manipulation. 

Combining Two Warped Words

Sometimes warping your complete design in one go may be too difficult to get the desired result. For example, creating a fun logo for my friend's "Data Bus", required that I warped each word separately so that I could resize the shorter "Bus" to better fit under "Data". 

Here's the before warping version: a nice retro-looking font with each word as its own text box:

 

Select "Data" and click on Warp Selected Shapes.

Warp "Data", curving the bottom on the right side upward and the left bottom downward. Note the location of the red dots - the left side is way outside of the design itself, putting a downward curve into the left side letters. The red dots from the bottom right were moved to the center of the lettering to put an upward curve into the letters on the right.

Now select "Bus". Click on "Warp Selected Shapes". Warp "Bus" to fit under "Data" stretching it to make it the same width as the longer word. Notice how the red points are manipulated to tweak the letters as desired

The final lettering part of the Data Bus logo (I will be adding further retro decorations later).

HAPPY CRAFTING!!

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