Create Typographic Art using Illustrator and Photoshop

Materials Needed:

Grunge Textures

Final Image Preview

This image is inspired from the cover of LAYOUT, dasar & penerapannya, a graphic design book by Surianto Rustan published by Gramedia in Indonesia. Before starting this tutorial, see the result below. Click here to see the image at a higher resolution. The Illustrator and Photoshop files can be found at the bottom of this post. You can also see more of work at my website DesainDigital.com

Step 1: Creating Word in Illustrator

Open up your Illustrator. Create new document (File|New) with Document Profile: Print, size: A4.

Create word LAYOUT using tool type.

Step 2

Select the word. Click Object|Expand. Click OK.

Click Object|Compoundd Path|Release.

Step 3

With tool select arrange every character until align nicely.

With the direct selection tool, move some points within the U to give it more room.

Here’s what i come up with.

Step 4

Select all the characters. Then from the toolbox, click the switch icon to switch the fill and stroke color.

Step 5

Above the L character create a box.

To make sure it aligns perfectly with the L, click Edit|preferences. Make sure you select Snap to Point. This small step will save you lots of time when arranging objects.

Step 6

Create a box behind the Y.

Another box behind O.

Another box behind T.

Step 7: Start Adding Text – L

Activate the type tool. Hover the cursor over the L. You will see a circle around the cursor. Now click to insert some text inside the L shape. I used the famous lorem ipsum text generated from lipsum.

I’m using Helvetica Neue Lt Std here because it’s simply the best font ever and works in every style. For L i use Bold Condensed style. If you dont have this font feel free to use other similar font.

Step 8

Double click the text to select all. From the paragraph panel select alignment justify.

Click on the small arrow to open the panel menu and select Hypenation. Move slider to Better Spacing.

Here’s what i have so far.

Step 9

Paste some more text inside the box above L. Change the style to Light Condensed.

Step 10: Y

Lets move on to the Y now. This one is much more complex and take more time doing it. Paste some text into the box, not the Y shape. Use style Light Condensed.

Select characters inside the Y shape and change its style to bold condensed.

Repeat this process with all the text found within the outline of the Y. As I said before this takes lots of time.

After the required characters have been changed to bold, you can then click the eye icon in front of the Y shape layer to hide it. Here’s what i have so far.

Step 11: O

Select the outer circle of O. Resize it until it is taller than its box.

Step 12

Select the outer circle and box. Open the pathfinder panel and click Exclude. Right click and ungroup.

Step 13

Select top and bottom path then hit delete.

Step 14

Add text to each path. Use align justify for right and left path. Use align center for circle path.

Step 15: U

Select the U shape. Using tool move rotate it 90 degrees.

Step 16

add another load of text. Use style bold condensed.

Step 17

Using the rotate tool, rotate the U shape back to its previous place.

Step 18:T

Add text to T shape.

Step 19

Open the panel character. Double text leading size, in my case from 7,2 to 14.

Step 20

Add text to the box behind the T shape. Use the same text leading like in the previous step.

Step 21

Insert minus leading. Remember step 19? I have text leading 7, so in my case i use -7.

And we’ll have both text overlapping and create a T shape.

Step 23: A

We haven’t worked on A. With the pen, create a shape covering half the A.

Step 24

Insert some text.

Step 25

Using the move tool, rotate the shape until it perfectly aligns horizontally.

Step 26

Using the rotate tool, rotate the shape back to its previous place.

Step 27

Do the same to the other half.

Step 28

Don’t forget to add text to the bridge. After this you can hide A shape.

Finally this is what i have.

Step 29: Export to PDF

Now, we need to import this into Photoshop. First, we need to save it to a format that can preserve its vector quality. I recommend PDF for this.

Click File|Save As. Choose format file PDF. In PDF setting use Press Quality. This setting is used for commercial printing and saves all the details relating to the composition of the image.

Step 30: Import to Photoshop

In Photoshop click File|Open. Choose the PDF file we just created. Use resolution 300 pixel per inch or 300 ppi.

Why we use resolution 300 ppi?

Press Quality setting creates a 300 ppi PDF. So, using resolution 300 ppi, the file is imported at full size, without losing any pixel resolution. This means we still have every detail created from within Illustrator. The picture below shows the imported picture in 100%, white background. As you can see, the text still very sharp.

Step 31

PDF will be imported as a transparent picture.

Step 32: Start Editing in Photoshop

Hit ctrl+A, ctrl+C. Create new file with size A4 with a resolution of 300 ppi. Hit ctrl+Vto paste our text here.

Hit ctrl+I to invert text color to white. Click Layer|Convert to Smart Object. Hit ctrl+T. Rotate text.

Step 33

Create new layer under text. Add a radial gradient from black to white.

Step 34

Download grunge textures from deviantart. Paste it behind text.

Use blending mode Multiply with 65% opacity.

Step 35:

Return to our text layer. Click Layer|Layer Style|Drop Shadow. Use setting below.

Use this setting for the Outer Glow.

Conclusion

Yeah, we’re done!. As you can see, all techniques used here is just simple. You can learn it from a basic book on design and typography. What you really need here is just patience and lots of free time. Please share your opinions on the comment form. You can see the final image below or from this link.

You can download a zip of the psd and ai files here