Lesson 4 — Creating Art with Text

I chose the name because I knew it had two kerning pairs (see my post of Kerning v Tracking). Then I began to look for a typeface which had them (I usually use a capitals typeface because my usual art type audience is elderly; it's easier for them to read). When I got to Minion Pro, I was surprised to find that here I had a Kerning Triplet.

Oh! How exciting!

Notice how the curved top (can't think of the technical name for that) of the second f forms the "tittle" (technical term for "dot over i") of the i which follows it. In the kerning pair, note how the "jots" (technical term for "crossing the t") of the ts are joined. (Also, now you know the original of the phrase "every jot and tittle".)

Back to work, Encyclopædia Brown.

LMSnet is a product I'm currently documenting at work; the net is superscripted and it contains the ®. I chose Marker Felt for the kerning work because it doesn't contain the "ti" kerning pair. I chose Edwardian Script ITC because it could use a little tracking work; the letters are too close together (unusual for ITC, that).

The Edwardian Script ITC font came in with a tracking of -25; when I changed it to 35, the word spacing was better, but I had to kern the pairs "on", "to", and "ck" to get back the scripted look, where all the letters in a word are joined together.

I was disappointed that Photoshop does not allow me to do precise kerning with the kerning button (possibly because of the specific typefaces that I chose), so I made it right with the tracking tool

For the baseline shift part, once I moved the "net" to superscript position (and adjusted the size so it looked right), the ® looked wrong, so I had to move it further.up. (My boss is better at this than I, but she's also had academic training in Art. I notice that when I attempt a strikethrough on the ® symbol (which in this typeface is already superscripted), the bar appears below the character. I left it in to show this, because it's odd and I want to remember it.

Finally, the subscripting and superscripting had fouled up the linespacing between the lines, so I had to adjust these manually.

Because I had wimped out on the extra credit "grass brush" exercise last week and found that everybody else had so much fun with it, I decided to include it in this week's work. I tossed in a few Maple Leaf brush things too, and learned that you have to be careful not to overdo that one.

For the path, I created a new layer just above the background, filled it wil Peach Pebbled pattern, and applied a Pattern Overlay Layer Style, using Bubbles at 17% scale and a Linear Burn blend mode.

I thought it was neat that I could tighten things up by selecting a letter pair and using Option-arrow (Alt-arrow for Wintel) to change letterspacing.

I also liked the idea that when I move the path, the type follows along. Of course it should, but I'd just never actually seen the theory operate in practice before. You see, the text was too close to the right side of the path. You could turn an ankle doing that. Another theory to practice exercise proved that I could apply a Layer Style to Type on a Path. I've been doing it for years on straight type, so I don't know why it surprised/delighted me that I could do it with a path.

However, the whole picture has far too many leaves. I've got to learn to control that; I think it's the Flow setting I need to talk to. Nope, the yellow leaves layer with flow at 100% shows me that I just need to click, not click and drag.

Who, you may ask, is Quentin Fiore? He was the typographer and layout genius who was responsible for the most famous of Marshall McLuhan's books, The Medium is the Message. Many people forget that St. Marshall of UToronto was responsible only for the words (is it message? or massage? or both?).

Quentin is responsible for the visual presentation which created such an impression on those of us who were old enough to read in the late '60s. Actually, he started working with McLuhan on a book called The Mechanical Bride; if you can find it, it's worth taking a look at.

He also has some things to answer for. It was his disciples that took the ideas (and the ability desktop publishing provided) to such extremes in the first incarnations of Wired magazine. They showed us just how nearly unreadable this can be — if you're not careful.

**George looks up, coughs dryly, and steps off the soapbox, blushing deeply.**

Here's a postcard from one of my favorite places to visit.

Before we get to the technical details, let's get the acknowledgements out of the way. The artists, and their part of the work, are:

All are from A Tribute to Oz, celebrating L. Frank Baum's Centenary.

Choosing the pictures was both difficult and a delight. I had to pick art that would be able to fit, be recognizable, and kept the spirit. Several were too "dark" for the spirit of the card.

The font is Albred Drake, chosen for its evident foreign-ness and for the fact that it was wide to begin with, so little path-twiddling was needed. For each letter, I selected the letter and noted the dimensions. Then I duplicated the selected art and Image > Image Size reduced it to a proper size (sometimes this took more than one tries). The image was pasted into the letter form and manipulated to the visually interesting part was visible.

After all letters were filled, I put in the background. (Working with the background present was too confusing.) With the background visible, I moved the letters to the "proper position" and

This has been the most frustrating. I've been through the instructions three times, tried a couple of other ideas, but the text layer still looks like it's been appliqued onto the wood lozenge. This is the best of the lot, but I obviously need help with this one.

Thanks to Joanne, who took the time to figure out what I might have been doing wrong, Wrong texture; wrong font. (I did spell my name right, though.) I've got a better attempt at right. I don't remember (and didn't write down—dumb!) what font I used the first time, but this time I used Minion Pro Bold 60 Anti-Aliasing None.The wood is Janee's Oak from her website tutorial.

I played a bit at far right.

When I showed this to a friend, I was asked, "Why did you leave the garbage on the left? Why not just go with the better copies on the right?"

My answer was this: "Several people in the class have made self-derogatory comments about their work. I don't think it's appropriate that folks who haven't been working with the program for over 15 years should feel bad because their very creative work doesn't have a lot of special touches. I really think it's important that that people who are just starting out get to see that even folks who've been at this a while can make a complete pig's breakfast of an assignment. What's important is that you go back and do it over."

Her response: "You're right, but I still wouldn't show people my 'first drafts'. It would make me feel funny."

This woman uses Photoshop and Illustrator to design CD cover artwork. You probably have some of her work in your collection if you own more than 50 CDs.