Inkscape Tutorial: Custom Vector Text Treatment

this is Nick with logos by Nick comm and in today's tutorial I'll be demonstrating how to take a text object in Inkscape and customize it with details and make it a little more unique and distinct using this font here which I've provided a link to in the description so before starting this tutorial please download and install that font before opening Inkscape and this technique tends to work best with fonts that are simpler that have flat edges and sharp corners I mean it can work with the more you know detailed font you'll just have to put a little more time and work into it I chose this simple font here because I wanted to make sure this tutorial was understandable for everybody but once you understand how this concept works you should be able to apply it to other fonts it'll just take a little more time than these simpler fonts so with that being said let's close out of this and get started the first thing we'll do in Inkscape let's set our view to custom and then let's zoom in at 100% and then we'll open our align and distribute menu with this button right here make sure to have less selected chosen from that drop-down and then we'll go to our edit objects colors gradients and strokes so the first thing we're going to do is create our text object I'm going to grab the create and edit text objects tool click on the canvas and for this tutorial I'm just using the word ink so I'm just going to use all caps and hold shift I n K for ink and then we'll open up our font editor and we'll find that font that we installed which I believe was SF college it collegiate probably pronouncing that wrong but there it is right there go ahead and click apply and then close out of that and then I'm going to take there the Select tool right here and hold ctrl and shift and click and drag on this object to make it bigger I'm going to make this pretty big maybe maybe about that size right there holding ctrl and shift while doing this so the next thing I will do is let's let's convert this from a text object into an actual path so let's go to path object to path and then ungroup it with that button right there and then click off of the graphic deselect everything now I'm going to space these letters out a little more they're a little too close together for what we're about to do so I'm going to hold ctrl on the keyboard and click and drag on this K and bring that off to the right a little bit and then I'm going to click and drag over all three of those objects and come down here to the distribute panel and make horizontal gaps between objects equal go ahead and click on that and then group it together with this button right here group selected objects will just group that back together so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to right-click this and go to duplicate and I'll turn that red and then ungroup it with this button right here and then go to path Union and then I'm going to send that to the bottom by lower selection to the bottom go ahead and click on that and then I'm going to give that a red stroke we could do that from the stroke panel right here but since I already know what color I want to use I'm just going to hold shift on the keyboard and click on the color red down here so go ahead and click that and you probably won't be able to see it on my screen but that created a tiny little red stroke but what I'm going to do now is go over to the stroke style tab and I'm going to give this pretty thick stroke maybe 15 I'll type in 1 5 hit enter I'm going to go a little thicker than that I'm going to try to 0 and hit enter and that should work I'll just use that and then go to path stroke to path path break apart and path Union and then let's go to edit and duplicate and with that duplicated copy let's turn that blue and then let's click off of the graphic to deselect it and then click back on that graphic and then send it to the bottom lower selection to the bottom and then I'm going to shift this over I'm going to shift it over to the left and down a little bit using the arrow keys and the keyboard so using the arrow keys I'm going to press this over a few times 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and then going to bring it down the same number of times so I used 8 I went left 8 times so I'll go down on the keyboard 8 times 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and that looks pretty good so what that did here is it's creating a little bit it's creating the illusion of a drop shadow but these edges are not connected so we're going to go and manually connect these edges so go ahead and click off of the graphic to deselect everything and let's grab the Bezier pen over here on the left and then we'll come up here to the snap to custom nodes tool snap the custom nodes go ahead and turn that on and then snap the cursor onto this corner right here and then snap it onto this corner and click and then just bring it through there and close it back up just like that so what we did we drew a shape to fill in that corner right there so what I'm going to do now is with this Bezier tool still selected I'm going to press down on the mouse wheel and that's going to allow me to pan the page over and then I'm going to zoom in a little bit you could do that by holding ctrl and rolling up on the mouse wheel or just pressing plus and minus on the keyboard either one should work I'm just going to want to zoom in a little bit to see what I'm doing here let's snap it to this corner and click and then snap it to that corner and click and bring it through the object here and connect it back to the beginning I'm going to press down on the mouse wheel and Pan the page come over here and do the same thing let's fill this corner in by snapping and clicking connect it back together it's same thing over here snap and click snap and click connect it back together press down on the mouse wheel to pan the page over snap and click snap and click and I'm pretty sure you get the point by now so I'm going to press down on the mouse wheel and pan down here and do the same thing to the bottom grab this corner right here now I'll get this corner over here press down the mouse-wheel and move the mouse over to pan the page snap and click snap and click bring it through the through the object and connect it right there same thing right here and I think we should only have one more after this yeah one more to go grab this one for the letter I and there we have that so let's press 1 on the keyboard to zoom back out and you can see all those objects that we drew let's turn our snap to custom nodes off we don't need that and we'll go back to our Select tool and let's hold shift and click on each one of these little objects that we just drew while holding shift so just go ahead and click them so it selects all of them and with them all selected go to path Union and then hold shift and click on the blue object over here and go to path Union so you get the idea that was what we just did right there that was the point of doing that so what we could do now is click off of the graphic to deselect it and click on the red segment right there you'll know you have the red one selected because you'll see this little red stripe down here in the bottom left and then hold shift and click on the blue ones you have them both selected and let's right-click that and go to duplicate and then we'll unify that by going to path Union and then we're going to turn that black and send that to the bottom lower selection to the bottom and then we're going to give that a black stroke so hold shift in the keyboard and click on the black color over here to the left and that should give it a nice thick black stroke like that that's exactly what we want and then we'll go to path stroke to path path break apart and paths Union so the next thing we're going to do is let's click on this red object right here let's actually let's zoom in a little bit so we can see what we're doing I'm going to hold ctrl and roll up on the mouse wheel to zoom in and then I'll click this red object right here and right click that and go to duplicate and then hold shift in the keyboard and click on the blue object and go to path difference then what I'll do is I'll click this red object hold shift and click on the black object behind it right above it right there and go to path difference and I'm going to press 1 on the keyboard to zoom out to see what happened there we now have this right here so the next thing we're going to do is we're going to give some lines we're going to create some lines to go through this blue segment right here but before we do that let's click and drag over this whole thing and group it together just like that and then let's come over to our create rectangles and squares tool and let's click and drag on the canvas let's make a nice long rectangle going over this thing and I'm going to turn the stroke off on that thing because it's on by default because we just created one so hold shift and click on the X to get rid of that stroke and let's let's give this a color that we can see when it's overlaying the object let's make that red and then we'll go back to the Select tool click on that and let's grab this arrow and let's bring this in let's just make this pretty thin maybe about that much and I'm going to bring this up here by that eye and then I'm going to click it a second time to get the rotation handles and then hold ctrl and roll up on the mouse wheel to come over here to the left side we want to make sure we're grabbing this little arrow in the middle right here not the top or the bottom one but the middle one and I'm just going to hold ctrl and I'm going to click and drag that down a couple of times let me move this up a little bit we want this line to be running parallel with the edge of the eye right there so I'm going to press down on the mouse wheel I'm actually going to zoom out a little bit hold ctrl and roll down on the mouse wheel to zoom out and then I'll hold ctrl and grab this arrow in shift that over a little more and I'll move it up we'll see how that looks all right that's good we could we could use that so once you get it to about that position press 1 on the keyboard to zoom back out and let's hold shift and click on that graphic and let's Center it on the horizontal axis so it should look something like that and then we can click off of it to deselect everything now let's take just this one right here click that and hold ctrl and move this up to about here and then right click that and go to duplicate and then hold ctrl my menu seemed to have got stuck there duplicate there we go we could hold ctrl we can move this copy down to about here while holding ctrl and then press the spacebar to make a copy and hold ctrl the whole time and just slide it down and press the spacebar and you can make copies of this so I'm just going to make a bunch of copies oops and we're going to do now is I'm going to zoom out a little bit I'm going to hold ctrl and roll down on the mouse wheel to zoom out and I'm going to click and drag over this whole thing and then I'm going to hold shift and click on the on the ink object to deselect that so we just have these red lines selected and then I'll right-click that and go to duplicate and then I'll hold ctrl and click and drag these duplicated copies down here and then I'll do that again right-click duplicate bring them down holding ctrl while doing that right-click duplicate hold ctrl click and drag them down and instead of doing this a few more times I'm just going to click and drag over the whole thing and then I'm going to hold shift and click on the ink to deselect it right click duplicate hold ctrl bring them all down and that might that might be enough I yeah that should be enough so once we get there let's click off of it to deselect it and let's click and drag over just the ink portion don't click and drag over all of the red rectangles once you get that selected raise that to the top so we can grab it and then we'll click and drag this over we don't need to we need that out of the way for about what we're about to do next so once you've done that click and drag over all of those red lines and in order for them to be spaced out evenly mine are I accidentally D centered mine so I'm just going to Center them up on the vertical axis and then I'll come down here to distribute make vertical gaps between objects equal click on that and that should space everything out evenly and then we can unify that together by going to path Union and then we could press 1 on the keyboard actually we are zoomed out let's come over here you press down on the mouse wheel to pan the page over and let's go back to this object and let's ungroup this click that once and actually click it a second time to ungroup the letter Inc as well so we click that twice at least and then we'll take these red lines let's raise them to the top with this button raise selection to the top and then hold shift and click on the blue object and let's Center that on the vertical axis and the horizontal axis and I'm going to pan the page over to look at this see if everything looks good yes everything does look good and once you have that set up let's get a path intersection and then hold shift and click on the black object on the far left over here and go to path difference so we end up with this right here so the next step is I'm going to create sort of like a makeshift halftone pattern going over the top of these letters and in order to do that I'm going to I'm going to come over here to the right to get out of the way of this let's go to our circles and ellipses tool and let's hold ctrl and shift on the keyboard and click and drag and create a perfectly round circle and let's convert that to a path let's get a path object to path and we'll go to our select tool we'll right click that and go to duplicate and then hold ctrl and click and drag this all the way up about this far I might even go a little higher up maybe even up there and then we could hold ctrl and shift again and let's scale this thing down really small we want this to be a tiny little spec I'm actually going to zoom in and scale that down a little more maybe about that much and press one to zoom back out that's how we want it we want that size and about that size let me just get a measurement on that that looks like it's 2.4 pixels by 2.4 pixels and this one is 46 so that's just just to give you an idea of the size disparity between the two of them so once you have that set up let's click and drag over both of them so we have them both selected and go to extensions generate from path interpolate and for exponent leave that 0 in to interpolation steps 11 interpolation method to duplicate n paths and we're going to click on the live preview just to make sure that this looks all right okay that looks pretty good I'm going to leave that just how it is go ahead and click apply and after that close out of the menu and then we can take this thing and click and drag it off to the right over here and let's ungroup it and go to path Union and then let's click and drag over these original two and press Delete on the keyboard to get rid of them we don't need them anymore so let's take this thing here and we're going to make a bunch of copies of this let's go to right let's right-click it and go to duplicate and then click and drag over both of them and let's choose this button right here align left edges of objects to the right edge of the anchor go ahead and click on that and then unify them together go to path Union and we'll do that again we'll right-click this go to duplicate click and drag over both of them align with that button right there path Union we'll do that again maybe one more time duplicate right click duplicate click and drag over both of them align them to the right edge path Union and I'm actually going to do this one more time just just to be safe right click duplicate click and drag over both of them align right edges right here and then go to path Union and then let's take the opacity and bring this all the way up and actually let's flip this vertically because that's how we're going to use it let's flip this flip selected objects vertically sort of like that and then let's take this thing and let's bring this over here let's bring this over the wording right here and let's hope let's bring it right there and hold shift and click on the letter i' and align the left edges and align the top edges and then click off of it to deselect everything and that will click on just these red circles right here this little halftone pattern and hold ctrl and click and drag this down so it scales it about about this much you don't want this thing to be too small you want it to be wide enough so that will fit in these other letters so I'm actually going to enlarge this a little bit just hold ctrl and click and drag and yeah that's pretty good so let's put this over here and I'm going to zoom in right here hold ctrl and roll up on the mouse wheel I'm going to position this circle right here so it's going off of the edge of the letter I and I'm going to move these circles up a little bit so that they're going like halfway through the edge of the eye right there and I'll bring the opacity down to show you you see the horizontal line from the letter I it's going about halfway through those circles so that's about where I want it then we have press 1 and zoom out and let's right-click this and go to duplicate and hold ctrl so it stays in the horizontal plane and click and drag this off to the side and then we'll take on these red we'll click these red ones hold shift click the letter I and go to path difference and then we'll take these red ones over here we'll right-click that I'm go to duplicate and hold shift and click on the letter N and let's Center that on the vertical axis and go to path difference I think something went wrong there yeah some kind of glitch happening there it happens sometimes let me try that again now what you know what we could do if that happens to you this happens sometimes when you're working with a large volume of nodes like you see here sometimes you get these little glitches what you could also do is you can click on the letter N and right click that and go to and then hold shift and click on the red ones click on the red pattern and go to path intersection and see if that works now we're getting the same problem so what I'm going to do now is let's click on these red these red these red patterns right here I'm just going to add new nodes and now I'll go to the edit path by nodes I'll click and drag over all of them and this is going to be this is going to take a few a few seconds because this is very um requires a lot of computer power to do this so my screen might gray out a little bit here for a second did it work did it add those there we go yeah so let's go once it adds the Nuno's go back to the Select tool and then we'll try it again let me try doing the path difference not same thing alright so what I'll do is let's try it with the letter K first I'll put it over the letter K and go to path difference alright it worked there and let's take this one maybe this one will behave differently somehow I don't think so I'll bring this over the letter n hold shift click on the N path difference okay that way then it worked for some reason okay so here we have our letter R a word Inc let's click and drag over the whole thing and unify it together let's go to path Union let's see if it works ok that worked and the final step is to add the grunge tension that the grunge texture just to make it look like a like it's actually written in ink so I've included a link to that in the description go ahead and download and save that grunge texture to a folder where you can easily access it and once you have we'll go and import it into Inkscape we'll go to file import and you go to your folder where you saved it and it should be right here grunge textured SVG and there it is right there I'm going to hold shift and click on the word so we have them both selected and Center them on the vertical axis and the horizontal axis and then click off with the D selected if you don't see it on my screen because it's a really small file it's a really small graphic but that's okay because it's a vector and this this requires a little bit of computer power as well so this may this may behave a little slowly on your screen it's behaving extra slow for me because I'm recording this while doing this so I'm going to hold ctrl and shift I'm going to scale this thing up all the way up so it's about the size of the graphic and then I'm going to zoom out a little bit I'm going to hold ctrl and roll down on the mouse wheel to zoom to zoom out and then click and drag over the whole thing and let's see if it works path difference any problems okay it worked so one last final step looks like I'm getting a little glitching in there again oh well one last final step we can do is we can click on this a second time to get the rotation handles and grab this little arrow right here to the right and we could just slide that up a little bit just to give it a little bit of a little bit of an accent and that's pretty much it I'm going to go ahead and end this tutorial here because my computer sounds like it's about to freeze up so if you have any questions let me know I hope this works out better for you than it did for me and as always thank you for watching

Channel: Logos By Nick

Views: 81,246

Keywords: inkscape, learn inkscape, inkscape tutorial, inkscape logo, inkscape logo design tutorial, inkscape for beginners, vector, vector design, vector graphics, vector logo, vector tutorial, vector icons, grunge text, inkscape text, inkscape type, inkscape grunge

Id: _Aw8pnnhaYw

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2016