- In this movie we're gonna tweak
the path outlines that now make up our type
to achieve a custom effect currently offered
by no font that I know of.
And the idea is to increase the amount of contrast
between the thick vertical stems
and the thin horizontal elements
such as the arms of the T, the crossbar of the E
and the shoulders along the Rs.
And we'll accomplish this using a combination
of the white arrow tool and a few ruler guides.
But first, let's reorganize our group of path outlines
so that the top line of letters is in one group
and the bottom line is in another.
And I'm gonna do that by twirling open
this Type Treatments layer
here at the top of the Layers panel,
and then notice this item called Group.
You'll see all of the layers
represented as thumbnails in opposite order,
so the F is at the bottom and the D
at the end of the word Unlimited is at the top.
If you want to see the letters in order
then go ahead and click on that bottom F,
and then Shift+Click on that top D
in order to select all the letters
here inside the Layers panel,
and then click on the Layers panel fly-up menu icon
and choose Reverse Order.
And now you can read these letters
in order from top to bottom.
Alright now I'm going to go ahead
and double-click on any one of the letters
using the black arrow tool
in order to enter the Group Isolation mode,
and I'm gonna go ahead and partially marquee
all of the top letters so that Frontiers is selected,
and now I'm gonna group them together
by going up to the Object menu
and choosing the Group command,
or you could just press Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on the Mac,
and you can now see that we have a new group
that includes just the letters in the word Frontiers.
I'm gonna now take that group out of the existing group,
I'm just dragging it upward like so,
and we now have one group that contains Frontiers
and another, as you could see evidenced by this thumbnail,
that includes just Unlimited.
Now I'm gonna close the latter like so,
and I'm gonna rename it Unlimited
because that's what it is,
and then I'll rename the top group Frontiers,
and that way we can more easily tell them apart.
Alright now I'm going to zoom in on the F over here,
and because I no longer need to be
in the Group Isolation mode, I'll press the Esc key,
and you can see that we'll lose these little folder icons
up here in the top left corner of the window.
And now I want to modify the independent
points and segments in my letters,
so I'll press the A key to switch to the white arrow tool,
and I'll go ahead and click off the type to deselect it,
and now I'm going to click on the bottom segment
of this top arm of the F right there,
and I'll press the up arrow key
in order to raise it one point.
And now I'm going to click on this segment right there
and press the down arrow key to lower it,
and I'll click on this bottom segment
and I'll press the up arrow key to raise it.
Now I'm going to marquee these two points right there
at the end of this crossbar,
and I'll press the left arrow key
one-two-three-four times
to nudge those points in four points.
Alright now I want to add a few ruler guides,
and so I'm going to scroll down my list
of layers here inside the Layers panel,
and I'll turn on the Guides layer
and I'll go ahead and click on it to make it active.
And now I'll press Ctrl+R or Cmd+R on a Mac
to bring up the rulers, and I'm going to drag
a first guide down from the top ruler
until it snaps into alignment with the top of the F,
and I'll get another one and drag it
to this location right there,
and we want two more around this crossbar like so,
and then a fifth one down here
at the bottom of the F
in order to produce this effect right here.
Alright now let's move over a couple of letters
to the T, and notice that if I click
on the bottom of this arm,
and I'll Shift+Click on the bottom of this arm,
they're both selected now and I can press
the up arrow key to raise both of those segments
so that we have a narrower top to the T.
Alright now let's move over to the E,
click on the bottom of its arm
and press the up arrow key to raise it
by clicking on its top and pressing the down arrow key,
now click on its bottom and press the up arrow key
and I'll click on the top of this arm
down here at the bottom of the E
and press the down arrow key
to make it more thin as well.
And let's say you want to add another guideline,
another horizontal guide at this location.
Well then just click on the Guides layer
to make sure you put that guide on a proper layer
and drag out another horizontal guide
from the top ruler until it snaps into place like so.
Now you also notice that this crossbar of the E
is higher than the one associated with the F.
That's just fine but I do want to make sure
that the R is better aligned,
and to make my point I'll go ahead and zoom in here,
this is the first R, there's two of them
in the word Frontiers, and I'll go ahead
and zoom in even farther,
and I'm going to click on this anchor point
and Shift+Click on this one,
and then go ahead and drag them up
until they snap into alignment with that horizontal guide,
and you might as well press the Shift key as well
to constrain the angle of your drag to exactly vertical.
And then just to make sure that everything's okay,
go ahead and click off the path
and then click on this segment to select it independently,
and you should see that this handle right there,
that control handle, is exactly horizontal,
which it is for me.
Alright I'm gonna zoom in even farther still
and I'm gonna click on this anchor point
and I'm gonna drag it up,
actually I'll press the Shift key as I do
until it snaps into alignment with that horizontal guide,
and I'll grab this anchor point and drag it in a little bit,
up and in, so that I'm preserving the angle
of this segment associated with the leg,
and I'll go ahead and take it up until it snaps
into alignment with that horizontal guide.
Alright, we've got a second R that we need to deal with
but I hate to do that work all over again,
and besides I want to make sure both of the Rs are identical
so I'm going to go up to the View menu
and choose that view that I created
in the previous movie, Type,
down here at the bottom of the menu
in order to zoom on out,
and I'll go ahead and press the V key
to switch back to the black arrow tool,
and I'll double-click on any of the letters
in the word Frontiers in order
to enter the Group Isolation mode.
And now I'm going to select the R
and I'm going to drag it by its upper left point,
and it's very important, if you're working along with me,
that your bounding box is turned off.
So under the View menu you should see
the words Show Bounding Box,
which indicates that it's currently hidden,
and then go ahead and drag the upper left point
of the R all the way over until it snaps
into alignment with the other R like so,
and then press and hold the Alt key
or the Option key on a Mac
in order to make a copy of that first R.
Now press Ctrl+X or Cmd+X on a Mac
in order to cut the R to the clipboard
and then click on the old R, this guy right here,
and press the backspace key
or the Delete key on a Mac to get rid of it,
then click on the S to make it active
and press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on a Mac
in order to paste the R in front of that F,
and just to make sure everything's where we want it to be,
press the Esc key in order to escape
the Group Isolation mode,
and now I'm going to click off the letter to deselect it
and I'll turn the Guides layer back on
so that I can see the R is indeed in alignment
with those horizontal guides.
Alright, I wanna make just one more alteration here.
I'm gonna scroll over to the O
and I'll press the A key
to switch back to my white arrow tool,
and I'll click top anchor point
that's associated with this inside counter,
and I'll press the up arrow key to raise it,
and then I'll click on this lowest anchor point,
once again associated with the counter,
and I'll press the down arrow key to nudge it down a point.
Alright, that takes care of things.
Now I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+0
or Cmd+0 on a Mac to zoom out,
and I'll turn off the eye in front of the Guides layer
in order to hide the guides like so.
And you know what, I think I forgot to make one change here.
I'm gonna zoom back in on this E,
and notice how this crossbar is still sticking out.
I'll go ahead and marquee those two points right there,
and I'll press the left arrow key
one-two-three-four times
in order to nudge those anchor points inward four points.
And now I'll go ahead and click off the type,
press Ctrl+R or Cmd+R on a Mac to hide the rulers,
and press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 in order to center my zoom.
And that's at least one way to tweak your path outlines
to achieve a custom logo type effect
here inside Illustrator.